Edge life

How long each tool lasts.

Four short guides, by tool. Each gives the range you should expect, the check that settles it, and the habits that move it either way. Every item also carries its own figures in the specification on its product page, and a printed card repeating them ships in the box.

The ranges are observed in ordinary use, not warranties. How long a tool lasts depends on what you cut with it and how it is stored. Where a range and a check disagree, the check is the answer.

Sprue nippers

Expect: Two to four years of regular building, on plastic only
The check: Cut a strip of 1 mm styrene sheet and look at the cut face under a light. A clean shear means the bevel is good. A whitened, crushed edge means the bevel has rolled, and the tool is now a rough cutter rather than a finishing one.

The most expensive tool in the catalog for its size, the one worth buying first, and the one most easily destroyed. Its bevel is ground thin enough to close nearly flush, which is the entire reason it shears plastic cleanly instead of crushing it — and that same thinness is why one cut through metal ends it.

Do

Cut plastic only. That is the whole of the care instruction and everything else is detail.
Cut with the flat anvil face against the part you are keeping and the bevel against the waste.
Let the spring open the jaw rather than forcing it wide - the box joint takes a set if it is sprung.
Cut an oversize gate in two bites from the sides rather than forcing the jaw onto it.
A drop of light oil at the joint twice a year, and nothing on the cutting face.

Do not

Do not cut metal of any kind. Not brass wire, not photo-etch fret, not the steel axle that came in the box. One cut chips the bevel and it cannot be reground at this size.
Do not cut carbon fibre rod or glass-filled nylon - both are abrasive enough to round the bevel in a handful of cuts.
Do not use it as pliers. Twisting load spreads the box joint and the jaw stops closing true.
Do not cut sprue thicker than its stated capacity by forcing the handles. Nothing about that ends well for the joint.

Files & abrasives

Expect: Files 5-10 years · sanding sticks 1-3 kits · film 3-6 sessions a sheet
The check: For a file, drag a fingernail across the teeth: sharp catches and shaves a little, worn slides. For film, rinse it — if it still looks glazed and grey rather than showing its grain, the grain is spent. For a stick, if it needs pressure it is polishing, not cutting.

Files almost never wear out; they load. Soft plastic packs into the teeth within a minute and the file stops shearing and starts burnishing, which feels exactly like a file that has gone blunt. Brush it out before you decide it is finished — most files thrown away are simply full.

Do

File on the push stroke only and lift on the return. Dragging the teeth backwards rounds them over.
Clear the teeth with a stiff brush every few minutes on plastic.
Use film wet on anything that will be painted. Water floats the swarf out instead of letting it plough.
Move up one grade at a time. Skipping a grade leaves scratches the next one cannot reach.
Store files so they do not touch each other. Teeth chip teeth.

Do not

Do not file hardened steel. The teeth are softer than anything heat-treated and come off in one stroke.
Do not use a needle file as a lever or a prybar. It is brittle at the tang and snaps there, usually into a hand.
Do not spin a hand file in a rotary tool. They shatter.
Do not oil the teeth. Oil holds swarf in the cut and makes loading worse, not better.
Do not sand filler dry. The dust loads the grain solid in seconds and the stick is finished.

Cutting mats

Expect: Roughly three to six years of regular use
The check: Make a fresh cut in a corner. If it closes to a faint line within a minute the core is still working; if it stays an open slot the mat is finished as a cutting surface, though it is still a perfectly good work surface.

A self-healing mat heals cuts. It does not heal heat, and it does not heal gouges. Almost every mat that dies early dies from something hot being set down on it or from being stored rolled, and neither is recoverable — the core does not come back.

Do

Keep it flat and out of sun. A mat stored rolled or leaning takes a curl it will not lose, and UV hardens the core.
Wipe with a damp cloth only.
Rotate it end for end every few months so the wear is spread rather than concentrated where you always cut.
Keep whatever cutter you use sharp. A blunt edge drags through the core instead of parting it, and that is what stops a mat healing.

Do not

Never set a hot iron, a soldering iron or a heat gun on or near it. Heat gouges the surface permanently.
Do not hammer, punch or rivet on it. Impact crushes the core flat and it does not spring back.
Do not use it as a glue mat. Cement welds itself to the top skin and taking it off takes the skin with it.
Do not clean it with solvent, and do not wash it in hot water — above about 40 degrees Celsius the layers begin to separate at the edges.

Tweezers & measuring tools

Expect: Years — or one drop onto a hard floor
The check: Close tweezer points on a strip of paper and hold them to a light: any daylight along the jaw means they have been sprung. For a caliper, close the jaws fully — the display should read 0.00 and stay there when you squeeze harder.

These are the tools that do not wear out and do get ruined, almost always in one moment rather than gradually. A tweezer used to pull a part off a fret springs open once and never meets again; a caliper used as a depth stop or a pry bar bends a beam that was straight to a hundredth of a millimetre.

Do

Pick up by the flats of a tweezer, never by the points.
Store tweezers points-down in a tray or a roll rather than loose in a drawer.
Wipe the caliper beam clean before closing it — grit on the beam is what wears the scale and the jaw faces.
Check the caliper zero at the start of any session where the number will matter.
Close a caliper to about 1 mm rather than fully shut for storage, so the jaw faces are not loaded against each other.

Do not

Do not use tweezers to pull parts off a fret or a sprue. Use a cutter.
Do not hold anything under a flame or a soldering iron with them. Heat draws the temper out of the spring and the tool stays open.
Do not expect better than 0.03 mm from a caliper. If the tolerance you are working to is finer than that, the tool cannot see it.
Do not measure anything soft enough to compress under the jaw — the reading is then a measure of how hard you squeezed.
Do not cut against the graduated edge of a rule. A nick there loses you the reference.

If something has gone wrong anyway

Anything that arrives damaged is replaced or refunded in full — send a photograph within 14 days and keep the packaging until we reply. A tool that failed well short of the range above is a defect and we replace it; tell us what you were cutting and we will take your word for it. See returns and refunds.

hello@axonmodelco.com — Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:30pm Eastern Time. Every message answered within one business day.