Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi All,

As a new player, what would be the best starter tools to get for the hobby?

OK, for basic modeling, Plastic and super glue, plastic clippers, Thin brush, medium brush and a dry brush (like a small interior decorating wall brush) Black base coat spray, modeling sand (for the bases) and finally a Knife (or if this is for a child, a fine file) , all of which you can get either from your local GW or from an arts and craft store,

in short, you can make metal and plastic figures, base them with the sand using the superglue (i dont use PVA as it peels off) base coat them with the spray paint which is a mandatory requirement before painting, also the file or knife prior to spraying to get rid of any moulding lines or strands from the casting, finally your brushes for your basics of applying a base coat, dry brushing and painting in basic details.

In the future you will want some modeling tools (similar appearance to dentist tools) some modeling putty, some paperclips and a miniature hobby drill, these will be used for pinning and holding larger models together when they are too heavy or ling pieces may break off, and filling in gaps between joined pieces.

For gaming, either a starter box OR pack of dice, rule book and tape measures.

Thanks

All you really need is a tube of any old superglue, a fine detail brush (or roughly a 000) and an exacto knife with a few spare blades. Nothing more is required (said by the person who actually has never had anything more than that and has done just fine).

Great thread, i wish i had done this it would have saved me money. Here is my advice and take as you will.

1. Buy decent tools as cheap ones will break quickly (especially craft knives! plus they can harm you)
2. When buying a craft knife/ hobby knife make sure the insert is metal! (Plastic ones break)
3. Buy some needle nose clippers for cutting sprues.
4. Buy a good set of fine files (the GW ones are actually quite good!)
5. Buy a cutting mat it will save your table/ work surface.
6. Buy REVELL CONTACTA professional superglue its really brilliant, fine needle applicator and easy to use. (only for use with Plastic on Plastic)
7. Buy POLYZAP for Plastic on Metal.
8. Buy a PIN VICE with titanium drill bits (very useful, do not cheap out on drill bits, it is exceptionally dangerous especially on the eyes DO NOT USE CHEAP DRILL BITS!)
9. Stuff you can cheap out on, (Wet Palette you can make one, look on the forums!)
10. Get some Blu Tack and place it around the top of your water jar (You can push your brushes into the blu tac into the water and it stops the weight of the brush destroying the tip of the brush).
11. Check out EBAY or BARTERTOWN and buy up old retired hobbyists bits and bobs its a great way to get good quality items cheap.
12. Buy a cheap set of crap brushes just for mixing paints and applying PVA Glue etc (DO NOT USE CHEAP BRUSHES FOR MINIATURE PAINTING!)
13. Buy expensive/ Quality Painting brushes (LOOK AFTER THEM LIKE THEY ARE YOUR 1st BORN!)
14. Buy some model filler (HUMBROL model filler is quite good)
15. I will post a Photo of all my tools for you in the next few days.

ADVANCED TOOLS (you don't need but you will want 2-3 years down the line)

16. A deburring tool (takes of mould lines nicely can be expensive).
17. A set of Sculpting tools.
18. A variable speed Drill.
19. An Airbrush (A MAJOR INVESTMENT not required but a nice to have!)

My main advice is take your time and don't take short cuts. Modelling and painting i follow this sequence.

1. Cut out sprue/ check model assembly.
2. Assemble glue and file off points/edges.
3. Fill any gaps with model filler.
4. Prime (BLACK/GREY/WHITE)
5. BASE COAT/ BASIC PAINT JOB
6. Wash
7. Highlight
8. Fine detailing
9. Varnish (IMHO MATT FINISH)
10. Basing
11. Done

Please post Photo's of your efforts for us all to appreciate, and if you come across a new method of doing things please share it, we are all students of this hobby and no-one will ever master all the aspects of this Hobby. Good Luck.

Above post is very informative, without slating Ailaros, Trying to skimp by on the bare basics even for a new hobbyist will make your time very hard and if anything wont allow you room to learn and expand your skill, as above, you want to make sure you have good tools, and although a tradesman cannot blame his tools, he cannot exceed himself without them, so spend wisely, standard DIY superglue IE locktite and such will work fine, get yourself some GW plastic glue as the glue consistancy is designed especially for GW plastics even though most will work.

spend more on your cutting and fine tools IE your knife, files, and drill, and on your finer brushes, spend less on your large brushes as they will be for the messy work anyway. although keep away from large bristled brushes, you still want to use fine art brushes.

any more queries dont hesitate to PM me

well, what's the point of telling a new hobbyist to go out and spend $300 on hobby supplies (in addition to the cost of starting a new army), just so he can have tools that he doesn't know how to use, and doesn't even need for the most basic work?

A new player doesn't need a file set or a power drill (or even a pin vice for that matter), much less an airbrush or a deburring tool.

Everything that needs to be done clear through the intermediate levels of hobbying can be done with an x-acto knife, glue, and a nice brush. $15, tops. Once the OP finds that he wishes he had a tool that did a particular job better/faster than a hobby knife THEN they should buy a new tool for that job.

If he gets everything now, he's just wastefully frontloading a lot of stuff he won't use for a very long time, at a time he can least afford it.

Thanks for all the replies guys.

I probably won't get ALL the tools to start, but I will make certain that I get the best quality tools. I am going to the hobby shop this afternoon to see what stock they have.

Remember Quality doesn't have to be expensive! Shop around especially on the Internet and you don't have to spend $300 on tools thats BS. A quick break down.

1. A decent x 3 Hobby knife (metal insert) with 10 blades £10 (Wickes Hardware)
2. Clippers x 1 £5 Local electrical store
3. Files x £5 on ebay.
4. Cheap Brushes £1 for pack of 10.
5. 2 x Decent brushes for painting £6.
6. Cutting matt £5 EBAY.
7. Humbrol Model filler £3 a tube FLGS.
8. Contacta Professional superglue £3 FLGS
9. POLYZAP £3 FLGS.
10. Pin vice + bits £15 (most difficult item to get).

So thats £56 (approx $80-90), yes its the cost of a Battleforce but you never need to invest again well the occasional topup on Super glue. And remember its easy to ruin a model by trying to use an inappropriate tool for the Job. Yes its not cheap, but if you cheapout you pay twice or three times in the longrun.
@Ailaros please could you read my post again, it is caveated in the brackets that 2-3 years down the line you might want the following tools! I'm not asking a new hobbyist to buy a drill or an airbrush!

Thanks again for the replies. Im based in South Africa so the glue brands might be different but ill speak to some of our more avid hobbiest(train builders ) and find out which items they use.

for me, heres what you need:

100's of dollars of paint
millions of tools, of which you use six.
12.85 paintbrushes
3 tubs of plastic glue
a sponge.
and a toy dart.

yea. thats what you need for modeling

ok, seriously!
a range of paints, including basic colours, like blue, red green etc.
three different small paintbrushes.
1 large one
a scalpel or knife
plastic clipper
drill [maybe if your doing metal]
plastic and super glues
a box to store your work.

You can raid the house for stuff like Tweezers, nail files, makeup brushes for weathering powders, hell some makeups make good weathering powders.

I mostly use my hooby knife, snippers, files, bag of cheap brushes for painting glue on and drybrushing and 5 very nice brushes that a got a great deal on at hobby lobby.

like i said, i didnt say spent hundreds, what i suggested was

basic paints (4 or 5 pots)
small brush
medium brush
messy big brush
black spray
glue
sand
knife

not alot..

mwnciboo wrote:
8. Contacta Professional superglue £3 FLGS

Just a note here.

Contacta is NOT a 'superglue'. It is a poly-cement (plastic glue) for model kits. Calling it a 'superglue' is at best misleading and at worst 'wrong'. Technically, it's a plastic solvent, not glue, as it acts to weld the plastic together, more than just stick them down.
'Super'glues are a type of cyano-acrylate adhesives, and as different from poly-cements as chalk and tofu.


Points for recommending the contacta stuff though. Brilliant stuff. Comes in three grades. Professional (dark blue, yellow lid), regular (light blue, yellow lid) and jar. All three are the same thing, it's only the applicator that is different. The applicator tip can be cleared (if blocked) with fine wire (twist ties work once you strip the plastic off) or a flame (REMOVE the metal tube first for safety as the contents are VERY FLAMMABLE).

X-acto knife and spare blades to start with, and some clippers for removing stuff from the sprues.
A '0' brush and a '000' brush for painting.

This is the bare minimum I started with. Mind you, I already had the x-acto and clippers from my electronics classes.

fair enough on the contacta glue issue, lets be fair we all know what i was on about!

I'll toss in a piece of fine sandpaper. You're talking under a dollar at a hardware shop, since you only need to rip off little bits at a time (like a cm squared). Very helpful for getting at mold lines in tricky places where a knife can't reach. Files are probably the next step up but in my experience I tend to stick to sandpaper on plastic anyway, files that work well on metal models bite a bit too deep much of the time on plastic.

http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=40832
Don't get the vice and razor saw they are overpriced and there are better ones about but the files the drill and the clippers are ok there are better ones just an idea of what to look for.

Ok, you don't need all the tools below but i promised i would do this for you to give you a guide as to what a solid tool kit looks like.



Okay so going around the board i'll give you what i paid over the years.

A. 3x Hobby knife set with Extra blades and metal insert (£10)
B. 3x Games workshop files (£5 off ebay)
C. Wire brush for cleaning files (50p mom & pop type hardware store)
D. Sculpting tools off ebay (£3)
E. Pin Vices x 2 + Micro drill bits (£12)
F. Drill bits (came with pin vices)
G.Deburring Tool (£6 or something
H.Gerber Diamond Blade sharpener (Don't know how much was a present from my Wife)
I. Clippers (£5)
J. Tweezers (nicked off my sister years ago!)
K. Pliers (for wire work/ pinning bits £5)
L. Multihand thingy ma-Jig (£5).

Remember this is a general guide you don't need all the items right away, you build it up over years, just don't cheap out too much or you end up paying twice or three times! The internet is amazing for bargains. Good Hunting.

Awesome! Thanks so much for this.

And don't forget plasters. Even the most hardened modeller slips and slices their thumb open as I managed to do at the weekend lmfao

Thanks for all the replies to this, and sorry I took so long to post what I ended up getting.

File set (round, triangle, flat)
SideCutter
Tweezer
Hobby Knife
Base spray paint cans (black, white)
Plastic Cement
Super Glue

I have used all of these tools so far. Most valuable of all I have found to be the Tweezers. When I cut one of the Dire Avengers weapons off the sprue the bottom portion of the Shuriken Catapault broke off. I managed to glue it in place holding it down with the tweezers. Good as new.

Thanks again all.