Most useful tool on your workbench

I have an old, bent. and broken Badger a/b needle that I use CONSTANTLY for various reasons.  I mix things, dig things out, glue things with this little peice of trash.  I've also stuck some Blu-tac on the end of it and used it to hold things while I paint them.  I love my little metal bendy stick!

Mine was similar to Bill's, which is my 1/4" plywood surface on top of the work bench.  I cut on it, mix paint, store things, it's a jig, cleans the crusty stuff of my putty and glue tubes (I still use it for some things), it's s straight edge, and a friend.

After that would be old #11 blades.  If there was one tool that is indispensible this is it.  Before we stole our mom's tweezers and had fancy tools like sprue cutters and etchmates, all we had were hobby knives.

Bgrigg wrote:

The workbench itself. Stops almost all of the pieces from falling on the floor. The only ones that make it now are the ones that go "crunch" the second I move.

odd. I didn't realize you had a workbench on your workbench. You must post pics of this sometime.

My 10 fingers 

on the toothpick

 My toenail clippers and pocket knife. The plastic toothpicks with one end bent are VERY good too.

                    60
 

ruddratt wrote:

My liquid cements and CA's. All my other tools seem sorta pointless without them.

Id half to agree

Top 10:

1- Xacto

2- toothpicks

3- needle file

4- pin vise

5- CA glue/ Tenax 7.R 

6- cutting board (Oneida, from Target; super smooth)

7- putty

8- tweezers ( if I can use fingers, I will. Tweezers are my #1 culprit of flying pieces)

9- caliper

10- asstd set of small pliers (I can't choose one, I love them all equally)

SteveM 

Badger 100

Close second, Tenax 7.R.

Paper Towels for spills

And drinks

MontanaCowboy wrote:

And drinks

uhoh... underage drinking!!!

for me it's my xacto knife.  use it to trim seam lines are re-sculpt in details without breaking out the sculping tool.  i actually brought some figure pieces to work with a knife to pass some time...  during lunch!!

It's Montana.

Just Kidding 

This sounds familiar.  But my most useful tool is my magnifier opti-viser.  I am getting old. 

overkillphil wrote:

I think I'd have to go with my exacto knife.  Although I actually use #22 blades more than #11.

#2 is nice too. 

Band Aids 

I would have to say......My FineScaleModel Magazines!!! .............Right?

Zip

Yann Solo wrote:

My torch light ..... pretty usefull to find the small bits trown away by my second best tool ..... the tweezerpult.

"Tweezerpult," I like that.