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Ok, so we've all done it. Adding a purity seal, carapace bit, or some other small item to our models and....

...You drop it. Epic fail, the piece is lost forever in the carpet below your workstation. Noooooo...
...Or your cat jumps on your bitbox and now there's all kinds of crap spilled all around, the little bastard responsible spooked out of the room while you yell.
...Or really any other method of dropping them, but now they're in there, and the idea of picking through carpet with tweezers makes you sick.

Fear not. I'm going to show you how to make a specialty vacuum cleaner attachment out of materials you already own so that you can get them all back.

You'll need a cd spindle, a wire mesh or some sort, a cutting tool, some hot glue, and a vacuum cleaner with hose attachment.
Follow these steps, described in pics below:
1) Cut a hole in the top of the plastic lid of your CD spindle.
2) Cut the top off of the hollow black portion, and kinda half ass clean it up. Leave as much as you can.
3) Put the mesh over the hole you just made in the top of the clear part. If yours was brittle, like mine, you can seal the cracks with hot glue.
4) Put everything back together and lock the plastic tabs in place.
5) Turn the vaccuum on, and shove the hose attachment up against the mesh. Suction will hold it on, no need for fanciness here.
6) Drag the cd container across the carpet area you lost stuff in. Mine has ridges on the bottom that help comb the carpet.

What will happen is the suction will be applied to what is left of the black tube of the spindle, and bits will fly up the hole, hit the mesh, and bounce off into the container you just made. When you're done, you'll have all your small bits back, just open the container.

Pat yourself on the back, you smooth operator. You're one thrifty, good looking son of a bitch. And your carpet is clean, buying you valuable modeling time.
You're welcome in advance, now go make something, you tool using MAN. (Or woman, I don't discriminate. Just by the odds...)

Clever!

I'm thinking a fine nylon mesh might work just as good as the speaker mesh - something along the lines of a bit of ladies' hose or those disposable socks available in shoe shops...

Nice tute, might want to have a mod move it for you.

Its not actually a tutorial, really more of a "look what I scratchbuilt out of a cd case".

Nylons? Ask the lady you got them from how easily ripped they are.
Under suction being bombarded by bits of sharp plastic?
You just lost what you were trying to save.

This is clever. I'm building one tonight.

Make it all classy like though. Maybe even use an actual brush extension, and cut a hole to fit it, and cover that with the screen.

I'm but a lowly humble smut merchant. My ideas are sorely limited by my desire to rape and pillage, combined with burgeoning college loan debt.

Surely someone out there can use the idea, and perhaps even improve upon it?

Hey, this can help me find all those roaches that are stranded around my work area!

Nectar, I actually first made one of these in order to sort them out of my ashtray.
Damn thing was infested with roaches.

Turns out it works great for picking up model bits too. Or shop screws that fell in sawdust, really any little thing you've dropped.

Good engineering!

Doomthumbs wrote:Make it all classy like though.

I will have to wait until the bedazzler shows up on TV again.

Haha, brilliant.

That is amazing and simple! I have lost too many bitz that way

and yes, while I dont have a roach problem it seems my rooms are invested with silverfish, ants, and earwigs

daedalus wrote:

Doomthumbs wrote:Make it all classy like though.

I will have to wait until the bedazzler shows up on TV again.

Nah, just slap a top hat and handlebar mustache on it. Judging by your avatar, you already understand the guaranteed snazz-factor thereof.

Funny and effective i love it

kenshin620 wrote:That is amazing and simple! I have lost too many bitz that way

and yes, while I dont have a roach problem it seems my rooms are invested with silverfish, ants, and earwigs

I didn't mean those kind of roaches lol

On the real, thanks for this Doomthumbs. I have this problem frequently, usually due to the afforementioned felines. This is a relatively cheap way to solve this conundrum. Nice to see you using your powers for good. (It's also fun to see you use them for evil. Really, it's just fun to see you use your powers in general.)

Join me later this week as I shoot lasers from my nipples, and unveil other new "gray area" powers.

I'll always come to you when i need a sucking machine!

I'm sure you're aware of the regular uses for the vacum (Yes, intentionally misspelled) hose attachment.
Forcing your wing wong into the small, admittedly tighter, hole of a cd spindle will result in a very bad time.

one way i learnt to get bits out with a vacuum is with a sock on the suck nozzle, it gets stuck on the sock, pick it off and put it away XD

FuzzAng wrote:one way i learnt to get bits out with a vacuum is with a sock on the suck nozzle, it gets stuck on the sock, pick it off and put it away XD

That's a good tip. I'd rather not build a new vacuum cleaner attachment myself.

Good idea, unlike trying to hoover up bits and them find them in the hoover bag - this is a time consuming and filthy job.