Sand/Litter building box

[Swampfox]

I have lots of little "tricks" that I use for building my card models and often don't even think of them as being all that unusual. I've recently seen some tips and tricks in the forums that I thought "Why didn't I think of that!".

This sand box/litter box 'tool' is something I've used for many years and it dawned on me that I'd never seen it mentioned in the forums. It's really pretty simple and inexpensive to make. There has to be room for improvement, so please make any suggestions that come to mind.

Thanks for your looking,
Swampfox

Materials needed & set-up:

Containers,cardboard, plastic, wooden or whatever material, boxes to hold the model and all the building material.


For containers that are not sealed well, line with some paper, plastic wrap, Aluminum foil. Any thing that will hold in the finer particles.


Scoops and flat edged cardboard, plastic, styrofoam, small boards with flat edges for smoothing the top surface.
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Your choice of very dry, fine grained sand (sometimes called sandbox/play box sand), or cat litter (new and un-used is best), or any other fine grained material that you can get your hands on.

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Although Salt, sugar, flour and pepper would work they are not recommended. I live in a very dry place, humidity is not an issue. However, it may be where you live and this may not work as well as it has for me. Your results may vary.

Pour enough sand into the building box to fill the container about 3/4 of the way. As I've worked with this, I've changed the amount according to the size of the model I'm building.

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Level the sand, but don't get too carried away as you'll be digging into it.

WARNING: If you have cats, DO NOT leave this box filled anywhere that they might be able to get to it. You can guess what could happen;-(

Now, what do I do with this box of sand?...........................

[Swampfox]

At this point, I think that a picture is worth a lot of words, so I'll post picts with a few comments. For the most part the picts are self explanatory.

I use it to position parts that need to be glued and held in place to dry.

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I can use triangles, protractors to measure and check angles,


More examples of holding pieces in position for gluing.

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Using paint brushes, balsa strips to position and hold parts to check fit and then glue in place.

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Using other tool to measure, help hold in place.....


These horizontal stabs are placed into the sand, leaning against the fuselage at the correct angles and glued in place, glue applied they dry in position at the proper angles.


Time for a break, more later

Swampfox

[Mr. Hawley]

I use fun-tac on my cutting board and stick supports in that. It (usually) works pretty well.

http://www.amazon.com/Loctite-108730.../dp/B001F57ZPW

[Swampfox]

Some more picts of aligning parts to drawings, or to other parts.

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Checking positioning and fit of parts
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and fit of struts between wings and engines


Using clamps to hold delicate parts while gluing and using the sand to hold the clamps.

[Swampfox]

I make copies of 3 views, cut out the part of the drawing I need and line up the parts with the drawings and glue them in place to dry.

The sand holds the drawing and parts in place while the glue dries........

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Using small paper cups to hold the pieces in place while drying


That does it, hope someone can use some of these ideas. Post any comments or suggestions you'd like.

Swampfox

[WeeVikes]

Fascinating...

That's brilliant!


Mike

[Retired_for_now]

Concur - brilliant solution ... a universal fixture!
Yogi

[Mr. Hawley]

Sheesh, somehow the rest of what I was going to say earlier didn't copy over (and I just noticed it).

Anyway I said I use fun-tac but I think the sandbox idea is cool and probably a lot more flexible than what I do.

[Swampfox]

Thanks guys, I find that I use this all the time in nearly all my builds. It's much more useful than I'd originally expected.

SFX

[Leif Ohlsson]

That was really original and useful. I would have never thought of it if you hadn't explained it so well. Even after the firs post I wasn't sure where this was going to lead.

Very, very good. Thank you!

Leif