PLAMO: Re-WiredWolf - Plastic Modelling, Share & Learn

Painting can be quite messy if you ain't got something to hold on to your model piece other than your fingers.

Some people use mini clips to hold their pieces up and carefully balance them on the table after painting while others attach a ball of blue-tac to the end of a satay stick(skewer).

For a more permanant and convenient solution, I've devised myself the crocstiks (crocodile sticks). (Maybe some of you may have thought of doing this but may not have gotten round to doing it. I think I've also seen this b4 somewhere.)

Materials used:
- crocodile clips
- satay sticks(skewers)
- galvanised wire

(click on images to enlarge)

1. Fit your skewer on the crocodile clip and wrap the two cripping claws around the stick using a pair of tweezers. Then, with the hole available at the bottom of the crocodile clip, drill a small hole thru the skewer.

2. Thread your wire thru the hole from the bottom of the crocodile clip. From the top end of the wire, make a 90 degree bend using a short segment on the wire. Then rotate the short segment towards the inside of the crocodile clip.

3. Coil the wire around the crocodile clip. The coils would hold the skewer together with the crocodile clip while the wire thru the crocodile clip and skewer would prevent the skewer from slipping out of the crocodile clip.

4. Completed.

Advantages:
- crocstiks are reusable.
- crocstiks are easy to handle.
- crocstiks can easily be stuck onto a block of styrofoam after/while painting.
- if paint starts to build up on the crocstiks, they can be easily cleaned by dipping them into a cup of thinner and stirring them around until the paint comes off.

So DIY some today......

The croc clips i use have a long 'sheath' tailing the clip, so i juz use pliers to squeeze it around a satay stick den drop a bit of super glue.

Thanks neXus for providing the step by step on the crocstiks.
Will be very useful for newbies to the hobby

I've been using those for a while now. 5 min epoxy works great too to stick them.

it will be more economical if you cut the long ends of spare tree as the stick.
Though satay sticks are cheap, but prolonged spraying, u will have to soak the clip with stick into thinner.
However, if you use industrial thinner, which I think most likely you will, its better with the satay stick. but note that they tend to soak up liquid.

I never bothered to clean the clips
The first layer of paint most likely 3 years ago...
(didnt realise 3 years liao.... )

yah,i've thought abt using bondite on the sticks and clips....but might cost a bit more and make me wonder of the bondite wud errode in the thinner

even thought abt using stainless steel wire on the clips,then soldering them together...but its too much work and costly too

I also using crocsticks at home, but your idea to coil the wire around the clip is good! Think it's time for me to "zhng" my crocstiks liao.

You may also use heat-sleeve to wrap around the clip as indicated in the picture below ( sorry to use your pic as illustration purpose, as I don't have my crocstick pic with me now). This can prevent leaving a deep mark on the plastics, and can be easily replaced rather than cleaning it when it gets dirty.

heat shrink tubing not bad,but it still might not be thick enuff...anyway i usually clamp on unseen/unpainted areas,so it doesnt matter if it leaves a mark or not,heh heh.

no prob,dun mind the pix being used

brilliant idea to drill hole and tie them up... me still using masking tape for my normal clip.