The Little World

If you are an inveterate collector and hoarder like me, throwing materials away is a difficult task. Every cut scrap of something looks as if it will be useful for some project and you save it in the appropriate storage tub. Plastic, wood, metal, cardboard, etc. Eventually you fill up the tubs and find yourself looking at the Red Dot advertisements trying to figure out what the cheapest option for more storage is. Surprisingly, the cheapest option is not found in Red Dot – it’s found in Bunnings. You buy a big plastic rubbish can and you throw the excess material in that. Then you put it out for the council on Bin Night.

What? What! Wait! Where is the fine frugal, saving, and reusing principle? What if you need that…

That 15mm piece of MDF board? That sanding stick that has no abrasive left on it? That handful of broken matchsticks? What if you don’t…

I have whirled through the tool chest today and binned the dead sanding sticks. I bought a whole new set made by Ustar for $ 9.95 and have been rewarded with clean and accurate sanding on my new model. I am going to whirl through the defunct and horrid paint brushes next – keeping the good ones and the bad ones that serve a good purpose ( dissolved putty, MEK, grunge washes ). The broken and dull knife blades will go – they are just an invitation to apply too much pressure at the wrong angle and end up with a deeply cut hand.

The supply of match sticks is secure – a packet from the crap shop will last me into the next decade – and I use a steel mixing spoon for the paints anyway.

The spare components from kits and unused decals will stay – and be sorted off into their various storage boxes. They are valuable and a constant source of variation to the kits.

The paints boxes will be reviewed. There are any number of aqueous acrylics that I do not use any more that may have dried up by now. They can go. I may be able to make desired colours from the stocks left over – I might as well do some custom mixing as the standard colours are now available in a solvent-based form.

It’s been ages since I used standard wooden clothes pegs as hobby clamps – they can go back into the laundry basket.

It’s all just fritter work, but while I’m waiting or something to dry, I might as well clean the ship.