I’ve been using an ordinary hobby knife with a #11 blade for cutting the pieces off the sprue, and I admit I sneered at those who bought and used “expensive specialty” tools for such a simple task. Of course, when you use a straight blade to cut, there is always the danger of tear out, left over stub with it’s associated sanding, and the danger of scratching the surface, so I finally broke down and bought the Xuron Micro Shear cutter.
WOW! What a difference, it cuts so cleanly and neatly, leaving little behind to sand off, and does it so easily I’m tempted to cut all the pieces off the sprue at once!
I apologize to those who I once sneered at, and am glad to finally get this tool! Sorry for doubting you…[bow]
I feel the same about my Squizzers decal scissors from Micromark - there is NO WAY that a mere mortal can otherwise survive one of Gold Medal Model’s excellent, but very crowded, ship decal sheets. I ended up getting two sheets because I massacred the first one so badly with cuticle scissors and then my Xacto knife… ended up spending about what I did for the Squizzers … hmmm … gotta be a lesson in there somewhere …
The sprue cutters are really nice, another tool I really liked was my Squadron panel scriber. It worked great at cleaning out panel lines on planes and in between body parts on cars. I would recommend one of those to have laying around on the workbench to!