Tackle box toolkits

I have a limited amount of time to to my model railroading. I don’t have a work bench so most projects get done in our kitchen. That means a few things:

• The time allocated to the project always includes set up and pack up time so it is good to minimize this ‘non-productive’ time
• Tools for the project need to be all together meaning only one trip from the garage to the kitchen
• The kit needs to have obvious locations for each tool to make access and packing up easy and quick

I have settled on tackle boxes as my standard means of handling modelling tools. For compatibility, I use storage boxes from Plano. These are great. They come in a wide variety of shapes but have the same basic footprint so can be neatly stacked. I have set up several tool kits for different jobs. Even if you do have a lot of time and space, the portability of these kits is hard to beat.

Turnout Construction (2 Kits)

I use two flat tackle boxes for the tools I need for making turnouts. The two kits have the majority of the tools and material I need to build a turnout in N scale. Larger tools like the Dremmel and soldering iron obviously don’t fit in the kit. I store 3 foot lengths of rail in a 1” diameter cardboard shipping tube.

Tools and materials:

• #6 and #8 Turnout tie placement printouts
• Fast Tracks turnout jigs
• Fast Track point form tool and Allen key
• Xuron Rail nipper
• Xacto knife
• Xacto blades
• Single sided razor blades
• Magic marker
• Needle files
• Nail files
• Walthers Goo
• Toothpicks
• NMRA Gauges
• Microtrains wheelsets
• Scrap pieces of rail
• PCB ties
• Wood turnout ties
• Wood turnout ties (16’)
• Quicksticks
• Small flat multi meter (and a spare battery!)
• Large washers for weights
• Wire brush
• Small bulldog clips
• Flux
• Solder
• Spare soldering iron tips

Plastic Construction

This one is good for anything to do with working with plastic, usually styrene.

Tools and materials:

•  
  • Super glue (ACC)
  • Plastic putty
  • Xacto knife
  • Xacto blades
  • Single-sided razor blades
  • Needle files
  • Nail files
  • N Scale ruler
  • Steel ruler
  • Kato Uni-track
  • Pin vise
  • Small drill bits
  • Small clamps
  • Toothpicks
  • Microbrushes

General Track Laying

This kit has useful tools for laying N scale flextrack from cork to ballasting.

Tools and materials:

• Pushpins
• (Xuron Rail Nipper)
• Track cleaning block
• Needle point pliers
• Small levels
• Rail joiners
• Track pins
• Micro Engineering track gauges
• MicroTrains coupler gauge
• Steel ruler
• Scrap flextrack ties
• Ballast spreader
• Eye dropper

Airbrushing

This kit is a single grab for airbrush parts

Tools and materials:

• Aztek dual action airbrush
• Paint cups
• Paint siphon jars
• Nozzles
• Air hose
• Masking tape
• Airbrush plugs
• Microbrushes
• Cotton buds
• Pipe cleaner
• Aztek airbrush cleaner

Microtrains Conversions (pictures to come)

• Microtrains 1015’s
• Super glue
• MicroTrains coupler gauge
• Microtrains trip pin gauge
• Powdered graphite

Bench work (pictures to come)

• Various length drywall screws
• Counter sink
• Drill bits
• Washers

Storing the kits

The kits store nicely in a Plano storage box. There are three slots for kits and the top has a 3” deep space for loose items.

I have three of these set up but mostly I am grabbing the same three kits for about 80% of my projects. Keeping it neat and tidy has a lot do with real estate rights for future model railroading projects. Give’m a try, they’re cheap, easy to setup and tear down and help make the best use of my modelling time.