How to make a round thing without a lathe (plus model making tips)

Step 3 Stick a rough handle on the bottom

Model Maker's tip #2 Think how you are going to hold the project while you make it!

Model makers often run into into the problem of how to hold something small or fiddly or awkward shaped when making, finishing or painting a model. The way they get round it is they stick a handle on to the model that they are going to remove later in a place that no one will look, or in a place where the mark left when the handle is removed can be covered up later.

For small things this might mean super gluing (cyano-acrylate) a cocktail stick to the edge of something small, right up to resin gluing a piece of doweling or a metal bracket to something big.

In this case you are going to need some way of turning the disc when it is covered in wet filler, so this handle will do nicely. later in the model we will remove it and cover the mark with some flat filler.

Obviously don't put the handle over the centre hole area. It needs to be central but not over the place where the hole is going to be and clearly not overhanging the edges, because we are going to be making a profile there.