Guys, last night I was working on my Timaya Sherman and all was going well. At a point I had to deal with 4 little tiny parts and while cutting them off the sprue they turned into projectiles two of the 4 never to be seen again?

This is the first model I have done in many years and I know some of you seasoned vets must have a few techniques to keep your small parts on your desk and out of the air.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Jason

Couple of things - you can use a razor saw instead of a knife. You can place your free hand index finger over the piece as you gut it away. I have even taken a small flat electric clamp (from Radio Shack) and clipped it to the part to give it weight and volume so I can find it. Or you can put a cloth or something over it.

You also need to be careful of tweezer launch - when you squeeze to hard on the tweezers and the part go into that 12'x12' hole in the floor that you Never see. Thats just a matter of practice and maybe a pair of spring loaded (reverse) tweezers.

12X12 hole in the floor,,,,LOL!

Yep, I have one of those.

I also have the same problem my dust mites are the most heavy armoured this world has ever seen Im sure they have a BA type mite welding all those parts together to make a mutant tank

One way is to place the sprue inside a large clear plastic bag and cut off the part inside it. The bag being clear you can see what you are doing and if it tries to make a break for it, it is contained within the bag.

Wrong, guys, that's a dimensional portal connected to a wormhole powered by a black hole that sucks model parts in and sometimes sends them back days, even months, later.

I played that game last night........?(No carpet) I painted the floor a shade of tan.......Guess what color the Kit was........ 20 min later I found the missing part.... #:-) #:-)

I've bought a special tweezers from micromark which, because the force is from 2 sides, does nhave the parts fall intho the black hole called carpet.

I always cut the little parts with the parts and the sprue resting upon a loop of masking tape on the tabletop. I usually tape the edges of the tape loop down so that it's nice and tight. With the adhesives touching the back of the part, usually just a little pressure from your finger while you cut will keep the part from flying.

YOU MUST FEED THE CARPET GOD!

[quote]YOU MUST FEED THE CARPET GOD!

and lets not forget the sock monster who lives behind the washing machine :-)

I always remove parts from the sprue by cutting around them with the cutting disk in my dremel tool. Then you can snip the remainder of the plastic off with no problem. Never lost a piece that way. Now PE.....thats a different story

Brandy... -great suggestion!, I'll have to try the plastic bag.

Dustoff- don't know about you, but my cat leaves all the small parts alone.... He just LOVES to knock over all my paint jars however

Micromark has both large razor saws, as well as small razor saws the same size as a #11 Xacto blade- good for the little pieces.
Peter