Workspace Setups

[marine7312000]

Any one have an example of a homemade paint rack? I've been considering building one and am trying to decide what type of wood to use.

[SW1]

Any one have an example of a homemade paint rack? I've been considering building one and am trying to decide what type of wood to use.

I've got a rack made out of wire ducting stuck to a sheet of board with 'no more nails' glue. Will take a pic later.

[Teetengee]

I have a lab bench on a screened in porch with (usually) a set of work lights as well as some natural lighting for modeling. For painting I have a separate little coffee table like set up with a cardboard box flattened on it. I often prime on either the lab bench or the cardboard alone out in the yard/on the driveway. Painting is done either on the straight cardboard on a table or the bench or on the cardboard on coffee table on table or lap/floor. I often like to work on a swivel chair that is barstool height. (the coffee table on table setup is just the right height for that.)

[Gurth]

Thought I’d share the current state of my hobby room, to give some contrast to the neat and tidy state of affairs most of you seem to have This is an old photography dark room¹ in the attic, maybe three metres wide, of which most is under the sloped part of the roof, and two metres from the door (where I stood to take the photos) to the wall.

We’ll be going from left to right:

An ancient (1950s?) cabinet, with the glass shutters removed, that serves as storage for all kinds of accessory kit boxes (mostly for 1/35th scale military models and stuff like epoxy putties, flock, etc.), the two drawers on the left holding all my paint — that’s two layers in the open drawer, and two more in the closed one at the top, though it contains the paints I don’t use much as well as the spare bottles if I have more than one of a particular colour. The models on top are some I started to build and/or paint, and intend to finish one of these years. Yes, the doors can’t open without major shifting of materials — that’s OK, inside is nothing but old crap I never need anyway

My actual work area, with a couple of those plastic chests of drawers to hold all kinds of bits and pieces, both for “serious” modelling and wargames. The stacks of boxes barely visible underneath, on the left, consist of spares boxes (in GW-speak: “bits boxes”), mostly for military modelling again, but also one or two with 40K and assorted other fantasy/sci-fi games-related parts.

The Confrontation sign that you can see the tail end of at the top of the photo is from a shop display, bought for a few euros when a game store I frequented closed. Opposite it is a 40K one, from the same source

A better view of the work area: cutting mat (taped to the surface) in the middle, chests with small parts and a box with some tools against the wall, and in front of them are different glues, old jam jars with mineral spirits and water (to clean brushes and thin paint) and paint brushes. Most tools on the right, next to the cutting mat, and instruction sheets, documentation, etc. to the right of those. On the left, stirring sticks for paint (yes, paints work better if you treat them the opposite of James Bond’s martinis ) and then some more models that are supposed to be finished someday — in this case, mostly for 40K and BattleTech.

Look at the wall, below the electrical outlets, and I’ll give you a handy tip: stick some fridge magnets to a vertical surface with double-sided tape, and you can use them to hold steel objects such as spare knife blades, small saws, drill bits (if you only have a few rather than a box set), and similar.

And the right side, with another table, which is mostly empty now because I intend to set up a portable photography studio there, for taking photos of the models. The shelves with the models (lots of gaming ones here) I only built the other week from some old chipboard. The computer is a 1999-vintage iMac that I used to use to look up information I needed when building models, but it’s not much use anymore since Safari 3.x seems to crash every time I visit a search engine with it. Maybe I should replace it by a more recent computer, but I don’t think I have the room to do that if I also want to put the photography studio on the table. The vice, BTW, is the type with a clamp, so it sits here only to get it out of the way — I clamp it to the work area when I need it.

The packets and things hanging down at the top of the photo are gaming figures and accessories (on the other side, in the first photo, are their 1/35th scale military counterparts) that I have another tip for: they hang from a rack I improvised by buying some rod used to build kites, of 3 mm diameter I think. I sawed that to lengths of maybe 30 cm, drilled holes in the roof beam, and stuck the pieces of rod into them. This is ideal for hanging blister packs and ziplock bags with holes — and if you have a bag without, you can just force the rod through the plastic if you want to.

¹ Astute readers might wonder: a dark room that seems to have a window … ? Blame that on some pigeons that decided to nest under the roof some years ago, necessitating repairs so the opportunity was taken to put a window in — which I now regret because in summer the sun often shines through an opening between the blind and the windowframe, reflects off my tweezers among the tools, and hits me right in the eyes