The Tool Shed - 1
Tweezers might be one of
the smallest tools we use
but it is also one of the
most important ...
by Jack Burgess
I
’ve never counted the number of modeling tools I own,
nor how much I’ve spent on tools over the years. But both
numbers might be higher than I think. However, the most
important tool in my tool box is my tweezers.
When I first started building structures and freight cars back in
1965, I was most likely using the same tweezers I had used to
build plastic airplane kits in my youth. At least I don’t remem-
ber buying new tools just because I switched from airplanes
to freight cars. In those days my tweezers probably came from
the Sears store, since their Craftsman tools were considered as
good as you could buy and, as I recall, my hobby shop didn’t
carry tools.
Fortunately, soon after I started model building in those early
years, I got introduced to some very skilled modelers in the
San Francisco Bay Area. These modelers, such as Bob Brown
(now editor of the
Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette)
and
Gordon Cannon (who later founded Cannon & Company which
produced diesel detail parts), were building highly-detailed
Tweezers
structures with board-for-board construction and their own
detail parts that they cast from Cerrobend, a low-temperature
casting metal. Their work “raised the bar” for model building in
the Bay Area.
This exposure to extraordinary model building caused me to
re-evaluate my building efforts. At that time I was building
freight cars using techniques more typical of the 1950s, not
the late 1960s. So I made a decision to do better and scrapped
all of my early models. I began building prototype freight
car models based on cars that I had measured myself. I also
made a real effort to duplicate these cars as closely as I could.
As I improved my skills, I eventually became involved in the
National Model Railroad Association model contests at both
the local and national level for a couple of decades.
Building good models is much easier with good tools. A good
set of tweezers was one of my first purchases. A very good
modeler who lived near be told me about a Bay Area jewelry
1: These are my Vigor tweezers that I purchased 35 years
ago. They are 4¼” long, which seems just right.
1
MRH-Feb 2013
