FIGHT the Hobby Tax... at the Hardware Store!
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- You can get great stuff for your hobby at the hardware store - and pay hardware prices INSTEAD of hobby prices.
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"Hobby Tax" is such a good term for this phenomenon. I first encountered this taking art classes in college. They sold ArtBin (brand name) storage boxes for art supplies at the campus bookstore. They were so egregiously marked up that even the store employee told me just go to Walmart or a hardware store and get a Plano fishing tackle box for a third of the price.
gosh yeah I tell everyone to get tool and tackle boxes instead of artbin
I can confirm that. When I got into Warhammer 40K last year (I stumbled across a GW store and the wholesome assistant / manager really taught me to paint minis and having fun doing so), the store clerk outright said: "those Citadel spray sticks are fancy mumbo-jumbo. Wooden paint stirrers and and double-sided tape just work as well."
To be honest, ~ 80% of the Citadel Tools brand stuff is overpriced. It isn't bad, but for the scalpel knives, files and plastic glue, there's cheaper, but equally good alternatives:
Plastic cement: Tamiya extra thin. Less cost, more precision with the applicator brush.
Precision knives: MiniatureAid or WEDO brands are not as fancy, but work just fine.
Brushes: Citadel brushes are fine, but a bit expensive. GWs Dry brushes are worth the cost. Brushes for basecoating or fine details: Da Vinc (JUNIOR and MicroNova series) or Army Painter are perfect for my needs.
Rattlecan primer sprays: GW brand is good, but expensive. Army Painter can work, but you need to take extra care for the nozzles. Cleaning the nozzles with Q-Tips and Isopropyl alcohol will prevent lots of headaches.
I find Rustoleum brand primers work really well to basecoat minis. Ive used it for both resin prints and GW models. Montana Gold graffiti paints are also exceptional. both of these brands are incredibly cheap compared to GW sprays, like 4 euros a can and in the case of Montana gold come in a silly huge variety of colours
@@CranialMalfunction For the Tamiya extra thin cement I find that if you buy the Tamiya airbrush cleaner and use it as a refill for your Tamiya thin cement it saves you over buying more bottles of the Tamiya extra thin cement. Two bottles alone will cost the same amount as one bottle of the Tamiya airbrush cleaner and you’ll get 6 times as much for one bottle of the Tamiya extra thin cement. Tamiya extra thin cement one bottle is 40 milliliters and Tamiya airbrush cleaner is 250 milliliters per bottle and there basically the same mixture of chemicals.
The markup is because a lot of people buy these things with student aid (usually our tax dollars) instead of paying directly out of pocket.
My favorite is powdered drywall spackle. A tablespoon of the powder, a bit of water, some grit, and a few drops of paint makes dozens of bases worth of texture paste for about ten cents.
I just buy a tub of ready mixed wall filler.
Straight from the tub, you can spread a little on your base with a sculpting tool or painting knife and carve texture into it. Or you can add a little water and PVA glue for that more paintable consistency.
As you say, you can then also add sand, gravel and paint to taste on a case-by-case basis.
Spackle the pink that turns white as it dries tubs will last forever and acrylic grout as well, I use a bit of water, grout, craft paint, white glue and some sandbox sand and make up a base/terrain goop by the small container.
As a former employee at a hardware store and a Warhammer player, I can tell you spray paint is spray paint. The games workshop spray paint has 50% more accelerant which just means it dries faster but cost $30 here in Canada. If you go to a hardware store and get a black primer or white primer for about $13 or $14 hobby tax indeed
Thank you for the advice, I'm going to try it
Yeah! I like a bit of pva glue or matte medium in there, too. Also inks..ink works well here. Many options!
I started to dry my teabags after making the tea. Earl Gray or Darjeeling make for a pretty good baseing material. And if you mix different types of tea you get some fun textures.
Great tip - another good option for this (I got it from Mel the terrain tutor) is Mixed herbs - you can normally buy them very cheaply in pretty big bags, they make excellent jungle/forest floor style detritus, and it makes your basing/terrain box smell lovely!
So Iam not the only one who does this! 😆
I eventually skipped the drying step and just mixed some cheap ground coffee and earl grey tea for a whole lot of forest ground cover for an acrylic mat project a few months ago. I have plenty left over, so it's easy to match my miniature bases to the mat perfectly, too.
How do you dry them? I did try just airing them but they went bad before drying. Do you need to do it in an oven or something?
...Huh. Never considered using tea grounds for basing material.
Also worth mentioning that art stores are another great place to get higher quality stuff without the hobby tax. A fine sanding sponge at my art store costs around £1, whereas tamiya sell the exact same thing for £6. Likewise with spray cans - if you want a finer finish than a car primer can give, spray cans from art stores cost around the same as a hobby store but give a much better finish.
Flow medium is another that is much cheaper when intended for artists rather than modellers. Artists acrylics (those Windsor and Newton toothpaste like tubes) are good and comparatively cheap for the dry brushing step for things like slapchop (certain types of Makeup brushes are good for this too.) And the cheap craft paints are fine for painting scenery
It's been my experience that art stores will have quality primer in an outrageous number of colors too. Great tip!
It’s funny how as an artist we call at the art tax at the art store, but it even goes up higher if it’s at the hobby store! As I work in the entertainment industry, there are number things that we use that are black and sometimes we call it the black tax when the same thing is cheaper if you buy it at the hardware store and it’s a bright color like orange.
Instead of using Tamiya X-22 clear, I use Kamar Varnish spray that is a better value in my opinion. It's meant for canvases, but works wonderfully for plastic models.
I live in Norway, and the art supply store is the most expensive place to get spray paint - starting at 50% more than TAP or GW stuff. The chemicals section at a large hardware/camping/car supply store (yes, it's very confused) has decent paint for plastic that I use as primer though. Sand paper prices are all over the place, with one store demanding a fortune for fine grit paper (1000+) in individual sheets, and another had them at friendly prices.
Brushes I thought were expensive are actually cheap at the art store though. The GW/Vallejo/TAP prices at the FLGS here have to be a markup in the triple digits. I've also found really nice brushes, particularly ones suited for drybrushing, at the strangest places. Those little stores with all sorts of household knickknacks are great. If they sell as diverse things as soap, tea strainers and gift boxes, chances are they'll have cheap brushes too.
All my and my sons miniatures have washers in the base (sized to just fit for maximum contact) with magnetic sheeting placed in storage boxes for storage and transport. As they have washers I made magnetic painting handles and a magnetic spray holder. The handles are two disposable plastic shot glasses from the supermarket, with two magnets (to stop the miniature spinning) in-between, all joined together with bonding sealant. The bonding sealant and two shot glasses prevents the strong magnets from pulling off when the handles are stacked (saves space). The spray handle is some offcut wood, cut to a handle shape at one end and drilled to depth to allow 5 magnets spaced evenly, then a thin piece of plastic strip stuck over them with bonding sealant. Works a treat :)
I'll have to try this... I've been using pennies as bases but the magnetism sounds like a very useful feature!
I feel like this is a really smart solution, but I can't picture what you're trying to describe here. Do you have an image on imgur or something?
I think I am going to do the inverse:
Find some small magnets to bond to my models.
Mostly as I live in a trailer, and thowing some sheet steel on top of my window valences will give me good secure storage space for the models.
@@BenBRockN i havent got any images online unfortunately. If i get some time next week, ill make a quick video and post to youtube.
Flush cutters. That’s the name of a snipper specifically designed to produce as flush of a cut as possible. And honestly, I can’t tell the difference. Hand clamps also make a pretty good alternative to painting handles.
Single-blade nippers can be a pretty significant difference, for that second cut. So sharp you can take parts of the model off if you don't clip carefully.
I think I got one of those detail magnifier clamp assemblies at Harbor freight for about $10.
I've used the harbor freight flush cutters for 4 years. They work great
I was a bit confused too. Yeah, I "swear by" my flush cutters, but they were only ten bucks.
I’m a big fan of the Klein brand flush cutters. Typically get mine at the local electrical supply place, but I think Lowes (not my fav place btw) sells Klein now also.
A good hobby hack in this vain to check out is cheap plastic signs from pound shops or dollar stores. "beware of dogs" or "no trespassing" signs can be a good replacement for plastic card sheets that cost an arm and a leg from hobby stores
I’ve done that before too - but I’ve also saved old gift cards for that purpose. Free plastic card! Thanks for watching!
The dollar store often sell toys/playsets dirt cheap - "Construction Playset" "Farm!" "Police-Time Now" and others will often come with street signs etc with cool shapes ready to paint with a thematically appropriate message.
"Heresy starts with YOU!", "Jittery Jim's Croc-Burgers", "Helmwar Street" etc :D
I wouldn't give most of these to a child I like though - the plastics off-gas real nasty sometimes, can't be good for ya
@@tabletopminionsdo you need to do anything to prep the surface of the plastic card before painting?
* vein.
There is a company that makes signs for businesses near me, they sell the off cuts dirt cheap. I can get plenty of Expanded PVC pieces for all sorts of terrain for next to nothing. Check out your local custom sign shops for their off cuts.
8:00 It’s all about takeout tubs. Free once you’ve enjoyed your takeout, reduces waste/trash, good lids most of the time. The flat tray ones can be organizers or wet palettes, and the round soup containers are good for soaking used models in simple green.
All excellent points.
Not hardware store specifically, but I often save my clear plastic packaging from random things I buy. It's perfect for making windows! Even better for making stained glass windows that are actually translucent. Just grab a package of something, cut out a miniature window, apply some marker, and done! Beautiful stained glass windows!
I save the flat parts of plastic milk jugs (after washing!) for this too. Adding led lights but want it to be a diffuse glow? The opaque plastic of a milk jug is perfect for this kind of thing!
Yeah, i made some terrains using a cookie plastic package that look like it have some pipes as texture. Filled with expandable polyurethane foam to give it some weight and make it less maleable, and it's awesome. There are many things like that that we just throw off
Window screen. Can be turned into fencing or steel grating or used on Gaslands cars,and so on. And if your hardware store does window screen repairing there’s a good chance they may have scraps of screen they’ll just give you.
You could also use hardware cloth for a mesh with slightly larger openings and more rigidity.
How can it be turned into something that looks nothing like it? I've never seen fencing that looked anything remotely like window screen. Steel grating is also nothing like window screen.
Guess you're easily satisfied.
@@TheEudaemonicPlague Metal pieces forming a grid? Yes, that is good enough for many purposes at a small scale. If you don't like it that's fine, but why be such a hater? "Easily satisfied?" No, but I couldn't imagine being so miserable that I'd insult and be a pointless hater toward somebody over craft suggestions. When you grow up maybe you can try again :)
@@TheEudaemonicPlagueEasily satisfied? Or people who have an imagination, and would rather save a few dollars for a detail that most will never notice?
I mean, feel free to be as pretentious as you want, but not everyone can, or is willing to spend several bucks on a tiny bit of replica chain link fence, or fine wire mesh, when they could get 20x the amount of material in hardware store bug screen, for probably the same price.
Especially for use on something like Gaslands cars, or other actual game pieces.
Dioramas are one thing, game pieces are another to me.
@TheEudaemonicPlague You've never seen chain link fencing? Like window screen rotated 45° cut into strips and put on sprue pipes? You REALLY need to get out more.
Dollar store is my friend for a ton of stuff to avoid the hobby tax, foam board, rocks, sand, grit, cork, small boards, dowels, popsicle sticks, skewers etc etc all for like 1 or 2 dollars. Also the 1.25 a big bottle of craft acrylics for terrain and basing goop. As well as storage boxes of all kinds and shapes, they have a lot of stackable and some witrh little containers that all organize in drawers as an all in one kinda kit.
I got the electrical box trick from an old White Dwarf! Back before GW just tried to sell you their terrain kits they would give actual crafting instructions.
When Shadow War Armageddon came out, I made a whole table of terrain using various electrical boxes. They stack incredibly well.
Ah yes, the good old days when White Dwarf covered many games, gave crafting and modeling tips (not just for Citadel Minis) and added value to games you had, that were sometimes quite obscure.
The deodorant speeder days!
The hardware store and Staples gave me: metal washers, magnetic sheets, and Really Useful boxes. This is the best miniature storage I’ve ever had. Glue washers to bases, store them in the boxes on magnet sheets, and they travel well too. Plus, washers make the plastic models feel weighty.
As a person who really misses the weight of old metal minis, this is good. And potentially cheaper than sticking nickels to the bottom. Love the magnet idea. Might try that with shipping finished single minis.
I went the other route, a rare earth magnet on the base and a cheap sheet of metal or a box with a metal bottom. I did the washers until I got sick of cutting them for slotted based.
@@meatbyproducts slotted bases... the flashbacks... oooh.... cavalry slotted bases.... lol
@ianh1010 yeah, i flocked and based 600 cav models one night for a customer. I hate slotted bases and flock.
RUB is the funniest brand name. It's All There In The Name. Bit of a Who's On First situation though
I don't know if it's true of all hobby stores, but it was definitely true in my area, but the hobby tax is likely the side effect of local hobby gaming stores operating at a loss. When I was younger, I went out of my way to maximize my savings by buying second hand, finding cheaper workable alternatives for tools and paints, and ended up spending less at my local hobby gaming store. I wasn't the only one. Now I have a 4,000 point Warhammer 40,000 army, and no local hobby gaming store to play at. Do whatever works best for you, but make sure to show your local hobby gaming store some love, doubly so if you actually play there on a regular basis.
Sounds like the store got priced out of existence by their sources of merchandise not by you buying what you wanted at the price you accepted
I buy my BattleTech minis directly from my local game store and I still don't have anyone to play with lmao
@WayoftheFerret yeah I got all of my armada stuff from my local hobby store and no one else buys the stuff it seems.
Sounds like they were trying to compete against literal garbage, which is free.
Best clippers I have found, is the electronic component cutters.
They flat. They are sharp. They honestly are the best
Stores selling cheap toys for kids are great also. I picked up a couple of cheap garage playsets, filed bits off here, snipped bits off there, add some greeblies, then paint and weather. It's great fun to do and gives you awesome terrain!
Also if you can find the right size a kids toy can be a great body to throw stuff on to create a mini.
I bought a Carnasaur model, was in Walgreens and saw dinosaur toys, so I grabbed one, cut into it a bit, strapped the fin /spine on it and built myself a Troglodon Oracle as well as the Carnasaur.
I recall several videos elsewhere about how discounted toys from the flopped Buzz Lightyear movie happened to be at the perfect scale for Stargrave and their design was actually pretty good with a bit of repainting 🤣
My ideas: You can cut a broomstick down to short lengths (easiest if you have a drop saw) and use blu-tac to make painting handles. Blu-tac doesn't harden or become brittle like the white poster putty. Another tip: if you like Ferrero Rocher chocolates, their plastic boxes are great for mini painters. The deep ones can carry a good quantity of miniatures, are transparent, and stack well. Their shallower containers are ideal for a wet pallette (using a piece of Wettex and grease proof baking paper). Some of these products may have a different name in the US.
Thanks for spreading the word about this underused resource. I worked at a small hardware store through college. I used my employee discount to get so many hobby tools and pieces to build terrain.
Halloween costumes, make up aisles, and water color brushes.
Halloween costumes for kids often have amazing terrian materials. Necklaces, crowns, rings, and the other embellishments. Are often made from a durable soft plastic and have intricate designs great for fancy greebles.
Makeup aisles will have dirt cheap sponges, sanding sticks/files, UV cure dome lamps for nails can cure larger areas that a little light will take forever.
I bought some $2 water color brushes to use for my metalic paints so i wouldn't ruin my better quality brushes. The fine tipped water color brush has lasted over 2 years and has no signs of getting worn out. Bought it to be disposable and it had very different plans
I think everyone has used fish tank decorations as terrain in their early career. Quick and easy "exotic jungle plants" for usually relatively cheap, plus odd shaped bits that can be hills and rock formations, or even just aquarium bottom gravel for larger rubble.
One of the first terrain pieces I actually "crafted" was an exterior water faucet cover that I turned into a bunker. It was a Styrofoam "box" that I put an unused door from an old Whirlwind (since it came with the Rhino door that I didn't need) and a few greeblies to make it look like a bunker. I painted the exterior grey and touched up the bits, and had a neat LoS blocking building.
Hahaha GW once made Jungletrees and plants out of green Plastik. Lots of People who do Fish Tanks bought them, cause the quality was solid.
Alien Tape! It's a game changer! I paint and prime in batches mainly, 20+ at a time using pill bottles for handles. Putty or poster tack has failed so many times. And regular tape won't fill the gap beneath most miniatures because its so thin. I cut small squares of Alien Tape. It's is sticky on both sides, rubbery and thick. If the space below the mini base is super deep i just stack two tape pieces together. When done, just twist figure off the bottle. Has never failed. Holds them solid indefinitely to handle, but can always be taken off, even many months later. Can mount hundreds with a single roll of tape. I'm proud of me for thinking of it! (Though someone may have done it, no one ever told me! Been doing it for years. Try it! Happy painting all! I so enjoy this community.)
Carpet tape or blue tack poster putty I use to hold my miniatures for painting. Alien tape is twice the price as carpet tape in my area.
@justcraziii I should clarify, I'm painting board game minis with bases. Carpet tape around here is less than 1mm thick, and will only stick to the rims. Doesn't reach the bases like Alien tape. And like I said, I've had models just fall off of blue tack/ putty.
As a decorator from the UK and miniature painter I use emulsion/ vinyl matt tester pots for terrain painting, acrylic caulk for gap filling (really cheap tubes), crystal clear mastic for water effects/rivers, easy fill and grouts for rocks (mix into a tray, let dry smash up in a plastic bag et Voila), mitre bond and spray for superglue....loads of hacks out there. Great video!
Wooden dowels and out of season gardening supplies (coconut fiber planter liners) work well for inexpensive foundations of woodland terrain
I have a ton things that I get for hobbying from the hardware store, but many have already mentioned most of them. But one I haven't seen yet is Durham's Rock Putty. One thing I like to use it for is crumpling up aluminum foil and using it as a mold to pour the putty into. Once dry, I break it up and use it for rock pieces or even as ground cover (for mini and terrain basing, alike). You can even make a stone/brick mold using balsa wood and foil texture and make castle-building brick. Long time ago, I made my first castle that way (well, more like a keep/tower, but you get the idea)!
Plastic pipe diameter converters are my favourite buy in the hardware store. I've made them into bubbling vats, massive industrial exhausts, bunkers with vision/gun ports cut in, and half covered them in expanding foam as "hills" for post-apoc reskins of fantasy games.
I work in the hardware department at a big box store. Over the last several years I have helped my customers save money doing exactly what your video says. Thank you for an excellent video. It should help a lot of people.
I've never heard it referred to as "hobby tax" before. I like that analogy.
It was used back in the 80s when you would buy glue or testers paint and then look how much your 50 cents got you vs what a tube of paint really costs. I always remembered hating paying for a pot of paint for D&D minis back in the day.
It's probably a reference to the actual used term "pink tax". That's the phenomenon that the same product or service but in pink for the ladies is often more expensive than the non gendered product.
There's also a "baby tax." Take any kind of product, but put an infant on the package and sell it in the baby aisle and suddenly it's 3x more.
We use the word craft tax a lot in quilting and sewing.
i just bought 5x3 plywood, crumpled up paper around some sticks and branches, and stretched white fleece over all it to make a diorama for a christmas train, many items can be found if you can imagine
I use the storage boxes known as "Really Useful Boxes" brand. They are more expensive but very sturdy and with very firm locking clamps so nothing falls out. I also use a type of compartmentalised storage boxes from a company called Wham to store completed figures as well as 1/144 or 15mm armour.
I have found a range of compartmentalised storage boxes with removable dividers. As these can be customised, they are ideal for storing SF ships including WH40K Battlefleet Gothic ships and, more recently the ships from Dropfleet Commander. These are again more expensive than food containers but very versatile and robust. A lot seem to be craft related for storing sewing items etc.
i wanted some modern agricultural silos for my team yankee. took two cans of energy drink, filled them with sand. glued them up to contain the sand. some cardboard around the exterior. glued a straw to the side of each for pipeing, and made a cap for each with hard cardboard. pretty simple. hardware stores are great for terrain building, but so is parts of your trash.
Some good tips as usual.
Another one is looking outside of our hobby niche. For instance, for terrain, model railway/railroad will have good knowledge of ways to save money and what works as they will typically be buying much more than a wargaming fan might, so knowing people who enjoy that can be useful for their off cuts etc. For instance cork is typically used quite a lot as an underlay for the track, and so it is sold in big rolls quite cheap, though more people are moving to using thin plywood or foam, both of which can be useful for wargaming.
The car parts store/garage could be a useful source too, as they will have all sorts of weird things, and if you are friends with they may have bits that are trash to them.
As an artist, I absolutely know. Sometimes a quality product is the correct price, but if I want some decent ink, they are definitely joking.
My favorite this time of year is getting the leftover container from Ferro Roche candy. The big flat tray with the insert is perfect to hold 28mm bases. Its a good way to hold you minis upright and separate while you are inbetween painting stages.
I use one as part of my homemade wet pallet. Props!
I've literally got a couple of completely empty clear containers from FR (took out the "egg carton") that I use as clear-on-all-sides, decently sized storage and catching trays for, like, corks that I chunk apart and stuff.
Great topic. I use a ton of stuff from the hardware store, but my tops are.
-Premixed concrete patch. 8 bucks for a small tub. Sticks to add gritty texture to anything. Keeps a shape to conceal bases and contour terrain. Sticks other materials together when building terrain.
-Sand Mix Concrete. 7 bucks for a 40 pound bag. My go to solution sure quick rocky soil on bases and terrain. A mix of fine concrete for soil, sand for grit and small gravel. PVA, CA or just water sets it in place.
-Sheetrock paint texture additive. 5 bucks for a small tub. It's just ground pumice. Glue anywhere you want texture or mix with your choice of point to make texture paint or texture paste in any color!
-NRP Sheet. Around 15 buck 4x8 foot thin PVC sheet for terrain building or possibly basing. Pebbled and cracked textures have use as cobblestone. Easy to cut and shape with a knife, snips or HD scissors.
For anyone ordering paint agitators. get 304 or 316 stainless steel ball bearings. these are foodgrade stainless steel, theyre dirt cheap, and theyre VERY resistant to nearly everything. its the cheapest options as ball bearings at this size is cheap and you get like 200-300 of em for less than anything else
-Snippers can also be bought from tool shops. as theyre common tools for electricians and can be found in a wide array of quality and price.
-medical pill/measure cups are dirt cheap and you get packs pf 50-200 of em
-stirring sticks are also dirt cheap. theyre exelent for various uses.
-Coctail swords are excelent and cheap if you want to litter the base/diorama
-you can buy regular drill bits, and simply use cheap clay to give it a handle. anything marked HSS should last you a lifetime. and even trash ones are harder than plastic and will last ages.
-For cheap diorama bases you can use kitchen/bathroom tiles that people give away or leftover building materials from building sites
-The CHEAPEST saw you can get, that doesnt remove a lot of material, like regular saws are jewelry saws.
Hexagon nuts stainless steel works great to and dont clog the bottle
Baking Beans work great too
Even easier, use cut up sprue. The plastic won't rust
Hematite Loose Beads for Jewelry Making
I have had many hobbies over the years, from electronics to art, modeling and so on, and deeply relate to this video. I try to reuse containers and things I have when I can so when I saw you also used a pill bottle for painting minis I was so happy. Hardware stores have always been my go-to for ideas and potential bits for all kinds of stuff I have worked on! I love going down the aisles i'd generally never think about looking through and finding cool or useful stuff. Another great place is thrift stores/second hand stores, in their "home improvement" type area I got a huge sheet of brass flashing for doors for 1.99, as well as various sizes of copper flashing sheets for 2.99. It always pays to look around a little and you might even have a bit of fun or pick up some stuff for a new hobby along the way!
Back when GW didn’t yet make everything under the sun, they actually advised people to get PVA glue etc. from the hardware store…
Apart from the models themselves, many of the gaming supplies are just sourced from elsewhere and re-branded.
I have a GIANT bottle of wood glue that I've barely put a dent in and it's still good a decade later.
Another suggestion could be to poke your head into the train hobby store.
A lot of the little bits of moss and rocks used to decorate bases ends up much cheaper.
Also at the hardware store you can grab some grout powder in various colors. Spread it on a base and then spray with an alcohol/water mixture to dry to create sand or snow ect.
My partner loves working on minis and I tend to do model train stuff so we always find weird new ways to make our hobbies cheaper.
Don't forget your local Dollar Store as well. The one near me sells art supplies, as well as the cheap bins, etc.
I am a chef by training and profession. I live by the phrase, "Mise en place is life!" It means everything in it's place AND labeled correctly.
In my kitchen we use blue painters tape and a black sharpie to label and date everything. The tape comes off without leaving residue for continued use. It's also common to use plastic quart and half-quart containers for storage and for use during service.
Colored electrical tape on similar looking handles easily identifies not only knife ownership, but if a chart is created then color coding tasks and tools like I do cutting boards (green for vegetables, red for raw meat, yellow for raw chicken, white for dairy and baked goods, blue for fish, brown for cooked meat, and purple for allergies) then it's easy to find a tool at a glance.
Wooden stirrer sticks are about the right width and thickness for planks, the cut off semicircles work as shingles. Tie wraps are great greebles, but can also be ammo belts. squared shaslick/sate sticks are great wooden beams, cocktailsticks are about the right length for pallisades.
I would check out a product called "flush cuts" designed for electrical work as a possible replacement for the "godhand" tool. 0:57
In the UK we call it filler, I think in the US it's Spackle, the premixed stuff in tubs. Add a bit of water to the top of the tub and a slight mix with the top layer, then use it to brush onto your foam terrain. Cheaper than Mod Podge, I've been using it for year and it gives a good solid coating that lasts.
I love using spackle to base, and it's good enough to paint on after 30 minutes
Keep in mind that Mod Podge is just a more dilute PVA, like any white glue. So you can buy the big jugs of PVA, add a bit of dish soap and then dilute it with water and shake to mix. The only difference is that, I think, Mod Podge uses a stabilizer to keep them permanently mixed, and normal PVA almost always has a brighter sheen.
I mix wood glue with it to give it a little more strength, works great.
I wasn't sure what "poster putty" was until I realised he was referring to blu tac (which I realise is a brand name, we like using brands as catch-all names).
@GiblerAugustyn I never would have thought of using joint compound to substitute for Sculptamold. I'll have to look into that, given that I've got part of a giant bucket of the stuff downstairs.
Yup! This applies to many hobbies. I'm personally into aquariums. If you go to a big box store (Petco/PetSmart) or even your local fish store you can expect to find 5 to 10 lb bags of gravel for 20+ dollars. But if you were to go to a hard weare store like The Home Depot you can find a 50 lb bag of gravel for under 10 dollars.
For DECADES, I've been saving things like wire offcuts, broken tape recorders, sheets of coloured translucent plastic, all kinds of things you'd normally throw away as useless, but they make great accents and "greeblies" for vehicles and playsets and even action figure customs.
Got a plain old Arctic HiSS from G. I. Joe? Glue on a bunch of plastic and metal waste, give it a rusty paint job, and you've got yourself a Jawa Hi-Speed Scout Sandcrawler!
Speaking of cheap hobby solutions and hardware stores:
-Couple of those plastic shoe bins
-Cheap sheet metal roughly the size of the bottom of the bin
-Roll of gorilla mounting tape
-Pack of magnets to stick under your model bases+glue or epoxy putty
As long as you made sure to get a magnetic piece of sheetmetal you just made a magnetic carrying/storage bin for your models. Is this a 1 size fits all? No, if you're going on a flight or something you still probably need a better case. But storing your models or driving somewhere to play? Excellent. Hell, I've used this setup (and will be using it again in a few days) to bring an army from Nasvhille to NYC when visiting friends. Everything from Redemptor dreads, to models with little delivate bits like arco flagulents all made it intact.
Mailing tubes can be purchased cheaply in a wide range of sizes at most office supply stores, and raw cork bark can be purchased online, too.
pringle cans lso, theyre basically waterproof mailing tubes.
I've always said that one of the best things people can do regardless of what kind of hobbies they are into, is watch people like Adam Savage or other special effects model folks. The stuff they are able to build out of things you would never think of is both mind boggling and inspiring.
ball bearings that wont rust are available at my local hardware store. Ive used them for paint agitators for years. Most paints these days come with them but some still dont.
They also make glass bearings no rust problem
Glass beads at your craft store work as well. =^[.]^=
If they're not made of marine grade stainless they will eventually rust.
Glass marbles from the dollar store, or little rock work as well.
For anyone ordering paint agitators. get 304 or 316 stainless steel. these are foodgrade stainless steel, rathe dirt cheap, and theyre VERY resistant to nearly everything. its the cheapest options as ball bearings at this size is dirt cheap and you get like 300 of em for less than what you get in stores
As a gundam modeler and an IT professional, those nylon spudgers are godsends! great for prying pieces apart (and the nylon doesn't bite the plastic nearly as bad), positioning tiny parts/stickers/decals, or adjusting parts for posing/building.
Dollar Store is great for me. Bargain toys that I saw in half can make destroyed vehicles for terrain. As well as rocks for vases or fish tanks that I put in a zip lock bag and smash with a hammer to make smaller bits make amazing basing materials
As for the storage containers, you can make them better by purchasing flat steel sheets from where you would buy duct work and cut them to fit the bottom of the container. Then glue the sheet to the bottom of the container and it will create a magnetic base. Attach round magnets to your bases and this will hold your stuff in place and be easy to remove. Just be careful when cutting the metal sheet, sharp edges.
Long time follower, I’m from Spain and although English language it’s not a problem to me, seeing your video simultaneously translated to Spanish thanks to AI it’s great news. Congratulations uncle for you have a lot to say to Spanish community!!!
I once turned a piece of urethane "gun warm up" foam into a winter spaceship crash site. I used a pull tab as a "control panel" for a beacon antenna by putting the small end into the foam and painting the controls on the rolled over bigger flat part. The "antenna" was a flared out piece of coax cable. You can also find a ceramics shop and buy lots of cool supplies for paints and special effects for surfaces.
I’ve been using double sided mounting tape to secure models to paint stir sticks and pill bottles. Works great. When used on the pill bottles it stays sticky for a while so I’ve used the same piece on multiple models.
The best storage boxes I've ever used are "fish filet pans." They're HDPE plastic with snap-on lids designed for frozen fish. They're a perfect size for ~90% of the model kits I've had to store, mostly 1/48 jets and 1/35 armor. They're tough, very stable when stacked, seal perfectly, and you might be able to find them cheaply. I got mine from a seafood restaurant.
Funny thing about Army Painter sets, that little guidebook that comes with them is actually really high quality and really well written, imo worth saving for a new hobbyist. Covers all the basics and has clear illustrations also it's far from a marketing rag.
Something i would recommend is one of those plastic boxes screws and things of that nature come in, the ones that are divided into square hutches, preferably made of transparent plastic. I've got a small one divided into 18 hutches about an inch square and it is INVALUABLE for building plastic kits, especially say big squads of space marines. Honestly worth going to Poundland, finding one of these screw sets and chucking out the screws to get the box! I believe there are similar things for beadwork but tbh they usually have less hutches and imo it's pretty much quantity over quality.
Things I've picked up from hardware stores for crafting:
Wire brushes
Glues and adhesives of all kinds
Galvanized wire (gotta clean that stuff off first)
Sandpaper for when I need to roughen a surface up for gluing or whatever
Washers to give my minis a little more weight on the bottom
Dowl rods of various thicknesses
Hey, i have to tell you thank you. My friends and i are all DJs and we have been producing a weekly EDM mix show for about 2 years now. We started using social media last year to advertise, and i drew the short straw of being sort of the "voice" of the show. So i found myself an introvert in front of the camera and was having some trouble. I started using my hands more as i talk inspired by you, and it helped me out tremendously being comfortable, so i looked and sounded more natural. I just wanted to say thanks for helping me be better at what i do.
Got black sand for a fish aquarium, sifted some dirt, and mixed. Then got a bottle of clear dry gem-tac glue. Put the glue on the base and dip it in the sand dirt mixture. Instant basic basing done.
Plumber's putty might have limited applicability, but it's kind of like a greenstuff that hardens really quickly.
There are also some nice metal shingles you can use to magnetize your carrying case.
Oo...I've ideas (some I've used, some I haven't had the chance to, yet)
Organization:
Crayon boxes and Pencil boxes - Stackable, clear, good for when the meal prep and clear shoe box is too big.
Hardware organizers - for when you need a lot of small bins in one case, and many times you can remove pieces from the inside to adjust the size of the cubby. Pieces can also be upcycled into terrain elements like barriers and greebles or just something small but thick plastic piece you can cut shapes from.
Tools:
Magic Eraser - Equal to 3000 grit sand paper and you don't have to stick on-brand.
Kneadable Eraser (from the art store/section) - a thousand and one uses for cleaning, masking, or using like poster tack.
CNC bits - Fits in the dremel and in the pin-vice/hand-mandril and cheap to order online. Good for shaping and drilling.
Materials:
Check out the party section and the kitchen section of the dollar/department store. Need a giant scifi radar dish? Vegetable steamer (which can actually work to focus a wifi signal but that's a different hobby). Party dishes and cups can be upcycled into scifi buildings and terrain. Little plastic shot cups/sauce cups can work as terrain elements, paint cups, parts storage (if you get the ones with lids) and probably a dozen other uses.
Coffee stir sticks, popsicle sticks, tongue depressors - stir your paints, apply glue/putty, or just build things out of them. Wooden stir sticks make great planks at mini-scale to build bases, terrain, and objects.
Oatey brand fix it putty is a quick drying alternative to green stuff. It is a 2 part epoxy found in the plumbing section that cures in about 15 minutes. You can get a full tube for cheap, and it is carvable and sandable. Works great with blue stuff thermoplastic for rapidly reproducing bits.
Use vinegar to get the smell off your hands. At least that's what I use for Steel Stik.
I am reminded of the "culinary tax" where cute torches sold at a kitchen store cost a lot more (and use much more expensive fuel) than propane torches sold in the hardware store. I've seen cooking show hosts point this out when demonstrating recipes like crème brûlée that use a torch.
And the cheapest place to get wooden sticks to label plants is in the paint department, where they're sold as paint stirrers. (Don't use the heavy ones used to stir gallon cans of paint, but rather the light ones used to stir quart cans of paint, which are similar to tongue depressors.)
I like checking out the section with little wooden kits for kids, like planes cars tanks castles houses etc. cost almost nothing and can easily be turned into something impressive. I also check out ornaments in the gardening section. And also the bonsai section, where I got a little tub of gravel for 80 cents over ten years ago, which I still haven’t used up, despite using it in a lot of bases
Thrift stores, garage sales, and online used marketplaces have all contributed to my hobbies as well. I also live in a fairly wooded area, so often can find downed branches and trees to harvest for supplies.
The dollar store is a great place for this, especially the toys. I made some really cool generator buildings out of sidney opera house sand castle moulds dressed up with some greeblies and an admech skull
Dollar store kids paints and glues are a bargain too.
My friend found a large but relatively flat crate with deep wells for storing screws and small tools and such, and he converted it into a carrying case for his Magic: The Gathering decks. The wells are almost perfect for storing decks, and the crates are made to both stack and interlock with each other, so he has two locked together to carry over 20 decks with one hand.
The spray paints !!! hardware store always got my back
You have a best brand that works? Ive tries most recommended ones, but after they spit of filled in my details over the years, I stick with citadel... pretty reliable. Ultimately then moved to airbrush. This is after adjusting for humidity, pre heating cans, shaking, best practice spraying, etc. I just can't justify spending so much on models and then having the cans eff it all up to save $7.
@@VariousIdeas-f2qrustoleum definitely stepped up their game. Even had great results with the Bahr line of spray paints.
@@VariousIdeas-f2q as a graffiti writer, i can tell you 100% for sure that citadel spraypaint is garbage, and its about 4 times what better spraypaint costs.
look for brands like, montana, ironlak, dang, molotow, acme.
focus on their LOW PRESSURE lines. high pressure graffiti paint is designed to blast shit tons of paint super fast and is not what you want for this.
also, citadel uses idiotic "american standard" valves. the european style valves (used for graffiti paint) allow you to interchange THOUSANDS of different caps that spray in all sorts of patterns and thicknesses.
@notrolling-er1wq okay thanks. I'll look. It's hard to get good brands in Canada, it seems. Hardware and craft stores sell Krylon, Rustoleum, Baer, and they're just terrible.
For putty, I've been having excellent luck with this recipe. 1/2 Museum/Poster tack putty to 1/2 Cra-Z-Art non-drying modeling clay. Takes a bit to get the 2 to mix (It will seem impossible at first), but once they do, you end up with a sticky substance that never dries out and has a fairly firm hold. In fact, it holds so well, you have the potential to break a mini if you just pull. The trick is to twist the thing off. I haven't seen anyone else mention this before and I'm sure I didn't invent it, but it's something I semi-came up with that seems to work very well.
We all know Uncle is on Big Putty’s payroll.
“Dollar Stores” and the like are great for those small storage boxes and drinking straws with the bendy part for “pipes.” Also, the plastic containers that a lot of brands of deli/lunch meat come in are essentially free.
Solid advice all the way around. However, I will say starting miniature painting with cheap paints isn't a bad way to start. I learned a lot using cheaper paints on some generic minis. Helped up my skill and confidence before jumping into the higher quality/priced paints.
Pet supply stores are great for various things too. Larger pre-built aquarium pieces, trees/plants, sands, rocks, etc.
Usually aren’t crazy expensive either. Places like Walmart have some solid options too for similar.
Cuticle Nippers can be had super cheap (under $5) and snip flush.
I love things like chopsticks, wooden coffee stirring sticks, skewers, paint sticks and stuff for crafting and clear shoeboxes are a must for storage 😊
Rather than poster putty and a pill bottle, I've always used a piece of pink foam board with double sided tape on top.
For huge gun emplacements, 15 and 22mm plastic piping, push/screw fit connectors etc. I generally find that precision snips for electrical work are great for cutting plastic. Sharp, narrow and hardened steel cutting edges…
For snippers you might want to try the ones specifically made to cut zip ties without leaving and sharp piece afterwards. I suspect they may be very close if not dead on…
I live in a great area of northeast Ohio where we have companies like 3M, GoJo and Rubbermaid. Good Snippers for plastic trimming are available at all the hardware stores and the locally-made adhesives fly off the shelf to maker spaces daily.
Well I just fell about laughing because my main hobby is sailing small boats, walk into a smart boat parts store (chandlery) and look at the prices of 'proper' boat tools and parts and then go down to the commercial fisherman's store and get it at about half the price ....and usually more rugged and functional
Oh man I laughed out loud at the 8:30 mark when you said you know you’ll get back to this project asap, right ? Thumbs up 😂.
😆😝
Adam, you are going to make me a hoarder in my old age! 😂
Using general craft paints is fine, really, as long as you're up to experimenting with mixing the paints to get the colors you want. The important thing is to properly thin your paints. You can also make a good mud /dirt paste with regular PVA glue (white school glue), the appropriate color paints, and, most importantly, real dirt and pebbles, either from your garden, yard, or a gardening store if you really want to be specific with the sizes. I also make my diorama/vignette bases with various pieces of foam and air dry clay, which lets me sculpt the terrain to my liking.
8:29 Oh that dirty look and we ALL know you're right. Nobody can free themselves of THAT xD
This was great! My own addition to this is a little outside of hardware stores, but restaurant supply stores are also great to pick up baking sheets, containers, plus things like groves and aprons at a discount.
Hardware store wandering is line going on a hike in the woods. Relaxing
And not just the hardware store. Don't forget... pretty much every other store. Dollar stores can give a pile of useful things for creating (or just stuff you don't care about breaking/getting glue on/etc. while building) things, for instance, and also can carry things like foam and wire cheaply. And if you're in a craft store - or even a big box/Walmart type store, walk through a bit and you'll see the same thing in a different package often at a different price. Sewing stores - need a bunch of rivets or a line of holes for things? You'll find some useful tools there...
Plumber's 2-part epoxy putty is about 1/4 the price of the hobby version .
As someone who's primary crafting hobby is... my own house. I spend a lot of time at hardware stores and really enjoy seeing all this stuff reimagined.
The hobby tax is one reason I really appreciate the Army Painter brand. Most of their products are very reasonably priced.
There are still some generic products I prefer like cheap hobby knifes but AP products are solid.
It's fairly priced even if you take into account the fact that it's all made in Denmark and shipped across the world.
Painters tape and super glue are great for securing pieces down while still being able to remove them without residue. Put a piece of painters tape on the base of the figure, a piece of tape on the lid/pedestal then super glue.
Don't forget the pet store for terrain stuff!
Please don't use animals for terrain 😅
I transformed a small toolbag and organizer box for nails and other bits into a hobby kit that fits literally everything I need for model assembly, basing, painting etc.
An organizer box with a handle and removable compartments is an amazing way to store your paints if you have specific sets for different purposes, or if you like to keep color schemes organized for larger projects.
A nailpolish shaker works just as well as any paint shaker and tends to be a fraction of the cost of hobby branded ones. On that note, some makeup brushes make excellent tools for drybrushing and effects, especially for terrain. Same goes for kitchen sponges.
Also, doing a rust paint layer + hairspray + painted metal layer is something I've found to be amazing for a wear effect. After applying paint over the hairspray, use a wet q-tip and you'll get really good looking flaking going on. You can then seal the finished model with some varnish to stop further wear. Way cheaper than using effect paints, again especially on terrain.
Mek and acetone available by the quart, mixed 50/50=Tamia cement, at a fraction of the price.
What’s Mek?
@TheSkeletonVA it's a solvent sold on the same shelf as paint thinner and acetone
This was an excellent video! I'm a hobbyist of a different kind, electronics, but all of this information is relevant and useful! When I'm making lighting effects for a costume or a project that requires a enclosure, things can get super expensive quickly. Great food for thought to solve these problems!
Found some super nice snippers at a fishing-shop!!!
❤❤❤
And superfine tweezers, clamps, forceps. The fly-tying section is a gold mine of tools like the above, and a gazillion textures.
Some hardware store finds: Soffit vents can make good basis for sci-fi platforms. There is a kind of triangular sponge/filter that is supposed to be put in gutters to keep out leaves. When torn apart I think it makes a better basis for foliage than something like ruberized horsehair. Some plastic shims make cool sci-fi walls.
2:41 there is no external link window other than the info button :)
I love using tackle boxes to store my D&D minis. For the larger ones, I use the Harbor Freight brand divided tool boxes. Also, for terrain, don't underestimate a trip to the pet store. You can find an Ogre's hut in the hamster cages, fantasy style mountain terrain in the aquarium area, just walk around there and let your mind wander.