The Little World

As Marvin the Martian was wont to say…and if my mazel runs to form this year that is exactly what I might produce in my Little Workshop. You see I have taken to collecting solvents and thinners. It started with a simple bottle of Tamiya X-20A and seems to have burgeoned.

The advent of lacquer paints and then the need to clean tampo paint off die-cast models meant more powerful solvents, and now I seem to have started a tank farm. As I also clean airbrushes with an atomizing spray, It starts to get a little fraught. So I have decided to dial down the danger:

a. I got a cheap airbrush cleaning pot. A glass jar with a rubber seal and a simple filter system. I fill it with an inch of water and then discharge the guns into that when I am cleaning them. Much cleaner than spraying into the shop waste bin.

b. I got a handful of containers from the local Kitchen Warehouse depot. These are food squeeze bottles but thick-walled enough and inert enough to cope with the solvents. I have taken the main supply bottles out of the shop and stored them in a safer place. The squeeze bottles are further kept in a Tupperware container to corral them and stop me spilling them over when reaching for one.

c. No more smoking Havana cigars while mixing toluene and benzene in a wash tub with a spare railroad flare.

d. The fire extinguisher has been checked and propped within easy reach.

All this does not address the problem of gluing myself to the bench with super-glue or of putting a paintbrush into my coffee cup. These problems will be solved later.