Tweezers For PE

[hof00]

Hi All,

I have been watching a series build of the 1/200 Bismarck on You Tube, (The Model Shed), and the Chap who performs the build advises Surgical Tweezers.

I guess a couple of questions:

 

• What do you all use for PE
• Do Tamiya Tweezers cut it
• Where do I obtain "Surgical" grade Tweezers at a reasonable cost

 

Cheers....HOF.

 

[Dziadeczek]

Amazon has some very good looking "surgical" grade (and inexpensive) tweezers. Google it.

I am going to get me a pair too.

Thomas

[DocRob]

In 2018, I wrote this little review about the Tamiya bending tweezers over at LSM and the verdict still stands. I work a lot with PE and have a huge assortment of tools, pliers, bending tools, rolling tools, ..., but these tweezers are by far the most universal tool, when it comes to tiny parts, like with ship modeling.

 

 

Buenos Dias, friends of the tool heavy workbench,

I have a very special relationship towards photoetched parts in modelling. I love to work with metal, enjoy the enhancement of detail and after applying PE sometimes I whish, it would not be necessary to paint these parts because of the luster shine. On the other hand PE can be a real PITA and has the tendency to unify itself with the carpet monster even more than plastic parts.

Over the years I used lots of tools for working with PE, there were bending tools, rolling tools, pliers and tweezers and all of them were helpful, but there was something missing between the pliers and a fine tweezer and then I bought this little gem.
 

 

It is the Tamiya Bending Tweezers (for Photo-Etched Parts) with the Item No: 74117.

I got it six weeks ago and I absolutely love that tool. It has become a nearly universal tool for small PE parts. Because of it's short tweezer tips which are finely grinded with sharp angles you can apply enough force to hold PE-parts in place and bend them around the edges. The smallness of the tips make it easy to bend complicated three-dimensonal forms. Another advantage is, that with mentioned small PE parts, there is a much reduced need for tool changes, because of the versatile design.
 

  
 

I highly recommend this little helper. It improved my enthusiasm with small PE parts a lot, because of the easiness of use and it's versatility. Tools should make live easier and this one is a very fine example.
 

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Actually these are my preferred tools for working with PE:

 

 

The bending tool and the long bending pliers are good for long sheet parts, like landing flaps and larger parts on ships superstructures. 
The small tipped bending plier and the above mentioned tweezer is very universal with smaller parts and much faster in use, than the bending tool.
The rolling tool is perfect for railings and AA nests on ships and was used a lot for my USS Arizona build. The back side has a thick rubber coating, which enables rolling parts with curved contours, specially when annealed.
That's where the lighter comes into play. Annealing brass PE is often overlooked. Heating the brass above the tip of the flame, until it changes color to blue, changes the crystalline structure of the brass and softens the brass for easier bending, specially on curved contours.
The pencil is a grease pencil, for holding or lifting up small parts.
Not mentioned, different types of CA and a soldering iron.

 

Cheers Rob
 

[Canute]

Rob, I echo your use of these tools. The fine bending tweezers is new to me. I'm putting together an Internet order and those Tamiya tweezers will be at the top of the list.

[wefalck]

The original poster did not mention, what he wanted to use the tweezers for. Some additional information in this respect could lead to more specific answers.

 

There are hundreds of different types of tweezers for different purposes, of different quality and, therefore, price. The watchmaker fraternity, in particular, uses a wide variety of tweezers for specific purposes. As they work with metal, they tend to be harder than the biological/surgical ones. Also dentists' tend to be harder.

 

Another factor is the overall stiffness, which depends on the steel and the thickness of the material.

 

Many reputed manufacturers now seem to sell their 'seconds' (which usually are still good enough for our purposes) through traders to the public. There are specialist traders e.g. on ebay that trade in such medical and biological tools. It may also be useful to check the on-line catalogues of medical and watchmaking supply houses to get an idea of the models available and their specific designations. Use these then to search on ebay etc.

 

Buying tweezer online can be a bit of a hit and miss. Particularly very fine pointed tweezers I would not buy on-line, but would want to check in person their tips and how precisely they close. I bought my main 'working' tweezers in person at a watchmaking supply store some 30+ years ago.

 

At model fairs, flea-markets and such events there are often trade stands that specialise in such 'seconds' medical etc. tools. This gives you an opportunity to check the quality. Keep on the look-out for antique equipment, the steel in them is often much better than in what is flooged new to us modellers.

 

Having said that, those Tamiya bending tweezers I didn't know and they look quite interesting. Do they properly close along the full length of the narrow tips?

 

Finally, if you get one of the cheaper ones for a few €/$/£ you can also grind the tips to your needs. Wouldn't do this with an expensive Dumont one, of course ...

 

 

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, wefalck said:

Having said that, those Tamiya bending tweezers I didn't know and they look quite interesting. Do they properly close along the full length of the narrow tips?

 

I made some quick (bad) pics from the tip of the Tamiya bending tweezers for you. The tip is ca. 1 mm wide and looks like this, when closed without force The drill bit has a 0,8 mm diameter for comparison:

 

With slight pressure, it closes like this:

 

 

The tip from the front closes parallel and is slightly trapezoid, which helps bending right angles with the slight elasticity of the brass, which gives a tiny bit after bending:

 

 

Cheers Rob

[wefalck]

Thanks, Bob, that looks promising. I will have to look into getting one of those ...

 

Regards from the Spanish Mainland.

[hof00]

Hi All,

Thank you all very much for your detailed responses, very much appreciated.

I now have some very good "Food for thought."

 

Cheers.... HOF.

[Daniel Kimmer]

Go to the Xuron website Xuron Corp, they have an excellent assortment of small pliers with 1.5 mm and 3 mm width heads. They work great and for me work far better than tweezers.