Disasters in Modeling

Man, yeah, too many disasters to count to be sure. I had two 1/700 ships sitting on a homemade plexiglass shelf with plexiglass legs that sits on top of my regular wood shelf. Underneath these two ships is a third 1/700 Warspite. Anyway, the shelf was near the edge and over time, unbeknownst to me, it was moving with vibrations (walking close to shelf, footfalls, etc). Anyway, I hear a crash and one side of the shelf slipped off the shelf, crushed the superstructure of the Warspite and the other two, Lexington and Bismarck slip nicely off the slippery plexiglass onto the floor between two cabinets. Total destruction for all!! The Lexington with full Air Wing took me months to do....what a heartbreaking day that was!!

      Someone should make a u-tube series from this thread.  It would make a good companion to the "Adventures in scale modeling" series.  Two catagories could be  comedy and heartbreak bench.   Misery does love company,  so it's nice to know im not alone in creating disasters.

                                                                                                                                        knox

Wonderful memories. After taking a break I got back into modeling. My wife showed some interest in what I was doing. the light bulb went off and suggested why don't you build one with me. So she like the JU-87. We got the Trumpeter 1/32 JU-87 to build with Eduard photo etch. She learned quite well and the assembly went well over the next few weeks. Got everything done in the build and was going to gloss coat for decal prep. Gloss coated hers and then went for mine. I lifted it up and it slipped. After the 5 foot dive the pilot never pulled up. Well at least she has the nicest model on display.

had a hobby boss F/A-18 hornet, was all finished except the decals. was my first time applying a gloss coat and when it had dried you could run your finger the whole length of the model and not feel a single panel line. it looks OK and is on display but it will always be in the absence of panel lines will forever be in the back of my mind when looking at it. been afraid to put a gloss coat on ever since.

I was in sixth grade at the time. I was on summer vacation and I painted for an hour every day until the plane was finished. Yes it took a while, but I was a kid and didn't care at all. The build was great and it was a very attractive built kit. The dried paint had lines in it over time. The magnets were from a bass speaker. The magnets were strong enough to hold a screw up against the side of the model. Now that I think about it I had decided with a friend that it was discoloration caused by dust.

seasick

I built a Monogram 1/72 B-36 when I was in 6th or 7th grade. .......I had painted it by hand with Testors silver paint from the small bottle.....

Biggest disaster: a glass plate falling in my glass cabinet, squashing all the models underneath. And it was my fault because I was "adjusting" the plate. I think that took out 5 or 6 models. Most of those are repaired, still have one to do.

Back when Dragon started putting out their Tiger mega kits, I picked up a couple when my skill level still called for Monogram snap together kits. Anyway, after painting the tub I set is aside to dry. Being the impatient person that I am, I placed it under the desk light on the bench. I had only left it for a few minutes but you can guess what happened. A $60.00+ kit was ruined because the tub warped to the point of no return. Suffice it to say that I learned my lesson well that day.

seasick

 Over time something weird happened to the paint job on the plane.

I built a Monogram 1/72 B-36 when I was in 6th or 7th grade. The thing was a monster and it was back heavy. I ended up breaking a magnet up from an old car stereo speaker and cramming it into the model to keep it from falling backward. Over time something weird happened to the paint job on the plane. I had painted it by hand with Testors silver paint from the small bottle, and the sprayed it with gloss coat.  I had always wondered if the magnets inside were messing with the plastic or paint somehow. I can't see any reason to believe they were. Is there iron in oil paints or polystyrene?

Does pretending that your 1/48 Monogram Harrier is flying while making jet engine sounds and dropping it on the floor count as a disaster?  I know a guy who did this

Mine just occurred a couple of weeks ago.  I built a Monogram F-5E and mounted it on a wood base.  Not even 24hrs later while looking in his office, I noticed some of the weapons were off and a main gear was broken.   Well it seems that Murphy paid a visit.  A couple of books that never moved, fell right on the wing and the rest is history... easy fix though.

It's amazing how some people have no regard for other's personal things, being not just models but anything. I once loaned a neighbor a small hydraulic jack so he could work on his car. A few days later he returned it all neatly packed in its box. A couple of weeks later I took it out to use it and it was broken. I have no clue how he broke the darn thing that was just about bullet proof. Since then, I do not loan out anything.

That's got to be a tough one being it's the wife....

I have enough disaster stories to fill a book, but I'll just add one that was inflicted by a family member.

I was in my early 20's and still living at the folks. (Yeah, I know!) One day, while at work, my dad decided he would paint the ceiling in my room. No advance notice, no chance to prepare.

He was always the type who believed in getting these projects done in as little time as possible and waste no time with things like masking, paint tarps, drop cloths, etc. He would paint over anything like hinges, light switches, outlets, etc.

I came home to find that not only were some things broken, but the worst was everything in my room was covered with paint splatters, and those little droplets of paint that go everywhere when using a roller! This included my furniture, stereo equipment, and my small model collection! I ended up tossing some of them out. Latex paint does not easily come off when dry!

Somehow, I was the bad guy because I got mad and didn't appreciate what he did for me....

Jim

The friction lasting for a second is the thing to avoid: The same thing happened to me with another's ship, but at least there the damage amounted to a flag pole...

Gaston

Not a major or complete disaster but still a painful experience. I built a 1/350 Tamiya Battleship back in the early 1980's when pe details were not around. I used Walthers brass railroad ladders as the railings and made my own radar screens out of thin plastic mesh. She came out very nice. Fast forward to 1995 when my present wife was painting the living room with the help of her brother who went to move my prized battlewagon encased in a specially built glass and wood case that I made. He didn't know that the top glass portion came off the bottom base. He picked it up from the top part, and of course    the bottom wood base stayed on for a couple of seconds till it finally dropped about a foot or so. All the life boats came off, along with several railing sections and the main mast was sheared along with all the rigging.

My model had survived several moves, one divorce and several near disasters till that day.   I still have the model, wounded and in need of repair. I will get to it eventually one of these days.

tempestjohnny

I hope the movers paid for the damaged stuff

RobGroot4

Wasn't the B-36 in general a disaster?

I understand it did it's duty quite well in providing shade to the tarmacs down in Texas!

Wasn't the B-36 in general a disaster?

I hope the movers paid for the damaged stuff

stikpusher

I have moved twice in the last three years. The movers are not allowed to touch my model stuff.

Some time when no one was watching, the movers decided to pack these two boxes by putting the heavier, but smaller paint box inside the built kit box. They pushed the paint box down on top of the built kits crushing them good so they could close the box and tape it up.

The tank kits that got crushed were the Gunze Sangyo M60A1 RISE/Passive with ERA (a very expensive plastic & white metal kit), a Trumpter M60A1 (a $20 kit) and a couple of Monogram reissue 1/48 scale WW2 fighters.

Disaster?  

Mono B-36, enough said.

I find there are two kinds of disasters.  Rapid onset disasters, where something suddenly spills or goes explodes; and slow onset disasters, like when you realize that you've assembled something wrong and can't fix it.

When I was fifteen, I had spent about nine months working on a Revell USCG Eagle.  I'd been taking extra care with all the details, and was about halfway thru the rigging.  Even those stupid white plastic sails had been cut and mounted with care.  As I recall, the bow half of the rigging was finished (or very close) and I had yet to complete the stern.

While at school one day, my Mom opened my window (we lived in North Dakota and it was the first fifty degree day in MONTHS) to air out the house, and the cutter sailed right off my chest of drawers.  Bow sprit, two forward masts broken, all the spars broken, and it all held together by a knot of thread that I'd had been using for the rig.

Reading the injuries sustained while modelling thread I thought of another good one.  When I was in High School I was building one of the Italieri models of the aircraft carrier my dad was stationed on, and despite laying down an old shower curtain on the floor of my room for overspray, I managed to end up with a faint dark red border around the curtain on the carpet.  As it turns out, paint thinner makes red paint brighter when it's on carpet!

The reason the injuries thread brought it to mind was my mom's reaction to said stain on the carpet.  I ended up with a fairly large dark red oval.  I got it pretty faint, but the carpet was eventually replaced.

Groot