What Tools Do You Need for Gunpla?

The buy-now list

1. A single-blade nipper. Everything else on this page is optional in a way this is not. A single blade shears against a flat anvil and leaves a flat cut; a double-blade cutter squeezes the gate and leaves a whitened stub on every part. Full reasoning in the nipper picks.

2. A hobby knife with replaceable blades. Its job is shaving the remaining nub flush. The important part is sharp: a fresh blade slices cleanly, a dull one tears plastic and leaves a white scar. Buy spare blades at the same time and change them far more often than feels necessary.

3. Sanding sticks. After the knife, the shaved area is flat but differently textured, so it catches light differently. A couple of passes with 400 then 800 grit makes it disappear. Sticks beat loose sandpaper because they stay flat and reach into recesses.

4. A cutting mat. Protects the table, stops parts skating away, and gives you a surface you can cut toward safely. A3 or bigger — A4 is smaller than the area you actually work in.

The buy-next list

Panel liner. The highest-impact purchase after the nipper. Running a liner into the molded recesses makes the surface detail read, and it takes about ten minutes on a kit. See how to panel line.

A matte topcoat. Removes the glossy plastic sheen that makes a bare kit look like a toy, and seals your panel lining and decals. Easily the second-biggest visible change — the topcoat picks.

Tweezers. Buy them the day you apply your first decal or sticker, and not before. Curved tips are more useful than straight.

Plastic cement. Only once you want to remove seam lines or build a kit that is not snap-fit. Extra-thin, applied by capillary action — the glue guide.

Markers or paint. For parts the kit did not mold in the right color. Markers are the gentler start on hard panels; the marker picks cover it.

The skip list, and why

• Twenty-piece tool bundles. The nipper inside is almost always double-blade, which is the one item you need to be good.
• Metal files. Sanding sticks do the same work with less risk of gouging soft plastic.
• Panel line scribers. A sharp tool for deepening existing lines. Genuinely useful, genuinely easy to slip with, and no help on your first three kits.
• A razor saw. For modification and conversion work, not for building.
• Nub-removal “magic” tools. A sharp knife and sanding sticks do this. See the cleanup guide.
• An airbrush. A long way down the road, and only if you decide to paint kits rather than build them. The honest version of that decision is in do you need an airbrush.

A complete first order

Nipper, knife plus spare blades, sanding sticks, A3 cutting mat, panel liner, and an HG kit. That total is usually less than one Master Grade kit and it is everything you need to produce a model you are pleased with.

Add the topcoat when the kit is built and you are deciding how to finish it. Add everything else when a specific kit gives you a specific reason.

Two safety notes worth the sentence

Hobby knives are sharper than kitchen knives and the injuries come from dull blades and cutting toward your fingers. Change blades often, cut away from yourself, and retract or cap the blade every single time you put it down.

Sanding produces fine plastic dust. It is not acutely dangerous, but do not sit in a cloud of it — wet sanding, or sanding over a damp cloth, keeps it down and gives a better finish at the same time.