Precision Hobby Pin Vise Set (0.3-1.2mm)

The Precision Hobby Pin Vise Set 0.3 to 1.2 mm from Master Tools

A hand chuck is a tool with which, in modeling practice, small holes are drilled by the strength of the fingers, with no electric power. The stated clamping range of 0.3 to 1.2 mm covers the diameters you need most often when building plastic models: holes for brass tubes, steel cable, handles bent from wire, antennas or the pegs of photo-etched parts. The chuck is held like a pencil and the drill turns slowly, so you have full control over both pressure and depth, and a thin drill does not bite into plastic as easily as in a micro drill.

Use

• Drilling out the mouths of barrels, exhausts and drain holes in plastic parts.
• Preparing holes for wire antennas, fuel lines and handles made from wire.
• Marking a center before drilling a larger diameter, so that the drill does not wander on a curved surface.
• Fine drilling out and cleaning of holes in resin castings and in thin photo-etched parts.
• Lightening solid shapes that the maker of a kit suggested only with a depression.

Who the tools are for

For modelers who detail aircraft, military equipment, cars and figures and need precise holes in small diameters repeatedly. A hand chuck pays off everywhere an electric tool would be needlessly fast and coarse, that is on the thin walls of castings and on small parts held in the hand. It tends to be one of the first tools a modeler buys beyond a knife and a file.

This is a tool, not a kit. Drills of small diameters break under sideways pressure, so guide them square and without levering. Clean the work area after drilling, as fine plastic shavings easily get into fresh varnish.