- Member since
September 2006
- From: Bethlehem PA
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Posted by the Baron
on Friday, November 11, 2016 11:59 AM
stikpusher
At the beginning of every year, for the past several years, I make a list of kits that are in progress. I carry over builds from the previous year, and add new ones started within that current year. I mark symbols on the list to the ones nearly complete and cross off ones completed to keep track of my efforts. My eventual goal is to reduce the carry overs to a single digit number or zero, if possible. Right now I think I have at least three dozen going at various stages of completion, from barely started to almost finished. The oldest "work in progress", a heavily modified Monogram SBD, has probably been going, off and on, for 20 years now... This year I decided to participate in no more Group Builds, and focus on one build at a time in order to whittle down that number.
We think along similar lines, Stik! For one thing, I, too, stopped joining group builds, but back on 2015, because I have too many in-progress builds.
Back in 2008, I took stock of started builds for the first time, and I made a New Year's resolution to finish 12 of them. I also resolved not to buy a new kit, ie, new to my stash, for the year. I made it to July before I finally broke down and bought a kit (the deal was too good to pass up). Of those dozen kits, I think I finished 4 during that year, and I have since finished 2 more of them.
This year, our club chose an annual build theme of "Shelf of Doom". We each select a kit or kits that we had started and then let sit, for whatever reason, and the goal is to finish them by our December meeting. I took it as motivation to jumpstart a couple of my longer-sitting builds, and I selected 3, all 1/48 aircraft: Monogram's P-47D bubbletop and Hawker Typhoon, and HobbyBoss' F4F-3. I finished the P-47 and the Typhoon. The Wildcat had me backsliding into procrastination, though, when I dropped the fuselage, losing the tailwheel in the process. I had to scratchbuild one, and that has taken me three months. I finally got one that I liked, Wednesday night, and so, tonight, I will prime it, and I expect to finish it by the next meeting (December 2).
I still have the following started builds:
- HobbyBoss' 1/700 USS Arizona 1941, which I am converting the Pennsylvania circa 1935. I'm stuck at the point of applying PE railings, but I've finally gotten disillusioned with the lousy quality of the kit, and now, it's like eating broccoli when you're four.
- Hasegawa's 1/700 USS Essex, which I started detailing by adding the hangar deck. It was one of my 2008 resolution build kits
- 2 Monogram P-40Bs in 1/48, about 33% complete
- 1 Monogram TBD-1, about 25% complete
- 1 Monogram P-80, about 80% complete (painted, awaiting decals and final assembly)
- 1 Monogram SB2C (for one of the Monogram Mafia builds here in FSM), 10% assembled
- 1 Monogram Red Baron Hot Rod, about 80% complete (bad fit and some short-shot parts made me put it aside. Plus, I stripped the chrome, so I could clean up seams, and just made more work for myself)
- 1 Aurora F4B-4 in 1/48, about 25% assembled
- 1 Lindberg F11F-C in 1/48, about 25% assembled
- 1 AMT F4U in 1/48, about 25% assembled
- 1 Pyro Hawker Fury in 1/48, also about 25% assembled
- 1 Wave 1/20 Melusine from the Maschinen Krieger line. It's assembled, and I'm in progress painting it in a camo pattern based on the German Grenzschuetz "rain" camo. It's for a diorama that I am gradually assembling, though, so I don't have any hurry with that one
I'm not counting any of the toy soldiers that I also cast and paint, or any figures that I've started.
That's not too bad, I suppose, but, you can see why I don't join group builds anymore, either. Of course, there may be some I've forgotten, too, and they're stuck on a shelf somewhere in the vicinity of my bench.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.
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