Biggest disasters?

GMorrison

I had a very large model railroad in the garage. It represented the Central Coast of California circa 1960, on the Southern Pacific Lines.

One of the signature trains that operated over those rails were enormous, slow moving mile long trains of open gondolas filled with sugar beets. Big suckers, like withered footballs.

How to make millions of 1/160 scale roots? It sounded like a neat trick- buy a five pound bag of carraway seeds and dump them into the open cars, then fix with dilute white glue. It all looked great.

Then the mice found a yard full of those trains. Just tore the whole thing to pieces. Cars, locomotives, buildings, signals, overhead wires, all trashed.

And they left their droppings. 

HOLY CRAP!!! Literally!

I had built and painted a 1/72 Italeri Stalin II and really thought I'd done something swell: I'd sanded smooth the fuel tanks and glued on styrene strip for the brackets; I'd used brass rod for all of the many grab handles; I thought that I'd captured just the right shade of green for a 1/72 vehicle, and my use of washes, filters and OPR was in my opinion the best I'd ever achieved. I thought it was the Mona Lisa of 1/72 armour. Then I put it on a Tamiya paint stand, without realizing that the tension was set for a much larger kit, and left the room. Sometime while I was out the pressure caused the suspension to give way on both sides, ripping off wheels and breaking the tracks into little pieces. I found bits all over the room, and as of now, several months later, I still haven't found half of what came off.

Bummer.

GMorrison

Then the mice found a yard full of those trains. Just tore the whole thing to pieces. Cars, locomotives, buildings, signals, overhead wires, all trashed. And they left their droppings.

Ouch!

I had a very large model railroad in the garage. It represented the Central Coast of California circa 1960, on the Southern Pacific Lines.

One of the signature trains that operated over those rails were enormous, slow moving mile long trains of open gondolas filled with sugar beets. Big suckers, like withered footballs.

How to make millions of 1/160 scale roots? It sounded like a neat trick- buy a five pound bag of carraway seeds and dump them into the open cars, then fix with dilute white glue. It all looked great.

Then the mice found a yard full of those trains. Just tore the whole thing to pieces. Cars, locomotives, buildings, signals, overhead wires, all trashed.

And they left their droppings.

I've told this story before, but...

Building the old Hasegawa 1/72 88mm FLAK and crew. Beautiful 'sand and spinach' camouflage on the gun, full crew lovingly painted and detailed down to their insignia.

Reached for the Dullcote can to give all the 'final touch,' pressed the spray button...and realized I'd grabbed the metallic gold instead of the Dullcote.

The whole gilded mess is still tucked away in its box in a dark corner of the stash....

Ugh, that would be frustrating!

My worst disaster occured after almost finishing a Tamiya 1/72 Mosquito. I set it on a shelf to dry before putting the matte coat over the decals. Was getting something from the shelf above and dropped a case on the airplane. Surprisingly, only one set of landing gear broke. I'm saving it use in a "hard landing" dioramma.