Handy hints & Tips #1 - Glue jig

My current flurry of workshop preparations is causing me to do a fair amount of lateral thinking, especially in terms of tools and materials for my students to use.

I have one of most things, a few of some other things and not enough of several things.

Gluing jigs being a case in point.......

I have two jigs, both of which are invaluable when making miniature toy theatres, Jack-in-the-Boxes, wooden doll trunks, 1/144th doll's houses..... anything which needs to be held in place, squarely, while glue dries etc.

 This is my oldest glue jig.  As you can see, the surface has seen better days as it has often been pressed into service as a temporary cutting mat.

Yes.

Yes, I know.

Mea culpa.

I think someone made it for me and it must be approaching 30 years old.  It's strong and sturdy and has withstood no end of punishment over the years.  Jigs like these are easy to make and every miniaturist should have one in their toolbox.

However, it's main limitation is that apart from using copious amounts of Blu-Tack, it's difficult to actually hold pieces firmly in place on the board.

So, a few years later I invested in one of these.....

 I bought this around 25 years ago and at the time I remember reeling at the cost.  However, as barely a week goes by when I don't use it I expect that the cost per use must down to approximately  0.00005p by now.

The base is made of steel, which allows the use of strong magnets to hold pieces firmly in place.  It's strong and durable (no cut marks on this one!) and I can soak it to remove the glue which inevitably oozes out on to its surfaces.

However, the main drawback of this one, aside from the eye-watering price, is that it only has one 'corner', so I can only work with one item at a time.

During my Everything Alice one day workshop next month, my students will all be making an illuminated toy theatre, and it's vital that the assemblies are square.  

And I don't have enough jigs to go round.

Until I had an epiphany.

Ta Dah!!!

A quick bit of Googling revealed a seller of small square metal cake tins.  Perfect!

Although having tested out one of my own I found that the metal didn't attract magnets.

Buggrit.

So, you can't use aluminium or copper tins.

However, I asked the cake tin seller if she would check to see if hers would hold a magnet and hey presto, they did!

So, finally, a cheap and cheerful magnetic jig, with the added bonus of having four corners so that I can glue multiple projects at the same time.

This one is 6" square and cost £2.30.  The cheapest modelmaker's glue jig I could find was £25 and would require shipping from the US.  So quite a saving.

Final tips..... before you buy, make sure that the sides are straight.  Some tins have slightly angled sides, presumably to make it easier to remove cakes.  However these are no use for our purposes.

Also, bear in mind that these are not 'engineered' tins, and they may not be forensically 'square'.  However, for the purposes of holding most glued components together while the glue sets they're perfectly adequate.   

If you do need absolute 100% accuracy then it's easy to set up a completely square 90 degree configuration of magnets in the base of the tin, using a try set square as shown below.

You can then place your assembly against the 90 degree angle created by the magnets and firmly support it in place with additional magnets.

Simples!

As an extra bonus, your metal glue jig can also be used to store stuff in, so it really is a multi-function tool  

Sandra shaming is a thing.....

You'll undoubtedly have seen those dog shaming photos which proliferate on the interweb.....

You get the gist.

More recently, cat shaming photos and memes have turned up too.....

Well, it turns out that Sandra shaming is a thing too.

I normally rely on the annual 'Where Bloggers Create' shindig to spruce up the workroom and restore it to it's once pristine glory.  It's just over two years since my workroom makeover, which took up most of the summer of 2013.

Here's a reminder.....

Since then it's gone through phases of being messy, then tidy, then messy again.  Sometimes all three in the same day.

However, during July this year I was away on holiday, and missed the blog party, so my lovely workroom also missed its annual deep clean and reorganisation.

Which goes some way to explaining why it currently looks like this.....

As you can see, there is nary a nano-millimetre of clear space on any horizontal surface.  In my defence, it's been a very, VERY busy week in the workroom and I did at least manage to maintain a narrow pathway on the floor most of the time.

I've made a few desultory attempts at tidying up this week but they've been a dismal failure. No sooner have I liberated enough space for a A4 cutting mat than it's been overwhelmed by a tsunami of tools and materials.

However, today it has reached tipping point.  

I cannot even find space for a waffer-thin mint.

So this blog post is by way of shaming myself into rolling up my sleeves, gritting my teeth and having a bloody good clear up and sort out.

I may be gone for some time.......  *sigh*

Perfect 10...?

As a user of Windows 8, I have been longing for the new Windows 10 release, which Microsoft has magnanimously offered as free upgrade in an attempt to mollify the many millions of us who hate Win 8 with a passion verging on the psychotic.

I signed up for the upgrade several months ago, and since it's release a few weeks ago a little screen has been popping up offering to install it for me.  I duly scheduled the install but chickened out at the last minute and since then I've been rescheduling every few days.

However, the feedback from those with more chutzpah than me has been fairly universally positive, so this morning I decided to throw caution to the winds and go for it.

I started at 9.50 am and it finished just a short while ago at 11.45

Some time later.....

*sigh*..... 

Nearly there.....!

Ah.......

Maybe not....

*sigh*......

Losing the will to live now.....

Just as well I had this in my eyeline....

Eventually, after almost two hours, the install is complete and seems to be working.  I had a bit of a wobbly with the reinstated start menu (hallelujah!) when I couldn't find 'All Programs' but it turns out that 'All Apps' is the same thing.   

Who knew....?

The very bestest thing is that those annoying side panels which popped out when you moved the cursor from right to left in Win 8 have gone, and the random screen switching thing has stopped too, which is a blessing.

It does look and act differently but it's nowhere near as scarily different as Win 8 and I'm tentatively hopeful that we'll get on fine.  I have loads of work to get through today so I don't have time to play with all the new bells and whistles, so apart from resetting my default browser and ensuring that I can find my files I haven't taken it for much of a run but I'm giving it a tentative thumbs up so far.

After all.... what could possibly go wrong?