Tips for the Workbench: Keeping Nuts and Bolts Organized
Gerry LeoneDescription
A model railroad display, by its very nature, is miniature. The N scale is one of the smallest scale measurements with a ratio of 1:160. Small buildings nestle amongst the town, tiny people occupy the sidewalks, pocket-sized trees fill the landscape, and little trains run the tracks in model railroad layouts. Modeling is a work of art and demands talent in order to craft such a small scale. Items as miniature as these require assembly with the help of even smaller screws. Hardware this size can be a hassle to work with.
Even if a locomotive is fully assembled when purchased, it is fairly common for modelers to disassemble an engine for repair and maintenance. Developing an organization strategy will serve as an advantage when dealing with small model train hardware. In this video, NMRA Master Model Railroader Gerry Leone shares a technique for keeping the workbench organized when dealing with small nuts and bolts.
Tools for your Workbench
An ice tray is probably not a tool that comes to mind when you think of your model railroad workbench, but it can be beneficial to your workflow and efficiency. Gerry suggests having an ice cube tray within an arm’s reach when you plan to work on your engines. Ice cube trays are inexpensive, easy to find at a store, and result in a simple yet creative way to deal with clutter. The individual compartments will eliminate confusion between varying screws, nuts, and bolts. Gerry suggests labeling the ice tray compartments with numbers to make the process easier. You can place the screws in order as you take apart the engine and then when it comes time to reassemble you can work your way backwards.
Maintaining an organized workbench will reduce stress and increase productivity. Our instructors offer plenty of tips and suggestions regarding tools for your workbench. There are many organizational techniques that are inexpensive and easy. A little bit of preparation and organization can make the model railroad hobby even more enjoyable and fun.
We model railroaders are always taking apart something, especially engines, and it's very easy to start taking out screws and nuts and bolts and laying them on your work bench and totally forgetting where they go when it's time to reassemble the model the next day or the next week. An easy tip for eliminating that is to use inexpensive ice cube trays. You can get these at dollar stores, at Target, even in grocery stores. They come in sizes small and large. Get a magic marker, get your label maker, label the compartments. And then as you're taking the screws and bolts out of your engine, you pop them in the first compartment, you take the next three screws out, pop them in your second compartment and so on. When it's time to reassemble the model, obviously you just work your way backwards and there's no confusion about, "Is it the longer one or the shorter one "that goes in this particular hole?" Pretty inexpensive, pretty easy tip.
While you could use them for parts, I have found that a large "pill organizer" is great for holding weathering chalks. These typically have seven compartments for seven days and flip up lids. They make some large size ones where the compartments are wider than those square containers the Bragdon Enterprises chalk comes in. Take a fine tip magic marker and write on the lids the number/name of the chalk.