What's the One Part You Hoard?

[kitbash1]

  On 3/12/2018 at 10:20 PM, Ace-Garageguy said:

Yup. Back in the late 1960s, I got a bunch of special tools for flathead engines in with a lot of other stuff. Nobody wanted anything to do with flatheads. They were considered boat anchors, and hundreds of tons of them, quite literally, were sold for scrap.

Fast forward to 2011. I went to work with a shop that built "traditional" rods, many of them flathead powered. I still had all the tools (and hadn't lost them the two times my shops were robbed, because they lived in cardboard boxes and not the big shiny red ones). 

Expand  

I'm the same. I was given a full set of Whyte Spanners , Taps and Dyes for British cars. Had them for over 40 years and didn't use them. Then my son starts working at a garage that repairs older Jags, Triumphs and MG's and remembers my tool stash and now their getting used again.

[Robberbaron]

Probably my #1 item is Ansen Sprint style slotted mags, especially if I can find a big & little set like in the old Monogram '55 Chevy Street machine.  These have always been my favorite 1:1 wheel style since I was a kid.

By the mid-90s many older kits were getting "updated" with billet style directional wheels, 3-spokes, etc., so it seemed like it was getting harder to find nice slot mags in current kits.  That's about the time I started hoarding the ones I could get.

Ironically, I haven't actually used too many on my builds since I wanted to save them for the "perfect" project...

[Mike999]

  On 3/13/2018 at 9:50 PM, Mark said:

I'll save big, thick sprue pieces (Seventies MPC kits sometimes have some real whoppers) and mess around filing them to create parts...

Expand  

Same here.  I also save regular sprues and stash them in bags according to color. 

For one reason, because I still practice the Antique Geezer Art of sprue-stretching: light a small candle, hold the sprue over the candle with 2 hands and rotate until it goes floppy, then stretch it. 

With a little practice, you can come up with any size round piece you need, from large diameter to hair-thin. 

I just did some electrical cables on a firewall using stretched sprue.  By stretching black, red and yellow sprues, I had a multicolored, in-scale wiring harness that didn't even need painting.  Clear sprues really come in handy; when stretched, they make great fuel lines.  Or small warning lights on an instrument panel; drill a hole, stick a piece of clear stretched sprue in it; use heat from a match or whatever to melt the sprue into a dome shape; and finally hit it with a dab of Clear Red, Orange etc. paint.

Edited March 14, 2018 by Mike999
error

[Snake45]

  On 3/14/2018 at 3:55 AM, Robberbaron said:

Ironically, I haven't actually used too many on my builds since I wanted to save them for the "perfect" project...

Expand  

I understand this concept completely, my friend.

[Renegade]

Big and little tire and wheel sets are my weakness. Bought one set of the AMT parts pack wheels and plan on several more as finances permit.

[Ben]

Machined aluminum car and truck wheels. One’s I’ve made, ones I’ve designed and those by others.

[martinfan5]

I hoard parts in the forms of kits

[Curt]

Uptops!  Most kits don’t have them so if you want to use one you have to have a stash so you can try to find one that fits.  I also hoard mirrors and tires...

[oldcars]

Lancer hubcaps.

[Oldcarfan27]

Stock hubcaps!

I build replica stock cars and I'm always looking for unusual hubcap variations to use for them. I save them all, because you'll never know what car you'll end up needing them for!

I wish somebody would make GOOD wire wheel caps like the ones used on Regals, Monte Carlos and luxury cars of the 70s and 80s. Not wire wheels, flush hubcaps.

[D. Battista]

  On 3/16/2018 at 4:51 AM, martinfan5 said:

I hoard parts in the forms of kits

Expand  

Likewise..!

[Dann Tier]

I hold on to EVERYTHING, except the tyres from Revell, Monogram, MPC, AMT, Lindberg......anything non-Japanese.  Cant stand them.....they go in a container, and when its full, the go straight into the bin!    -Maybe some day they can recycle them, and actually make some decent ones....lol

[Tom Geiger]

The common theme here seems to be "saving it for someday". At the recent Philadelphia NNL, a group of us were talking about this.  I have tons of those parts I've squirreled away for that mega build someday.  And as I get older my view has changed... what the heck am I waiting for?   So I've been digging into that hoard and using those parts on my builds today.  It may be now or never!

Edited March 18, 2018 by Tom Geiger