The best hobby tools

A brush rinser is an extremely over-engineered water pot that looks like a water cooler designed by a soviet rocket engineer. It uses a gravity fed reservoir to top up a small pool of water. After you clean your brush in the pool, you can push a little button to drain the water away into the base, and fresh water will flow in to refill it. This means you can always clean your brush in pristine water.

This is very much a hammer to crack an egg-shell – you could just swap out your paint water when it’s dirty. But if you want the very best results, or want to keep your best brush in pristine condition, this is a good tool. It eliminates the risk of your paints being contaminated by the paint water – mostly a risk with metallic pigments – and lets you thoroughly clean off your brush after each color.

The water reservoir needs to be refilled, and the base emptied of water, about once an hour. If it’s not situated on a level surface the water pool can overflow. You will absolutely knock over the whole thing at least once.

Despite these issues, the author continues to use the Green Stuff World Brush Rinser review sample he was provided, even though he’s not a competition painter, and rates it highly. Non-branded versions are available and are functionally identical.

If you want to make your own Warhammer terrain or other miniature scenery, the Proxxon thermocut hot wire cutter is an incredible piece of kit. It functions like a scroll saw, but instead of a blade it has a tensioned wire that heats up when powered. Once you’ve got the hang of this tool, you can make extremely clean, extremely precise cuts into extruded polystyrene foam (aka styrex, pink or blue foam, or XPS), a strong and light material that’s perfect for scenery.

To get a sense for what’s possible, check out the work of miniature artist Gerard Boom, and his book ‘Tabletop Terrain from XPS foam’ – or attend one of his workshops if you ever have the chance.

While there are other foam cutters on the market, the Proxxon is extremely reliable and durable. Because it’s so popular, you can buy a variety of aftermarket upgrades – Boom makes some, and others are available on Etsy. We recommend getting a better guide rail as the included rail is rather rudimentary.

While you can do an awful lot by making straight cuts in XPS, Boom has demonstrated some techniques that require you to turn the power of the machine on and off at precise moments, so that you can reorient a piece of foam without removing it from the wire. You will need a foot control pedal accessory to do these techniques.

If you paid money for your brushes, pay money for brush soap. Gently cleaning your brushes with soap after a painting session will greatly extend their useful lifespan, and ensure that your favorite brushes retain a good point for longer.

We’ve selected The Master’s Brush Cleaner and Preserver as the author has had good results with it, and a single pot has lasted years. Other soaps will also do the job.

The Green Stuff World tentacle roll maker is a simple plastic contraption lets you roll strands of greenstuff between two textured plates, embossing textures into the the surface. It makes great flexible tentacles and cables for model conversions.

When using the tool, leave your greenstuff to partially cure until it loses its surface stickiness before putting it between the plates. If you’re trying to emboss the greenstuff with a fairly deep impression, it’s better to use a gentle pressure and roll the greenstuff backwards and forwards several times – pushing too forcefully will just squish and flatten the greenstuff.

The go to use for a powered hand-tool in modelling is to drill tiny holes into your minis. That can include drilling out gun barrels, and holes for metal pins to support the joints on metal or resin models. But with other accessories mounted you can use them to sand mold lines, or buff high-glossy metallic paints.

Dremel is the biggest name in cordless hand tools, and for good reason – it makes high quality and durable products. The Dremel lite is a smaller and relatively low powered version of this type of tool, but it’s still specced for DIY – it will work just fine on models.

If you want to make precise cuts into models or materials for a conversion, a razor saw is essential. These have very sharp, very fine blades, letting you cleanly cut off components with minimum wastage to the mini.

Because it has a solid blade reinforced by a thick arm, razor saws make straight cuts through material much better than a junior hacksaw or coping saw. However they can only cut to a relatively shallow depth.

We’ve suggested an X-ACTO saw with a cheap handle and replaceable blade. All saw blades blunt, and unless you have the tools and expertise to recondition a blade, a more expensive razor saw will just be more expensive to replace.

Superglue de-bonder dissolves superglue. There’s not much more to say about it – we’ve included it because when it’s useful, it’s incredibly useful, yet not many people know it exists!

Ultrasonic cleaners use high frequency vibrations to form bubbles in a tank of cleaning fluid. Anything you put into them will receive a molecular-level scrubbing.

Water and soap will clean off mold release agent from resin and metal minis, while a bath of isopropyl alcohol (IPA) will fully strip the paint from minis or your airbrush much more rapidly than simply leaving them to sit in the solvent.

It’s possible to strip paint from resin minis as well, but prolonged exposure will weaken or destroy the resin. As with any vat of dirty liquid, be careful not to knock an ultrasonic cleaner over.

If you plan to use IPA as a cleaning solvent, note that it is flammable, so store it away from open flames. Ultrasonic cleaners heat their contents slightly, but as IPA has to be heated to 750 °F / 399 °C to burst into flames without an external source of ignition, it would require a bad malfunction for your cleaner to start a fire this way.

We’ve suggested a jewelry cleaner as a good go-to for hobbyists who will put it to light use. If you want to make extensive use of a cleaner, look for a small industrial unit.

A strong, consistent light source for building and painting miniatures simply makes it easier to see what you’re doing, which will save your eyes from strain and your fingers from misplaced clippers and hobby knives. There are many choices when it comes to picking a lamp – the OttLite LED desk lamp is a good middle ground when it comes to function and price.

Daylight bulbs and white LEDs mimic natural light, providing an objective view on how your model looks. Unlike real daylight, they’re a consistent light source that doesn’t change throughout the day, and can be directed how you choose – in the miniature painting book ‘The Art of Tommie Soule’, the hobby guru recommends a daylight lamp above the real thing.

OttLite makes high quality lamps, and this one has all the features that most hobbyists will need – a wide LED light, flexible neck, desk edge clamp, at a reasonable price. For a wider lamp with a lever arm, look at the Neatfi XL.

All wet palettes work on the same principle. The base of the tray is lined with a sponge, on top of which you place a sheet of semi-permeable paper – greaseproof paper works for DIY versions. Water can pass through this but pigment cannot. Fill the sponge with a reservoir of water and, as the water evaporates out of the paint, it will be replaced by water from the sponge.

This gives your paint a longer working life before it begins to dry, really helpful when working with fast-curing acrylic paints. In arid climates a wet palette is a massive help, and by closing the palette lid you can pretty much stop your paint from drying out between sessions: very helpful if you’re working on particular color mixes.

We’ve picked the Army Painter palette because it has some nice added features, including a stretchy band that can keep the palette securely shut when not in use, and an integral brush tray. But you can get by without these just fine.