- Member since
September 2006
- From: Bethlehem PA
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Posted by the Baron
on Wednesday, January 6, 2016 12:07 PM
What's on my shelf of doom? A lot of kits.
Coincidentally, our club, Delaware Valley Scale Modelers, chose as a theme for the year, "Shelf of Doom". At our meeting this month, we each presented a kit or two to be rescued from the backlog, told why we got stalled with the kit, and the challenge is to finish the kit or kits by the December meeting. There seem to be two main reasons for a kit to land on the shelf--a technical issue that needs to be resolved, or a loss of interest in the build.
I presented two kits, both 1/48 aircraft, the HobbyBoss F4F-3, and the old Monogram P-47D bubbletop. With the Wildcat, I ran into fit issues, especially with the way the fuselage is engineered, and got tired of them. With the Thunderbolt, I got stalled at the point of painting the aircraft.
The rest of the kits on the shelf comprise:
- Monogram's Hawker Typhoon in 1/48, which I had started for the current Monogram Mafia build. I got stalled at the point of painting. My club's theme build was a shot in the arm, though, and over the weekend, I resumed work on this kit
- The HobbyBoss 1941 USS Arizona, in 1/700, which I am converting to the Pennsylvania as she appeared in 1935. It's a lousy kit, and I'm stalled at dressing it up with photo-etch
- Hasegawa's USS Essex in 1/700, which I am finishing in her original deployment's configuration, including adding the hangar deck. Another attempt to make a silk purse of a sow's ear
- Monogram's Tom Daniel's Red Baron hot rod, started for an automotive group build, stalled because of some poor fits and because I stripped the chrome, to clean up the seams, and now, I have to re-paint the chrome
- Monogram's 1/48 P-80/F-80, stalled at the point of applying aftermarket decals
- A pair of Monogram 1/72 P-36s. No real problems with the kits, but when I was building them a couple of years ago, at Christmastime, my water heater burst. That diverted my attention, then the holidays, and I never got back to finishing those aircraft
- Hasegawa's 1/72 F4F-4, with resin cockpit details. No problems here, either, just got distracted
- Nichimo's copy of the old Monogram 1/48 Helldiver kit, which I had started for one of the Monogram Mafia builds. When I got to assembling the wings, I found that the outer wing panels do not match the inner wing section, in thickness, so they cannot be installed in the down position. This was not a problem on the original kit, as far as I can remember.
- Monogram's 1/48 TBD, started as a yellow-wings build, but got distracted
- A pair of Monogram 1/48 P-40Bs, also started, but got distracted
- An old Aurora F4B-4, stalled because I want to try making a replacement turtle deck to correct the kit's lines
- An old Lindberg Goshawk, one of the first kits I started, when I got back into building models around '99 or so. I was scratchbuilding the interior, when I discovered Mark Buchler's ModelNerd site and his resin upgrade set. And I got distracted.
So you see, I'm a nostalgia builder, and I get distracted easily mid-build.
But on the other hand, it's a hobby, and it's supposed to be fun, so I don't sweat the backlog too much. But I do want to spend more time this year, at the bench, compared to my other hobbies.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.
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