What is your most indispensable tool you use for model railroading?

I could not live without my 16 pound sledge hammer.   Odd-d

That would be my choice too.  It opens the door to creating so many items.

I think I've only used a dremel to cut track.  Can't think of anything else I've used it for.  It doesn't take a lot of tools to be an o gauger.  Just the right ones and a person with the ability to use them.  My brother has every tool known to man and couldn't build a layout in a million years.  One guy mentioned imagination.  I'm saying creativity is your best tool available.  Anyone can buy a piece of hardware, but without the vision and ambition to build something unique like an o gauge train layout, it just isn't going to happen, or not very well.  

My trusty screwdriver with just the right size interchanging tips. Also extendable. 

My Glasses!!       2nd is my Dremel tool.

Sledgehammer! 

Since the layout has been constructed for some time, now, the tool I most often reach for is a re-purposed sable make-up brush, donated by my wife. I use it to gently dust the locomotves and rolling stock.

Then, I flick its dust off against my pants, or if I am feeling especially sensible, energetic and hygienic, I step outside to whip its bristles against my finger to expel the dust.

This is a tough call. So many good ones that are used all of the time.

1. #0 and #1 magnetic Phillips head screw driver

2. Dremel with cutting disc

3. Makeup brush to dust of equipment

4. Checkbook!

A bottle of heavy duty toothpicks for cleaning PW commutator slots, lifting whistle/horn relay contacts to burnish them, and hold Fanstock clips open while feeding wires into them.

A long time ago I worked as a mechanic in a motorcycle shop selling BSA, BMW, and Bultaco. We kept a sledgehammer hanging on the wall with a sign saying "Genuine Harley-Davidson Tuning Tool.'

Dental picks to assist in changing rubber tires.  Invaluable!!.

My little tools I can't live without: the small-screw starter/holder, my awl for poking starter holes and moving little stuff under the rails (shims, etc.), and then my reading glasses, without which I can't see squat!

And the collection of dental picks ....

a flashlight to try to find all the parts that fall on the floor from the workbench

I like this, it is spring loaded with 4 fine prongs to hold screws while installing them.  

I like the magnetic tip screwdrivers too,  guess I should get one because the above tool will start the screw easily but you cannot tighten it so you have to switch to a screw driver.  

AR15

My checkbook.

As a few others have said, an exacto w/#11 blade. I use it in many facets of the hobby.

Two of the most useful - I have to have them all, from screwdrivers to oxy-acetylene.  The drill press is the most used.  This is one of five.  One of them is set up for rivet embossing.

for me its a small flat head and small philips head screw driver and of course my computer.

Voltmeter?

Mini zip ties................

Hi Bob2,

is that a Granville lathe, or may be a predecessor? Some parts like the tail stock and head look very familiar.

regards, Ike

An illuminated magnifying glass.

Ike - 9" South Bend.  1944.  A childhood dream was to own one.  My home lathe is an 11" Sheldon, also an antique.

Do not even attempt to cut a driver tire on an Unimat.  Big lathes make little parts better than little lathes.

I agree. I'm a lathe addict, I think with the invention of the screw the lathe is one of the most genius tools human mankind invented. The bigger or heavier the better.

I have a little Unimat-like Proxxon, not bad at all but I use it mainly for light stuff, aluminium, nylon or brass. Steel and other material I machine these on a Belgian made Progress, which is too heavy for the wooden floor of my own workshop, and therefore parked somewhere else. Even when there's nothing to work with I just let that engine run, toying with the gears and looking at that gently turning head stock.

Together with the mill, lathes are my favourite machines. With a shear and press, that makes three, you are free to make everything you need.

i'm with John Allen on this one.

my camera.

So far a cordless drill & screw driver, but that will change.

My favorite tools without a doubt are:

1.  OGR forum members

2.  Dremel

3.  Magnetic screwdriver

Paul 

What magnetic screwdriver is the best one to get, & where do you buy it. I went to Home Depot today. They didn't have any. I don't what the most expensive one.

Eddie - I got this Stanley 4-in-1 pocket screwdriver, mentioned in the second posting of this topic, for under five bucks shipped free for pickup to my local Walmart.  It works.  The jis set at Grainger probably is better quality but it's ~ $25.

Pete

Go to a Granger store, and order the smallest jis screwdriver set. Then all you have to do is magnetize the tips by touching them to a strong magnet.

A popsicle stick between my teeth to prevent me from swearing when children are present

For me, the Xacto Knife and assorted blades.  Also many other tools.  Too many to mention.

Scotch-brite pad.  Especially since the last two basement floods and how badly my track got damaged.  If I don't run trains for more than a week, then I have to take the Scotch-brite pad to major sections of the track in order to get the juice to flow and the trains to run.  Sad, but true.  Sadly too, the layout isn't long for this world.

Opposable thumbs!

A speaker magnet on a broom handle for finding the dropped screw that's hiding, laughing at you.

I asked MrsMuffin and she said "electricity"..... Of course, her favorite tool is a nail gun.