I recently ran out of Tamiya XF-1 black paint and it led me to thinking about this topic. So I’m curious, what specific items do you restock most often. Or which items do you buy in bulk so you don’t have to run get more in the middle of a project.
I have a subscription to Revell contacta glue from Amazon. It comes every 6 months.
I buy my primer in the larger bottles. Currently, I use Stynylrez primer in black and grey. I bought the black in a 12 oz bottle and the grey in 4 oz.
I also bought a 10 pack of exacto knife blades.
Tape. I placed a bulk order for Tamiya tape in various sizes (2 mm - 10 mm). I also stock up on Aizu tape (0.4 mm - 1 mm) whenever I can for fine masking.
Since our local Hobby Store closed earlier this year, I have to either drive 50 miles or order my paint and supplies online now.
There’s two things I use the most of usually when applying tiny dabs of glue or paint.
Just your average ordinary round toothpicks.
Micro-brushes - These have various sized heads on them from 1 mm to 2.5 mm or anywhere in between. You can also bend them to get in hard to reach areas. I can get these far cheaper on Amazon for under $10 for 500 or so. I like to buy in bulk if I can. Pics below.
Actually, now that I think about it, I also go through a lot of Evergreen styrene sheet (12" x 6" packages) whenever I’m doing a lot of scratch building for a project. Usually the .010, .020, .030, and .040 sheets.
Glue, tape, primer, thinner in bulk. Paints as needed. Have all the tools I need. I also buy large amounts of cotton buds (wood long handled), and those little micro tip glue applicators that slip on the superglue bottles, poster tack, putty.
I use Mr. Cement, Loctite time control, regular, and thick gel, Bob Smith super gold. Painter’s tape 1/16, 1/8, 1/5, 2/5, 1/2, 3/4, 2 inch, and am experimenting with Parafilm M. I use Mr. surfacer grey and black in liquid form for airbrushing and also in the rattle cans.
It does seem like I’m buying flat black paint on a fairly regularly basis. I like to keep 1-3 bottles in my paint drawer. I get the Tamiya lacquers, regular black, flat black, and semi-gloss black. I do the same for their white/flat white paints, as well as the flat blue, flat yellow, and flat red. Multiple bottles must be present. When I go down a bottle, that seems to spur a new order.
I use rattle cans for most of my painting, so Tamiya TS-14 gloss black and TS-29 semigloss black are what I reorder most often, along with light gray surface primer.
I find I use all of the above listed examples on a fairly regular basis, but now trying to find more uses for inks in my modelling. By far the things I use the most fend to be four letter words that aren’t appropriate to use around my younglings….
I think primer and clear coats are my most used products, as well as tamiya extra thin. I use spray cans for both priming and clear coating because breaking the airbrush out for a varnish is too much hassle for me, so i end up going through quite a few cans every year.
Aside from that, since i started using gloves, that’s probably the next thing i burn through. Put on glove, paint 1 thing, wife asks me to do something, take off glove… Repeat
It’s great for masking canopies. For canopies with raised detail, I take a very sharp toothpick and push the tape into the raised detail. It’s very thin and not as tacky as regular 3M blue tape. No bleed though. Cut into thin strips, it’s does well when masking curves (nothing too drastic). You get a boat load of it in a roll.
that aren’t appropriate to use around my younglings….
