Thanks for sharing this. Some neat tricks in there.

I would say that what he has done is to take the double edged razor blades and likely cuts them to width using a set of shears. The blades are very thin stainless steel, and should cold cut easily. That way no heat is introduced to the blade with an abrasive cutting wheel and spoiling the temper of the blade. The holders are simply pieces of wood cut to whatever dimension is required to facilitate the blade width, the blades are epoxied in place to the wood sticks. Ingenious and very simple idea that is quite effective judging by the video. The pin pushers are dowels with holes drilled in the ends to a specific depth and diameter to accommodate the heads of the nails.

Originally Posted by Rem Fodder

... the double edged razor blades and likely cuts them to width using a set of shears.

The blades snap very easily (to any size) using flat pliers - no need to cut, in my experience.

Gene K

I use the old style razor blades for trimming deer hair when tying flies. The trick is as you say to, snap them in half length wise to end up with two separate cutting blades. I've never tried to break them cross wise, good to know blades can be broken that way as well Gene. I reckoned a good set of metal or even heavy duty kitchen shears would make quick clean work cutting a razor into sections.

Cheap fairly ubiquitous Master Balsa stripper ~7$ works surprisingly well .
For those of us Too lazy to turn a balsa stripper into a Project of it's own
Just use a board and a length of ali angle as a reliable fence... it Works !
The important Trick to No blade wander is to snap off the Pointy tip on the #11 blade.

One may also screw the Master Airscrew balsa stripper to a smooth, flat board parallel to the grain and push the blade's point well into the board. No wobble and much superior control.

Geoff

Originally Posted by GeoffinIN

One may also screw the Master Airscrew balsa stripper to a smooth, flat board parallel to the grain and push the blade's point well into the board. No wobble and much superior control.

Geoff

Hello Geoff,

Won't that make it a fixed width stripper, do we have to move the stripper along a slot on the board to adjust the cutting width? Maybe I do not exactly understand what you are stating..

Bulent

I just noticed, this thread has been going on for 11 years now. Does my heart good to see all of the great ideas that have been shared over the years. Now, let's see if we can keep it going for 11 more.

Thanks to all, PAT

: )

Here are a couple of new tools to emerge from the shop and being put to use in my build of Pat's 60" PA18 Super Cub. The first is the sanding jig to make clean and square ends on parts used to build the stick frame fuselage of the Cub. The board is made from 5/8" thick MDF board and a piece of plastic laminate, there is a small scrap of maple used to make the moveable fence and two pieces of 3/4" x 3/4" x 1/16" aluminum angle 6" long for the sanding blocks. The blocks have 150 and 220 grit paper attached with contact cement. On the side of the angle that runs on the laminate surface I used some adhesive backed UHMW tape ( from Lee Valley tools) to provide some friction free sliding. I'm sure packing tape could be used too. The board has a 1" wide by 3/32" deep rabbet milled down one side and then the piece of laminate (about 1/32" thick) is glued down and trimmed. The result is a 1/16" deep shoulder in the MDF that the aluminum angles can run against when slid back and forth on the white laminate surface. Stock can be placed against the adjustable fence or held freehand up to the edge of the shoulder, a couple of passes of the aluminum angle with 220 grit paper and one ends up with a clean square cut end on the stick. Makes for nice tight butt joints.

Second is tools made for holding the fuselage sides upright and square when joining the two halves together. These are magnetic based jigs for use on my steel building board. Made from hardware store variety corner angles of 5 and 6 inch sizes. They are sandwiched between two blocks of 3/4 veneer core ply salvaged from my off cuts bin in the wood shop. The horizontal legs of the brackets are shortened by about an inch for both sizes. Only trick with these is that when checked with an engineers square the brackets are not quite at 90 degrees. The solution was make sure that when tightening the screws that sandwich the ply together, place the jig on a flat surface, the table saws cast steel table for that job. Hold a square to the table and against the vertical blade of the jig and slowly and alternately tighten the screws up to capture the blade in the correct 90 degree position. Its a bit fiddly but with some dexterity and patience, will come together. These haven't been put to the test yet, but will be soon.

Really nice tools Rem!

I have used a scapel like a surgeon uses on a few builds and it puts a #11 xacto blade to shame. If you slip with this tool and cut yourself it is likely to go to the bone. That will mean a trip to the emergency medical facility for stitches. Good thing we do not have arteries in the fingers if you do.

A pair of Kevlar gloves can be a nice addition to your modeling kit if you happen to cut yourself frequently. Or if you are teaching a young child to model, buying a pair of the smallest may be close to fitting...this can help when they are learning to use a sharp modeling knife as slips with the blade are more likely when first starting. After they have some experience without that occurring and they have learned how to use the knives to cut with lower risk of cuts, then they can dispense with the gloves.

Probably been done a lot but here is a pic of my incidence meter I needed for my flying flea.
Measured from a stick across the bottom of each wing.

Bug

Originally Posted by bmutlugil

Hello Geoff,

Won't that make it a fixed width stripper, do we have to move the stripper along a slot on the board to adjust the cutting width? Maybe I do not exactly understand what you are stating..

Bulent

Hi, Bulent,

Yes, you are right, but it only takes a minute to set it to another width

Not sure if you can buy one like this but this one is home made and it works great....