So, you long time modelers, how do you deal with small parts that slip out of tweezers and bounce away to never never land? Uh… i mean how do you prevent that?
(signed) knees worn out of pants from looking for itty bitty parts.
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Feeding the Carpet Monster is the price of modelling!
But I reduce the chances of feeding the little pest by wrapping the jaws of my locking tweezers with masking tape to provide a less slippy surface. If you have any of that liquid grip they use to coat tool handles you could dip them in that (with the jaws propped open!), but I find a quick wrap of tape does the job…
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No itty bitty parts wanted.
But to answer your question - I got rid of my carpet years ago.
Bradley, no wise cracks from you.
Makes finding the errant part a breeze. Strong light held at floor level - works every time,
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My wife helps me find a lot of stuff
And once a fine member of Armorama sent me a lost Tamiya T-72 hatch from across thevpond at no charge.
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Tile!
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Tip by barkingdigger about the tweezers. Maybe even glue a piece of fine sandpaper (180 grit or finer) to the grip surface of the tweezer
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Tip by 18bravo about the floor covering.
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Work over the bottom tray from a large kit, if you drop something it stays in the box)
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Use reversed tweezers, this prevents the user from applying too much force
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Try to use other methods. Leave a bit of sprue as a handle while cleaning up the part. Only clean the area where the part gets glued to another part, glue it in position and then clean up the rest. I could even leave a bit of sprue as a handle and snip it off afterwards.
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At least one modeler used to wear a huge plastic bag like a bib, and tape it to the edge of his workbench. Works great as long as the part falls in your lap.
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Choke up on the part with the tweezers when possible - don’t hold the part at the very end of the tweezers.
Instead of tweezers use a toothpick or similar handle with a piece of double sided tape around the end .
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No sound is as bad as the twang of a tiny part flinging itself suicidally into oblivion. My room has La Brea Carpets. Typically I’m pretty good at finding them but I’ve got one Leopard 2 inner road wheel that is actively avoiding rediscovery.
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My workroom has a bare concrete floor and a rolling desk/workbench to move out of the way if strong light or sweeping with a bench brush doesn’t find the missing part and some STILL disappear foreever
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Start with good quality tweezers. It makes a big difference.
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I wonder how many get crushed under the wheels of your desk? 
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I read somewhere about roundness vs squared tweezers, that squared helps prevent flying pieces?
I have ordered some DSPAIE tweezers, so hopefully find out soon if there is any truth to this.
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cut the section of sprue off and not the part, then using double sided tape, stick the part to tape and then cut the part from thr sprue, it should stick to the tape and not get lost.
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Go to Hobby Lobby or Michaels, to the Gemming aisle (yes, that’s a thing) and get a couple of wax pencils. These are used to pick and place tiny gems with their adhesive wax tips. They are also indispensable for picking and placing tiny styrene and PE parts with no tweezer launch.
If you experience tweezer launch and can’t find the part, put a piece of nylon stocking over the end of a vacuum hose and vacuum the entire area. The part will turn up sucked onto the nylon.
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I do this a lot with parts such as tiny shift levers, rifle barrels, etc…
Often when you try to cut them off with nippers they’ll bend or break because there’s little room for the nippers.
I’ve also used the tape method for those tiny little handles on AFV Club Centurions and the like, although I usually prefer just replacing them with wire.
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Stick the ends of the tweezers, or even a toothpick, into a piece of beeswax (a piece of candle wax will also work). The wax will remain tacky enough on the tool to hold small parts and PE long enough to place them on the model.
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I’m not sure really. I personally have better results with flat tips.
But, i noticed as soon as i bought some better quality tweezers, tweezer fling was reduced by more than half.
As as example, i had multiple pakistani cheap tweezer sets. It was aggravating to say the least.
Someone here directed me to UMM usa for a razor saw , and i ordered a bunch of tweezers from them.
I’m not sure if they are truly a premium brand, but thay are 10 times better then the cheap crap i had before them.
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I have a 600 lumen spot headlamp that works great. I also have a short cut beige carpet that seems to keep the parts just under my bench.
Recently, I have been working 1/16th scale vs 1/35th. The issue of losing small parts isn’t even a problem, although I drop parts regularly.
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Thanks for that tip on the wax pencils. Could have used it today instead of launching tiny brass pieces across the table.
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