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What Tools Do I Need For Building Card Model Kits?

By Iain, 19th January 2023 | General

Essential card kit building tools…

Introduction

When building any card kits, it pays to have the right tools at hand. This makes building the kits easier, more enjoyable & above all… darn good fun!! After all kit building is a great pastime that allows us to be creative, relax & forgot about the worries of modern life. So what tools should use? Here we’re taking a look at what tools we recommend here at Scale Model Scenery for successfully building card kits.

Watch our video below for a visual overview of the essential tools!

Why should I have a dedicated set of tools for building model kits?

Like any form of modelling project, it pays to have the right tools for the job. Don’t be tempted to try and make do with tools that aren’t designed for the job at hand. This will only lead to frustration, disappointment, mistakes, or even worse, leading to you abandoning the kit build altogether, and we don't want that. Having the correct tools will make the job much easier and prevent mistakes through using the incorrect tools.

Our recommended tools for model kit buildings and accessories:

Craft knife, spare blades and cutting mat

Craft knife: A good quality craft knife such as those made by Swann Morton will stand the test of time as well as reward you with many years of service. Craft knives come supplied with a blade pre-fitted and sometimes supplied with a pack of spare blades.

Spare blades: It’s also worth keeping replacement blades in your toolbox to replace blunt blades as needed. If you find your knife blade isn’t cutting as well as it should, then it’s time to change the blade for a new one.

Cutting Mat: Saves your workbench or table from getting damaged whilst using craft knives. Cutting mats are a worthwhile long-term investment, often self-healing, meaning they can be repeatedly cut and should last many years. The added bonus is that cutting mats have measurement markings and grids printed on them, ideal for assisting with marking out and aligning kit parts together. A popular size is the A3-sized cutting mat, or for smaller jobs, an A4-sized cutting mat is ideal. Another tip for when a cutting mat has reached the end of its life - keep it as a gluing mat for gluing kit parts together. This saves getting glue all over a new cutting mat and also keeps your workbench clean and glue-free!

Steel ruler and tweezers

Steel ruler: An absolute must! Use for measuring and marking out, a straight edge guide to score or cut against. It can also be used to smooth out texture sheets. A 30cm (12”) long steel ruler is a good size with it being long enough for most card kit building and general modelling jobs. Look out for the safety steel rulers which are designed to protect one's fingers with its built-in safety finger guard.

Tweezers: Ideal for handling tiny parts or fitting small parts into awkward corners and spaces! Tweezers come in all sorts of sizes and types, multipacks are the best for covering all sorts of modelling tasks. You can find a selection on our shop

Folding and scoring tool

SX021 Professional Folding and Scoring Tool: It's probably one of the simplest tools you'll ever use, but once you've tried it, you'll be hooked! The SX021 has been designed to make the scoring and folding of brick, stone, and wall texture sheets much easier. It features an angled tip, perfect for scoring fold lines along either side of texture sheets. This gives crisp, sharp, clean folds around corners, window openings, and doorways. Ideal also for scoring glue tabs, large and small.

Glues and glue tips

Deluxe Materials AD-57 Roket Card Glue: Without a doubt, our favourite glue of them all for assembling card model building kits. One bottle will build 100's of models, it's amazing stuff. For super-fast assembly of card models, with precision and no mess. Roket Card Glue will also bond balsa wood, paper card to most plastics too, making it an incredibly versatile glue for all your modelling applications. Shop here

Deluxe Materials AD-87 Laser-Cut Kit Glue: Designed for use on laser-cut kits. This laser-cut kit glue is clean, neat, and makes rapid construction of all wood and card laser-cut railway, dolls house or standalone diorama kits. Includes precision applicator with anti-clog action. It can be easily cleaned with water. Shop here

UHU All Purpose Glue: This is one of our go-to general-purpose adhesives perfect for the assembly of larger card components as well as for use in gluing brick, and stone texture papers onto card and MDF base layers. Shop here

Glue Tips: Available in packs of 5 with a choice of ¼” inch long and 1/2” inch long tips, these are designed to fit on the older Deluxe Material glue bottles and other similar-sized glue bottle tops. These handy spare tip packs will always keep you going if you find your glue tip has become blocked and can’t be cleared of the blocked glue. I always make sure I keep a pack in my modelling toolbox. Shop here

Paints, pencils and pens

Acrylic paints: A set of acrylic paints from the likes of Daler Rowney are a worthwhile investment - you'd be surprised how many projects they will come in useful for. In particular, earthy tones such as brown, grey, dark green, black and white to mix or highlight areas are a must have. You can invest in more premium brands later on, such as when you want to paint enamels on locos and layer up with thinners, but these are a toolkit basic to start with.

Paintbrushes: A small selection of different brushes can work wonders! In particular, an old worn or cheap paintbrush is excellent for dry brushing, whilst a fine tip is useful for tiny details. A flat-edged brush is brilliant for painting in straight lines and a large scruffy brush can be brilliant for using on stencil applications (roads etc.)

6B Pencil: Excellent for running along paper edges like brick paper wraps to conceal them. For marking out guidelines to aid cutting and scoring of the printed texture brick, stone sheets, etc., a 6B grade pencil is a good one to go for. The bonus of using a pencil is that any mistakes can be rubbed out and re-marked again in the correct position.

Felt-tip pens: Ideal for colouring in any white exposed edges on the edges or joint lines between the kit parts. Keep a selection of suitable colours to match as closely to the brick and stone printed texture sheets.

Old cloth or tissue paper

For any unwanted glue spills or for those occasions when you accidentally get glue on the parts of the kit that shouldn’t have glue on. An old cloth is ideal for quickly wiping away excess glue. I use an old dishcloth for this purpose and keep it next to my work area in case I need to grab it quickly in the event of a mishap whilst using the glue.

Corner jig tool

Correct alignment of walls & corner joints is essential, a miss-aligned wall or another kit part can cause problems later in a kit build. A corner jig tool like our SX002 is another of our recommended items for your modelling toolbox. It aids the alignment of kit parts to give perfect 90-degree corners. To use, simply place both kit parts together & then run a bead of glue along the corner joint line, holding both parts against the side walls of the jig whilst the glue sets. The jig also features laser engraved angle markings, great for those modelling jobs when parts need to be fitted together at different angles other than 90 degrees.

Sanding board and sand paper

With laser-cut parts once cut from a parts sheet sometimes need the pips that held the part to the part sheet need to be sanded back flush & smooth. Any pips on the part edges that haven’t been sanded back flush can cause texture wraps not to sit smoothly on the laser-cut part. A sanding board such as our SX011 above is just the job. They hook over the edge of a workbench or table making it ideal for quickly sanding parts during a build. The built-in clamp holds the sandpaper firmly in place, as well as allowing for it to be quickly replaced as required.

Sanding sticks or nail files

Staying with sanding, another tool that's really useful is sanding sticks. It's worth keeping a few of these in your toolbox for quick sanding jobs. If you are on a limited budget, then consider buying cosmetic nail file sanding sticks as a cheap alternative. Sanding sticks are great for getting into any narrow gaps and slots on kit parts, or filing away any rough or splintered edges.

Bundles

We've put together a couple of easy bundles so you can get everything you need in one go, instead of purchasing everything separately…

Kit Building for Beginners - Essentials Tool Kit: Contains all the essential tools you need for getting great results when building kits for your model railway layouts/dioramas, dolls house and gardens or crafting projects.

Toolkit Contents:

Laser Cut Kit Building - Expert Tool Kit: Containing all the tools you'll need to get the very best from your laser-cut kits.

Toolkit Contents:

Not essentials but very useful…

Small wooden scraps

SX027 Cotton Tipped Glue Removal Swabs (Pack of 50): Tina's favourite tool on the workbench, these cotton tipped glue removal swabs are just the job for cleaning up excess glue from small, delicate parts. Ideal for cleaning up excess glue from your windows and edges on your model buildings and miniatures. Can be used dry to soak up excess glue. Then moistened with water to wipe away any remaining residue.

Cocktail, lollipop and headless wooden matchsticks: You can pick all of these up very cheaply and you may even find them in a cupboard already! Very useful for adding small components to buildings, making tiny accessories and even making small fences, gates and roof sections.

Storage solutions

SX006 Workbench Organiser Tray: Keep your workbench tidy with our handy 5 compartment workbench organiser tray. This tray has two full length compartments for storing craft knives, rulers, paint brushes and parts etc. One half length and two small compartments for storing bottles of glue, glue tips, tweezers etc. Trays can be lined or painted with materials and paints of your choice to suit your own individual style.

SX014 Low Profile Modellers Organiser Tray: An essential workbench organiser for every modeller, crafter and kit builder. Perfect for keeping your working area tidy and preventing knives, pens, rulers and glue from dropping onto the floor. With everything perfectly organised and in its place just think of the amount of time you'll save not having to search for tools!

Glue stands: To prevent any accidental spillage of any open glue bottles on your modelling workbench, a glue bottle holder is worth considering. It will prevent any accidents by holding the glue bottles securely. Our SX025 Deluxe Materials Glue Stand is really useful for 3 bottles of the same size, in particular Roket Glue/Glue'n'Glaze/Super Phatic, or three of each.

Browse our range of storage solutions here

Where Can I find the above tools & bits?

Head on over to the tools & glues section of our website to find everything you need for your model kit building toolkit.

Have fun and happy modelling!

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