Scribing panel lines...tool and technique?

John:

A visit to your Dentist can add FREE tools to your bench. I went to my dentist recently for a routine cleaning and asked what he did with old tools or outdated tools. When I left I had a fistful or miniature scribing tools and chisels. One is slightly larger than three sewing needle tips wide. If you can't con your dentist out of his/her old tools check the yellow pages for a medical supplier and buy them new.

For a straight edge to guide the scriber I use an eraser template. These can be found at any good office supply store STAPLES, OFFICE DEPOT etc. these are used by drafting offices to correct blueprint mistakes. It a simple flexible aluminum template with different types of cut outs from straight to curved and is about the size of a credit card but half the thickness. Cost is about $1.00 here.

Hope this helps.

Cheers;

Gregory

You might want to consider trying these
http://tinyurl.com/e3gyv

They are made from stainless steel and are about half as wide as an exacto blade. They cut a groove the same width no matter how deep you scribe . You can remove a panel completely and still reuse the part on the same model with a bit of practice. The stainless steel is strong enough and sharp enough to scribe resin, plastic and even white metal parts but soft enough that you can bend the blades to get into hard to reach areas. These are designed to fit a #11 exacto knife handle.

Xacto Blades are my personal preference. good,cheap and reliable. for scribing techniques go to :
www.swannysmodels.com/tools

the best site for techniques
just click on scribing Happy modeling!

The Olfa plastic scriber is the best I've ever come across.Tamiya makes one to, but it's just a fancy holder for Olfa blades, and is eisier to aquire stateside (Can't remember who got it from) the blades are really long for some reason. Take the sucker to a good grinder and grind off the parts you don't need and it'll fit just about anywhere! Another impossible to find tool I've heard allot of good things about is a Hasegawa tool scriber.... good luck and let me know if you can aquire it!

I use a box-cutter/stanleyknive, it's heavy so I find that it gives a lot of controle.

I use the scribing tool available at Micro Mark that looks like a hook and takes a small thread of plastic out as you pull making a nice groove. Use a piece of Dymo tape, used for making those colorful labels with the raised white letters. The adhesive holds it in place real nice and the thickness is a great edge to keep the line straight. When all is done a light buff with a Scotch Brite green scouring pad (one of my top 5 favorite tools) to de-bur the groove of need be.