Are you sentimental with your building tools/equipment?

[Stokey Pete]

I’ve just had a massive clear out in the Casa del Pete man cave, trying to thin out how much stuff is in there cluttering the place up. 
There were a few brushes that I realised I’ve had since building my first Airfix kits as a boy (a long time ago). They’re much shorter now, and have barely any bristles but I can’t bring myself to bin them, citing “you never know when you’ll need a 3 bristle brush” as an excuse l. I’ve got Humbrol tinlets that are over 15 years old but can still be used to paint. Sandpaper that’s more paper than sand these days. A citadel craft knife that has a full masking tape grip now but is still the most comfortable knife I’ve owned, it’s over 10 years old again. My first Badger airbrush is still there and used to spray varnish coats instead of clogging up my more exotic airbrushes. 
I’m sure I’m not the only one who holds onto certain things they’ve used for many years, am I? 

[mozart]

No Pete, you’re not the only one, though most of my “treasures” were my father’s, he too was a modeller. So when I use his rat tail files, his soldering iron, his snippers, I feel as if I’m in contact with him. A photograph of him sits on my bench too. 

[Kagemusha]

Certainly not alone, I remember getting a new craft knife with an extremely sharp knife over forty years ago, probably from the local Woolies, orange plastic handle, almost sliced off the skin on the joint of a finger one of the first times I used it, sadly no longer have the knife, still have the scar. 

[dmthamade]

When the tools become worn out/don't do a proper job, they're either repurposed or binned. I have some Xuron cutters that don't work well for close sprue cutters, but work great as wire cutters/zip tie trimmers at work.There are other things as well. Tools that don't work properly are a sore point with me, i use tools to earn a living, they HAVE to work as designed. Or they get binned.

 

Don

[D Bellis]

No. If it doesn't function properly, it gets pitched and replaced. No regrets. 

 

The only tool that I still have from my youth is a soldering pencil that was my father's before me. It dates to the early '60s and still works great. The day it fails me is the day it gets pitched and replaced. 

 

D

[Mark Jackson]

Oddly enough I was watching this at 3am this morning: https://youtu.be/IyvQBOyg16M

 

[LSP_K2]

Actually, I'm nostalgic about all sort of items in my life, so generally don't throw them away, as they serve as reminders of interesting events now long gone.

[MikeMaben]

I have an old Dremel motor/flex shaft that my Dad brought home in the early '60s

that I rebuilt and still use only because it's one low rev speed (about 1500/2000 rpm)

It's a tuff little beast so I figger it will outlive me.

 

 

As far as sentimental, the only thing I have that I will 'never' use again is my

first airbrush, a Binks Wren B. I have no reason to keep it , but I also have no

reason to throw it away 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by MikeMaben

[LSP_Mike]

I still have my first gift modeling knives, and X-Acto files...Christmas 1974 

 My dad made me a modeling tool chest when I was early 20s. Needless to say I still have it.

Reclaimed mahogany.

[blackbetty]

sure, i still have tools my grandfather used in the fifties for a wooden helicopter model, as well as scale modelling literature from thet aera.

and i still use my badger 150 from 1986, my first airbrush

Edited July 27, 2020 by blackbetty

[thierry laurent]

A Badger 150! This was also my first airbrush and I got it around 1986 as well! It was always a reliable tool but I hated dismantling it to clean it. Putting back correctly over the needle the part behind the trigger was really difficult. 

[ScottsGT]

I have an oddball tool or two from my Mom’s old Ceramics Studio she had back in the ‘70’s.  I really don’t use them, but when I look over in the tool bin I see them and it reminds me from where I got my artistic skills and attention to detail.   I spent many hours as a kid during the summers doing ceramics because it was free and some of the women in the studio didn’t like the smell of model glue while they were having their hen party and chain smoking cigarettes. 

[Tony T]

 

Moved to Sablene and Taklon synthetic brushes for moral reasons, but can't let go of stinky old ecologically unfriendly "enamels" — there's nothing like thinned polyurethanes for spraying, and Humbrol was as much a part of my youth as Corona cherryade and Instant Whip. 

 

A lot was replaced over the past five years, but I do have a small wooden handled hammer my mother brought back from Germany in 1968, which I'll take to the grave along with a Leatherman and a set of steel mole grips.

 

Tony 

[Stevepd]

I’ve got a packet of old files with wooden handles in a plastic envelope. I must have had it since the early 80’s. They’re not used now but they’re in the draw and going nowhere.

[ssculptor]

 

I have tools that I used in 1942 to build models and I have been adding to the tool bin (room? rooms? building? etc.) ever since. One can never have enough tools.

Once about 20 years ago I started sorting all my tools and I found I had 10 claw hammers. I asked my wife what to do with so many of the same tool and she suggested I put one in each room.So now we have a claw hammer in each room of the house. 

Obviously I married the right woman so many decades ago.