When it comes to detailing and scratchbuilding the world is an endless source of handy bits and pieces that are often more useful, not to mention cheaper, than speciality items from your local hobby store. Some you’ll need to go out and buy, others will pass your way in the normal course of time.
These are just a few of the bits and pieces I use and some of the uses I’ve found for them, but the best advice is to start seeing everything as potentially useful and keep a well stocked “odds and ends” container – because you never know when something might come in handy.
Paper – 80gsm printer paper, thin note block paper and handiest of all thermal paper from receipts. Used in place of thin plasticard because it’s easier to work with. Great for rifle slings and webbing.
Foil – from pie plates, oven dishes, chocolate wrapers, the tops of Milo and coffee cans. Ideal for making tarps and anything else that needs to look like cloth.
Left over Sprues – useful for stretching to make aerials, rivet heads, in fact anything you can make with plastic rod.
Netting – mine came from a $5 clearance curtain at The Warehouse and a dress up fairy skirt from Spotlight for $10. The curtain is softer and is used when I need small bits, the dress netting is stiffer but I have large ammounts of it so useful for spread out nets. Looks better than surgical scrim.
Old pens – the empty tube can be stretched like sprue to make bottles and the springs also come in handy.
Cheap paint brushes – from The Warehouse, cheap sets of the big ones at six brushes for $10 and little ones at ten brushes for $8. Make straw, grass, hair, all sorts of things along those lines.
Lengths of wire – from DSE for literally cents per meter. I cut it to 30cm lengths then stip off the top 10cm and pull out the inner wire strand by strand leaving the outer tube to use as hoses. The inner wire comes in all sorts of thicknesses.
Soldering wire – depending on the thickness is used for wiring, tubing and the like as it can be shaped and stay in shape.
Paper clips – also used for wire.
Old broom bristles – the cheap $2 shop ones that are a sort of nylon that wears and splits to make a useful waist to chest high plant ( see photo ).
Ice Cream Sticks, blank Matchsticks and toothpicks - from Spotlight, used in crafts, handy for anything from fences to buildings when you need to make something wooden as nothing looks more like wood than wood itself.
Ice cream containers – along with many other plastic containers makes for cheap plastic card.
Blister pack clear packaging – makes for cheap clear plastic card for windscreens etc.
Kitchen cleaning pads – the sort with a sponge on one side and a scourer on the oter, cut into small shapes they make applicators for applying paint, especially when doing chipping and the like.
Florists tissue – useful for making tarps, upholstering seats so they can be torn, jacket flaps etc.
Knead-It – available from Mitre 10 etc, used to sculpt parts.
Chalks and Pastels – from artists shops, used for making your own pigments.
Cat Litter – you can get big bags of this cheap from The Warehouse and it makes great scenery rocks and rubble.
Model shipmaking supplies – thin wood veneers, ship rigging and often little things like barrels and pulleys are available from places that make model ships or sell model ship building supplies.
Tree bits from the garden – dried sections of small tree branches as well as roots make for great bases for 1/35 scale trees and small bushes once you add Woodlands Scenics foliages.
Toy animals – sold at K-Mart in $3 packs, many of the animals are close enough to 1/35 scale for use and only need minor clean up and detailing.
So if you don’t already have a stash of useful bits find yourself a shoebox and an icecream container and start collecting. But be warned that wives will not understand this box/container nor your need to keep dead pens or coffee/milo tin seals and chocolate wrappers. My advice here is to keep a shoe catalogue strategically placed beside your containers of bits, this way if she ever passes within eye-shot of them she will be distracted from seeing them.
