Recommended Tools

   As I have spent my painting time today scrubbing old miniatures, which involves  copious smelly chemicals and I wouldn't recommend it to anyway, this post is not about my painting progress, it's about some recommended tools.

   I see a lot of people using  Games Workshop tools, while these are  fine to begin with, they are not  aways the best value for money or quality, so I thought I'd share some of my recommendations.

Not really going to argue the merits of each one, just which I think are best.

Brushes
  If you've spent any time on a painting forum, you'll know this. Windsor &Newton Series 7's. They are considered the best on the market by many pros, I buy mine from here.  If you look after them, they will last you a long, long time before you have any problems. A fairly close runner up, and quite a bit cheaper are the brushes from Rosemary & Co,

Clippers
   Remember those yellow handled clippers that would randomly fire one of the blades off if you looked at them wrong? Well, I do, and boy, did I ever get tired of that happening, so I shopped around, the best I've found are by a company called Xuron, I've had a heavy pair and a spru cutting pair for years, so I had to do some digging to find current sources, I recommend Squires, the Xuron's are on page 54. A quick note about Squires, you may find cheaper on the likes of Ebay, but the service I've had from them over the years is nothing short of impeccable.I recommend the Sprue Cutters and the Track Cutters.

Tool Organisation.
 The problem with tool organisation is that it's mostly aimed at  much larger tools then we wargamers use, however, there are solutions, and this is the best one I've ever found. I have found them on Ebay and I have bought them from Terrascenic, but they seem to be out of stock of most of the range at the time of writing this article.

Paint Racks
 Well all need somewhere to keep all that paint, right?  Cardboard box, tackle box, empty drawer, crowding around the desk, old spice rack? My personal favourite however are the carousel type, as made by Vatican Enterprises and available in the UK from here.  However, terrascenics as mentioned earlier do a nice paint rack that's a bit more budget friendly.

Files
 With files, look to the hardware stores, Screwfix has some surprising results for needle files, but a set of diamond files can be invaluable too, I like the ones that Heresy Miniatures sells, they also have a rather good value set of needle files

Razor Saws
 There are two types of razor saws, the first is the traditional version, which X-acto make a very good quality version of, you'll want the shallower blade for metal and the deeper blade for terrain building, also available from Heresy. The second kind is one I've only recently found, and is invaluable for plastic converting. I've found it in kit form from Hannants, perfect for very precise cuts.

O.k, I'm all one for tonight, but next time I'm going to talk about hobby knives, glues, pin vices and anything else that comes to mind.

Thanks for reading.