Bench Vise For Scale Modeling

Here is my bench vise from PanaVise. It is made in USA. I use this piece of marvellous tool to hold my scale model parts in place during painting, filing or for other work.

It is recommended to choose a bench vise with plastic or wooden jaws and not metal jaws. This is because you will be working with soft plastic part. Bench vises with metal jaws might damage the plastic parts during clamping if you are not careful. The jaws of my bench vise is covered with smooth plastic as you can see in the photograph.

The clamped piece of part is from my 1:35 scale model, Verlinden Productions Afrika Korps Party WWII. This kit is made in Belgium. It is a very good quality kit by Verlinden!

Now, with the part being clamped, both your hands and fingers will be free to work rather then holding onto the part with one hand and working on it with the other. You will surely find it easier to paint all those tiny portions like the eyes and faces. You can also use the bench vise to hold two cemented parts together until they dried.

You should be able to find many uses for your bench vise once you own one! What do you think?

Cement For Scale Models

I thought of showing you what i used for fixing up the parts of my scale models together. I normally use the dip and brush on type of plastic cement or the needle tube type. There are various brands for the needle tube types.

The brand i highly recommend is from FALLER EXPERT. The cement is contained in a small container for 25 grams. It is really good for cementing those tiny parts together and a wonderful tool to cement those hard to reach places.

Why do i like this type of cement? What i can say is, it does not mess up like other normal tube type cement. For example, it is hard to control the amount of cement flowing out of a larger tube type. Sometimes, after pressing the tube, so much cement flows out that it messed up the plastic parts. You will then have to clean them up with a piece of cloth. What a waste of cement and also, time is wasted for cleaning up the overflow.

This symptom normally does not occurs with the needle designed tube. Although it does cost more, it is worth it for making a beautiful scale model with a lower risk of messing up and wasting of cement. It will save you a lot of headaches during your scale model building process.