Here are some things that different model supplies are good for in other mediums and other medium products that are good for modeling:
Good for modeling* Soda Bottles.............Make good curved windshields and aircraft canopies. You can even use them to replace cracked windshields in car models. Some of the different color bottles are good for light lenses.
* Finger Nail Files..........I shouldn't have to tell you what these are good for. The metal ones are good for more intericate triming and shaping of both plastic and metal model parts. If you really think about it, all they are is a small metal file and have the same uses in smaller size.
* Plastic Q-Tips...............You'd be surpprised how easally you can convert 1/72 scale battleship barrels to have boars with them.
* Card stock paper...........Even though it's the primary product for making paper models, they are a wonderful and easy to work with material for small parts making for plastic models. Soak them in super glue and leave them sitting on a wax sprayed sheet. Once dry, you can craft them in to whatever you want, and they will be much easier to work with then most of the plastic sheets you spend a fortune for at the hobby shop. This is a heaven sent method for turning 1/350 aircraft in to entire models comparable in detail to the 1/72s.
* TOILET PAPER
..............two words: SEA WAVES
Model products useful for other things:* Tamiya FLAT spray paint.............This stuff is one of the best metal finishes up to parkarization. Maybe even better then tefalon to some extent and unquestionably better then Brownells bake-on finish. Just spray it on the metal and bake it in the oven at 300F for a couple houres and you'll have a nice rock solid finish on the metal.
Below is a handgun I customised, and the frame finish was done using this method ( Tamiya Olive Drab ) and the photo was taken 4 months later I believe:
[img]http://www.paladinrepublic.com/cz2.jpg[/img]
* Paint Markers.....................EXELLENT for filling ingraving or stamping on metal. Model paints are generally good for metal finishing provided you oven bake the metal afterwords. Cover the entire area in paint and whipe it away with your finger. After the paint has dried and BEFORE you oven bake it, use an eraser to remove the smiered surface paint and a slightley damp ( generally well rung out ) sponge to gentley whipe it down which will straighten the surface metal out if you did everything else correct. If you oven bake it first, then the eraser will be able to take up the excess paint, but more then likley will take up whatever finish it's siting on while at it as well as possably some of the paint in the fillings that you don't want to remove. This method was also used on the above guns frame, using white model paint to fill all the lettering.
* Sandpaper....................Some of the lighter grits are lighter grits then what you will normally find for metal prepping and are a good polishing aulturnative if you don't have the tools to do buffing. They are also good for polishing Cocobolo wood which has it's own oils and shouldn't be finished.
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