30 years of hobby knowledge are boiled down to six hobby hacks, gift-wrapped, and handed to everyone with a fancy kitty bow! Take a look at these!
These six hacks are great to know to help your hobby life. You may have heard about a few of these already, but others might be incredibly useful to learn and implement into your own hobby beats lab.
These hacks range from decanting paints to cleaning brushes and much more.
Hack One: Decanter Your Paints
The Games Workshop paint pot has driven many hobbyists nuts, especially with how easily the shades spill. While some paints are more useful in the pots, such as the technical paints and textures, but the regular paint can easily dry out. The tab meant to hold the lid back, sometimes means paint doesn’t often drip properly. It drops where the seal should be, so then the paint starts drying out! One way to fix it is to clean the hinge regularly, and the other way is to decant each paint pot into a dropper bottle which we show you!
Hack Two: Stabilize Paint Pots
Have access to a 3D printer? Know a friend with one? Then prepare to have your wash pots saved! By stabilizing your wash paint pots, rather than decanting them, you save money and time. You can find the templates for free online. There are also fantastic designs that have cap holder for regular paint pots. This prevents the paint from drying around the lip of the paint pot.
Hack Three: Paper Towel Holder
Having a roll of paper towels on the painting table is incredibly useful. Keeping them accessible and in a cheap, easy dispenser helps a lot to keep them nearby. If a stand on your workstation takes up too much room, you can always install a dispenser below your table ‘a la countertop rolls! Seriously, this helps a lot and can be found for super inexpensive. They mount with a few screws and can be put under a desk, table, or even horizontally on a wall. This can save space, but also time and always keeps paper towels nearby!
Hack Four: Cleaner Brushes
Brush cleaners are amazing. These magical soaps clean (and some condition) your brushes and can even bring old brushes back to life! Two we recommend are Slowfuse’s Jentastic’s Drunken Brush Goop and Master’s Brush Cleaner. The soap from Slowfuse cleans and conditions brushes, which is important to natural hair brushes. The Master’s soap cleans simply and can be more accessible (found in many artist stores). Clean brushes prevent paint from staying on the brushes and contaminating the next batch… or causing the ferrule to split.
Brush soap – get some!
Hack Five: Glue Clogs- Clean Your Tip
Gummed up glue tip and cannot get the glue out easily? Rather than clipping or cutting the nozzle, try using the flat edge of the hobby knife to shave off the excess glue from the tip. This saves the tip and you waste less glue from spills!
Hack Six: Organize Spray Cans
Use a lot of spray cans of many different colors? They can easily get lost, cause clutter, and be difficult to find. With a handy-dandy shoe-holder (especially one that hangs over the door) your rattle cans can be nicely organized and will help you find that particular color much easier!
So which of these hacks will help you in the future? Be sure to watch the entire video below to see more information on each tip and trick!
About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at the Las Vegas Open, each of which attracts thousands of players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the 2011 Adepticon 40k Team Tournament. He was even featured for his painting in issue #304 of Games Workshop’s White Dwarf Magazine.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
