I've struggled with using photo etch over the years so maybe it's time to get a bender built to help using photo etch.

What is your go to bender for etch in 1/35?

Jeff,
I have several sizes of bender from several manufacturers. The one i use 3X more often than any other is “The Bug” from the Small Shop. It has a viable assortment of bend shapes and can be held in one hand while making delicate adjustments at eye level. The larger ones are very good too, but I find the rotatable head and single knob lock down to be the quickest way to do detail size photoetch.

Hope this helps,
Paul H

I have a bug knock off, by Ustar which works really well. Also have a larger one from the Small Shop that is about eight inches and it works fine.

As I have used photo etch I found my own way to deal with it and use the tools for more precise work.

As for soldering, still on the curve.

I have been considering The Bug. I was wondering if it would be the best bang for the buck.

Frankly, I've used commercial benders before, but have found them rather unwieldy. The "Bug" is the only one I've stuck with, but I use it rather infrequently. I've had more success using a variety of tools for bending:

1) 100 pack of razor blades
2) 2" square tipped flat jaw miniature plier
3) 4" tapered flat jaw miniature plier
4) 2" narrow electronic flat jaw plier
5) an 18"x2" wide and a 12"X1" narrow (thin) steel rule.
6) 3" tapered round miniature wire bender plier
7) a Walthers Kadee "coupler tool" (intended to form coupler wires for Kadee couplers-- but it makes a nice bending tool for PE curves too)


In my opinion, these tools offer better flexibility and accessibility for bending difficult or complicated PE parts. For my money, because it's small, the "Bug" has the most utility for the same reason. The sad truth is I've purchased all the above tools for about the same price as one of the more expensive PE benders on the market, but these give me more flexibility. Don't forget, good steel flat tipped tweezers also work as good as PE benders for really tiny parts.
VR, Russ

Tweezers, tweezers and more tweezers. Also, a 6" bending tool by Mission Models and razor blade.

For most of my (simple) PE work I just use flat pliers, which are faster, easier and cheaper.

Exceptions are long parts or those that do not have a folding line etched, for which I have a small RP Toolz bender

I have been unhappy with any purpose-made PE benders I have ever tried. I follow Russ Bucy's approach, and it works well enough most of the time. Maybe I'll throw down for a Bug....

Mark, having used the Bug now (and one other more expensive larger bender--that I sold a couple of years ago for 1/3 what I paid for it)-- I'd say you can do as well without it. As a couple of others have mentioned, photo etch benders are OK for some things, but the constant tightening, repositioning, moving of benders gets old after a while, and I find making more than a 90 degree bend in something is often very tedious or impossible with a bender. Were I to "do it all over again", I'd just go out and buy a selection of flat jawed mini-pliers (which is what I've done). You can find some good ones in the electronics or hardware section of Home Depot, Ace, or Lowes (maybe Ames in your neck of the woods). You may need to look around a bit. I recently bought an electronic wire "nipper" and narrow flat jaw plier set at HD for about $5, the plier being ideal for narrow "U" shaped bends, and the nipper is better than my Xuron sprue cutter (it looks identical but it cuts better). The real issue is, it's difficult to make complicated bends with the larger PE benders, and pliers, quality steel tweezers and a smaller benders just gets the job done. I just finished LVM studios 200 peice brass PE reproduction of Launch Complex 14 launch tower for a Mercury-Atlas launch pad-- all without a bender, and there were bends of almost a foot long in that kit, along with very complicated "U" shaped bends. A "bender" wouldn't have worked for many of these bends (well, not a PE induced "bender" anyway!). But I do a lot of work in brass, using it extensively for scratchbuilding, and I've been using detail sets for many years, so I probably have more experience than most in bending and soldering, which is also a big factor in bending-- if you don't do a lot of it, a small bender might be more suitable.
VR, Russ

I have 3 expensive benders which I never use, and a Bug, which I always use. But mostly I use Xuron needle nose pliers and a razor blade, 50 times faster than the Bug.

Thanks guys.... So standard hand tools work as well as anything else really.

Russ,
Would love to see some photos of your tower. Way back when I built a re-release of John Glenn's Atlas-Mercury I couldn't stand the lack of a support structure (I used to work on Atlas IIAS at Vandenberg when I was on active duty--my office was on Launch Complex 3E) so I scratch built my own based on the photos I could obtain. I had seen kit for one--probably the one you built--but it was way outside my budget.

Jeff, I think that's the gist of it. The "Bug" by the Small Shop is somewhat handy because of it's size, but you can get good bends with inexpensive hand tools that are just as good, and sometimes a bending tool won't work for a complicated bend. Ideally, what you want is something that will do it all, and you'll need a variety of tools anyway for that. What we mean by "flat jaw pliers" are miniature pliers without any teeth-- they have perfectly flat jaws, and you may need to look around for those.
VR, Russ

Mark, I'll PM you. I'm a real Luddite when it comes to posting here on Kitmaker, but I've written some articles for Large Scale Planes, one of which is about an all brass and PE construction of a 1/16 B17F waist gun position-- done completely without a bender-- just hand tools. Here's a link:
https://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=3273
VR, Russ

Russ,
Yes I remember looking that article--linked from a discussion on homebrew decals if I recall. Stunning piece of work.

Now would be a good time to take some photos of your favorite bending tools.