Thinking Outside of the [Tool] Box

by Bill Bowne

Some of my most useful modeling tools aren’t usually found in your average toolbox, nor are they usually found hanging in an RC Hobby Shop. Better yet, they often don’t cost as much as specialized hobby equipment. Interested? Let’s take a look at some of them.

Probably the cheapest and most versatile tool I have in my workbench drawer is plain old ½-inch masking tape. Yep, masking tape. Probably the only thing I don’t use is for is paint masking!

In the following pictures, you’ll see a blue masking tape. There isn’t anything magical about blue masking tape. The only reason I picked up a roll of blue tape is because I knew the regular color tape doesn’t show up well against balsa when photographed.

One big use for masking tape is as a clamp. Here I’ve clamped the sides of a fuselage together with a strip of tape. The bottom is pinned, so I didn’t need the tape there, but I did need to keep the top sides together.

In the next shot, I’ve clamped together the nose parts. It may take a few more pieces than you see here to keep stuff together.

Another use for masking tape is to prevent damage to soft parts when sanding. In the following picture I’ve used masking tape to protect the balsa-wing sheeting while I was sanding the wingtip blocks.

And while it isn’t quite paint masking, you can use masking tape to control the spread of excess epoxy when applying wing center-section tape.

One word of warning, though. If you use alcohol to thin your epoxy, as I do, it will probably leak under the tape. The good part is that it also soaks into the wood better, so it’s less likely to show.

There are many more uses for masking tape. For example, I use small strips of masking tape to reinforce the plastic sandwich wrap I use to cover my plans. That way, the thumbtacks won’t tear through the sandwich wrap.

Of course there are other uses, like emergency Band-Aids, but we won’t discuss that …

What if you have something the adhesive in masking tape will damage? That’s the problem I faced when I had to repair the wings on my GWS Tiger Moth biplane.

The Tiger Moth is made of thin foam with an integral outer colored layer. The masking tape adhesive will pull the covering film right off. So, I turned the tape over so that the non-adhesive side was against the Moth’s foam wing and stuck the tape to itself to fasten it. No damage!

One more regular use for masking tape, although it isn’t exactly for building.

I like to use it to temporarily tape stuff together so I can see how things fit, how they look, and so forth. No, I don’t use it to hold the stuff together so I can “fly” the model while making airplane noises.

At least not very often … Q