Fairly new to modeling (mostly A/C Fighters). What are the best tweezers for really small items. I tend to have them “squirt out” and be gone forever. Thanks–C Bell
Hi, C Bell -
I use a small variety for handling small bits. One is about 4 inches with milled surface at the business end, which gives me a good grip on parts. If that surface is smooth, the part can slide away.
Another is quite short, about 2 inches with textured gripping surface, for accessing tight areas.
Then one at 6 inches with extremely narrow ends, needle like, which has several uses. Like lifting corners of masking tape, very handy for placing decals, etc.
One that I think may be for jewelers, they have tiny cups at the ends that hold parts within. You’re hard pressed to lose many bits with these.
Check Micro Mark on line and Amazon, to see examples of sets available. Tweezers are a really needed hobby tool, and relatively inexpensive.
Good luck looking.
Patrick
Here is the set I bought from Amazon about a year ago. Can’t live without them now. They’re amazing.
That is the same set I picked up on somebody’s recommendation here,good price and effective.
Me too, but some stuff still goes flying [*-)]
Hey Patrick, thanks for your reply. Appreciate it.
Thanks–CB
Thanks --CB
Hi!
The cupped ones are for handling Beads. Or, roundish model parts that pop out of other Tweezer. They are great for installing Air Crew into the cockpits though. You just hold them by their heads and put them in their Ejection Seats!
just a tip CB: If you wind up with a lot of smooth jawed tweezers do this.Take an X-Acto and scrape some grit off sandpaper. Then carefully dip a moistened tip into the grit. Add a drop of C.A. Glue and when it sets, you will have a rough surface that wears off very slowly.
I foprgot! I have found something out that needs expressing hear. Did you know that tweezers like car frames can get out of true? This adds to the “Sproing” effect too! Carefully get a goot bright Normal light and look at your tweezers from the side near the tip. If you see a shiny edge behind the outside portion facing you, you are seeing the inside portion of the other jaw side.
You can fix this by carefully twisting the tweezer to the opposite direction. Don’t force it, be gentle and you will get years out of your tool without having to live with mister “Sproing” to often. Whern you look at a tweezer like pliers you should NOT see the inside of the other jaw if they are in true.
My favorite way to prevent that Sproing effect is to use tweezers with a really, really soft touch. Worst case is that I may hold too lightly and drop the part, but they don’t go across the room.
Mine were bought at a stamp-collecting store as stamp tongs, although they are not the typical broad point tweezers. Mine have a narrow point and are made by Solingen. They come in a few different lengths, but my favorite are 4 3/4" long.
Good luck,
Rick
Your welcome,I use them all the time
I put down a wide strip of making tape- sticky side up on my cutting board. Then I place the fret on the tape. Not perfect, but works most of the time.
After reading this tread,I went ahead a ordered a set similar to yours, I have close to 20 different tweezers, but most of them suffers from different problems, some will not close properly, or they are too weak or too hard to press, not sufficiently long, very cheap material, etc. I have 2 that I use all the time , so I decided to try you model to see what happens.
Joe
I like it–CB
That’s pretty much exactly what happened to me. Mine are Pixnors too. Its funny…I didn’t notice it before, but the link I posted has the word “pixnor” in it. I think its the usual Chinese business practice where exactly the same item is sold under 100 different brand names.
In the market there are many types, in the end, a modeling tweezer is just a modeling tweezer, I think they should be made of metal instead of plastic, and if you work with magnets I recommend these anti-magnetic modeling tweezers that are metal but are not attracted by magnets. Then you have wax pencils and other tools that have sticky tips that allow you to hold small things.
I have a set of jeweler’s tweezers that I use for holding small bits. They have a sliding lock on them which helps hold no matter how tightly you are holding them:
With my bride in the medical industry, I’ve acquired many pickups that have been discarded by surgeons, and have a real fine set of suture needle holders that have a very fine, pointed curved tip on each arm. I usually used these to position small parts that are being glued to a model.
It needs to be said that tweezers take a lot of maintenance. The points need to be cleaned periodically so that there is no glue or other substance on them- closing is true metal-to-metal contact. Also, fine pointed ones go fishmouthed in only a few uses. Simple squeezing of the tips with small mouth pliers will fix that.