What do you do when you can do no more?

Um, I hear you and feel your pain.. i DO have a spray booth, but in the attached (and unheated) garage. I have AB twice since Nov, both times got lots of "splotchy" patterns due to the ambient air being around 40oF. So, I only AB "base coats" or primer in those conditions.

What have I done? I wash sprues, sand and dry fit, paint small parts by hand. I have, um let me check... 2 small subs, 2 ships, 2 armor, 1 a/c all in the "AB paint" queue.... I just got a new PE-bending tool, so I was going to practice some PE bending on some extra frets. Been getting books from the library and doing online research and dloading or scanning many pictures for future build ideas. Oh well, not much I guess, but thats what I have been doing while I cant AB... (and we have half a foot of snow outside right now).

LOL..... we built an addition on to the house that included spray room!

There was also a garage and a bonus room and a laundry room..... but I got my spray area! 

Just don't open another box!

I also feel your pain as I have been slow getting my paint area up to speed.

Opening another kit even just to 'look' at it.....leads to glue and putty, as you know.

I do spend time learning my new AB's on a test bed model.....find a flaw in a WIP and fixing it....learning all aspects of my digital camera (my worst enemy!).....and doing a lot of the above suggestions.........plus constantly tweaking my workbench.

Jon..........ahhh! Don't remind us!

Practice on my brush painting.You know you have a problem in waiting to use an airbrush.Have you forgoten how to use a brush?......Digger

Clean, organize and inventory the workbench. Get your ducks all lined up. It is a good time to sort the spares, restock supplies, and clean everything top to bottom. Put things back where they belong. Rearrange it all if it helps! I do that fairly often, trying to find just the perfect setup for me.

Go do some other things that need doing as well. Tackle some of the other dreaded chores like a pre-spring cleaning of the garage...I back park the vehicles outside, close the door, bundle up in warm enough clothes, crank the music and putter around cleaning and sorting. I usually end up with a couple of full trash cans and more space to use. Again a good time to take inventory to see what supplies you'll need come spring. It's a good time to inspect the lawn & garden tools, I sharpen the hoe, shears, lawn mower blades...I oil the wooden handles...make sure my pump sprayer was cleaned before it got put away for the season. Check to make sure my cordless tools are fully charged (the cold weather is hard on batteries and many forget to take them indoors...oops me too )

Getting away from the bench can help keep you invigorated about modeling when you can return to it. Plus, getting some of those little things done now while you can't paint means you'll have that time free later when you can.

HawkeyeHobbies wrote:

Clean, organize and inventory the workbench. Get your ducks all lined up. It is a good time to sort the spares, restock supplies, and clean everything top to bottom. Put things back where they belong. Rearrange it all if it helps! I do that fairly often, trying to find just the perfect setup for me.

Yeah, I also have been doing that, putting my stash in an Excel inventory, labelling the top of my paints (and inventorizing), making new "sanding sticks" from popsicles and pencils and sand paper. As Digger mentioned, lots of small brush painting, propellers and such.

Inventory (spreadsheet)...even when my collection was approaching 1000 kits, I never bothered to do that. Of course I have a memory like an elephant (well use to). The only time I inventoried them was as I packed them into large lawn mower boxes to be sold as 'kit lots' which I sold most all of . Reflecting back I wished I had kept them but at the time there was no indication that I would be returning to the hobby any time soon. 

But I DID after a hiatas of about ten years.