micrometer-scale fabrication

1 millimeter	mm	one thousandth (10^-3) of a meter	roughly the thickness of a credit card, a pencil tip, or a blade of grass
100 micrometers		10 thousandths (10^-4) of a meter	roughly the thickness of a human hair (17-181 μm), or a piece of paper (70 to 180 μm)
10 micrometers		100 thousandths (10^-5) of a meter	roughly the thickness of a cotton fiber, or a human red blood cell
1 micrometer	µm	one millionth (10^-6) of a meter	roughly the thickness of E. coli bacteria, or spider silk

For the machinists out there, note that 1 thou is 25 micrometers.

tools for finishing fine-detailed 3D prints, especially D&D miniatures

This video contains a LOT of wisdom about how to do finishing on miniatures. The miniatures that we're having printed for us are usually made using a resin (SLA / stereolithography) 3D printer.

power tools:

dental burs [2] [3]
- head diameters range from 0.5 mm to 8.0 mm
- There are various things that dental burs are used for — trimming, shaping, polishing, and finishing. For D&D work, we'll probably be interested in polishing burs.

hand tools:

adhesive-backed sandpaper
- Sandpaper can be cut with a utility knife or scissors, and can be cut into small strips or other arbitrary shapes. Just don't use your nicest scissors, because this will slightly dull them.
- You can adhere the sandpaper to any tool you have handy, Some suggestions that work well:
  - Small wood sticks.
  - Tools designed for sculpting clay, wax, and plaster, especially sculpting spatulas.
- There are "assortment / variety pack" options available for adhesive-backed sandpaper, such as: [1] [2] [3]
pin vises
- they're a "manually rotated drill for making tiny holes"
- besides drilling, they can also be used for grinding and polishing, provided the right bit is used
- somewhat related is the Fiskars hand drill, which is still hand-powered, but can produce higher speeds than a pin vise can (which itself is closely related to the brace)
needle files
- relatively common, relatively cheap
- they have cross sections ranging from approx 1 - 5 mm
escapement files
- slightly smaller than needle files, but downside: they're much more expensive
- I believe the name alludes to the escapement within clockwork?
endodontic files
- an endodontist is someone who specializes in root canals and similar work, and the files are used to remove the pulp from a tooth's root canal system (AKA "debridement", which is an absolutely horrible word)
- when a procedure is in progress, the files are typically stored in an organizer worn on the doctor's wrist, and each file is jabbed into the foam insert
- Their diameters are rated from "D1" at the smallest, to "D16" at the largest. Endodontic files have a tightly-specified taper, and the D1-D16 specifies their diameter at the tip.
  - I believe different manufacturers have different dimensions for their files, with different tapers and different diameters available. The file diameters range, roughly, from 0.09mm at the smallest tip to 0.8mm which is the largest of the files at the top of their taper.