What's your worst modeling disaster?

After 50 + years of building models of one type or another, I don't think there many modeling disasters that I haven't participated in.  Over the years I've managed poke, slash, rip, slash and even bore holes in my body.  I've spilled more than one bottle of paint/thinner/liquid glue over an open model box, desk top, rug, floor and even myself.  Over the years, I've lost enough styrene to the Rug Monster or the Fifth Dimension to build a couple of dozen models. I've glued parts together and then discovered they're in the wrong place well after they've dried.  Put parts together backwards or upside down (it happens when you follow one of the aircraft mechanics  basic rules - "When all else fails, read the instructions").  I've had shelves full of models collapse, even sat on a just completed model.  My wife, my kids and their friends and our assorted pets over the years have all participated in the mayhem in one form or another.

Over the years, the disasters have become less violent and much farther apart (See, I can learn from my mistakes - unfortunately I sometimes have to be hit between the eyes with a 2 by 4 to get my attention).  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find some debonder so I can get the super glue that is holding three fingers on my left hand together removed. 

Reading these stories reminded me of the old song "Murphy & the Bricks":

Dear sir I write this note to you
To tell you of my plight
For at the time of writing it
I'm not a pretty sight
My body is all black and blue
My face a deathly grey
And I write this note to tell you
Why I am not at work today

Whilst working on the fourteenth floor
Some bricks I had to clear
But to toss them down from such a height
Was not a good idea
The foreman wasn't very pleased
He is an awkward sod
And he said i had to cart them
Down the ladder in my hod

Well moving all these bricks by hand
It was so very slow
SoI hoisted up a barrell
And secured the rope below
But in my haste to do the job
I was to blind to see
That a barrell full of building bricks
Was heavier than me

And so when I untied the rope
The barrell fell like lead
But clinging tightly to the rope
I started up instead
I shot up like a rocket
'til to my dismay I found
That half way up I met
The bloody barrell coming down

The barrell broke my shoulder
As to the ground it sped
And when I reached the top
I banged the pulley with my head
Still clinging tightly to the rope
From this almighty blow
Whilst the barrell spilled out half it's bricks
Some fourteen floors below Now when these bricks had fallen
From the barrell to the floor
I then outweighed the barrell
And so started down once more
Still clinging tightly to the rope
My body racked with pain
And halfway down I met
The bloody barrell once again

The force of this collision
Halfway down the office block
Caused multiple abrasions
And a nasty case of shock
Still clinging tightly to the rope
I fell towards the ground
And landed on the broken bricks
The barrell had scattered round

I lay there bleeding on the ground
I thought I'd passed the worst
But the barrell hit the pulley wheel
And then the bottom burst
A shower of bricks rained down on me
I didn't have a hope
As I lay there bleeding on the ground
I let go of the bloody rope

The barrell now being heavier
It started down once more
And landed right across me
As I lay there on the floor
It broke three ribs and my left arm
And I can only say
I hope you'll understand
Why I am not at work today !!!

I few years back a young Marine I had in my squadron used to come into my office and admire models I have of USMC A/C.I was the Flight Line Division Chief at the time.He went to the PX and purchased a 1/48 AH-1W Super Cobra.We are an HMLA Squadron we had 12 UH-1Ns and 16 AH-1Ws.I would do barracks inspections every 4 th day when my duty section was "on".I was the duty section chief.I got to see the work this young man was doing.I was nice work for his first model.He would ask me for advice from time to time.The kit came with HMLA -169 decals.(our squadron).We had just changed our camo paint to the two tone blue grey .This young man could not find the proper paint at the PX hobby section.

So guess what he did,He went to your corrision control shop and a buddy hooked him uo with two cans of Mil-Spec paint.He went to the barracks that night and painted the Cobra.Next morning he made a point to tell me to take a look at the model.I had barracks inspection that day.I was looking foward to seeing the A/C.It was a sight to see. The NAVAIR Mil-Spec spray cans are POLYUREATHANE the kit plastic is also poly plastic.The model was a blob of sticky two tone plastic.The kid was crushed.I gave him another kit and some Testors paint.He did a good job on the 2nd kit.

TheLastPriest wrote:

ridleusmc wrote: I don't know if this really qualifies as a disaster, but there was carnage involved.  I built this collection while on deployment to Djibouti (pronounced Ja-Booty), Africa.  They were very helpful in killing time for 7 months.  It was a tough decision to leave them there, but I thought my friends (who were relieving me) would enjoy having them around.  They did.  The story I heard was...  One night around Christmas my buddies got a hold of some beer and liquor.  Then they got a Christmas tree from the neighboring Air Force unit, but I don't think they asked.  There was a great battle for the Chrismas Tree.  The Corsair fought the Zero which fought the Spitfire, and the Sherman fought the Tiger which fought the T-34.  It was the epic battle for the Christmas tree.  There were no survivors.  One M3 Lee was hit hard and caught fire while attacking the Ordinance tent.

That's horrible, but the story of it is hilarious...That M3 Lee looks kind of like the time I got mad at a Revell P-40N, and I put that crappy Testors filler putty all over it and lit it.

fiffel wrote:

ridleusmc; I'm sorry about your accident, but I can't help to say that the picture of the tank that got melt just made me laugh. Here's one of my disasters:  Had just been at the Hobby store and bought a Humbrol tinlet of Desert Yellow color. Opened it, and stirred it,stirred it well. And I turned around to get a brush and touch up a german tank. And I hit the tinlet with my elbow and all the color flowed down on my bench, down on my my shirt and pants. Dripping from the table down on the chair, on the floor. Have you ever thought of how much paint there actually is in one of those small tinlets? There was color a little everywhere in the house after that, on door handles etc.   My Mama wasn't too happy about it.

I remember modeling as a kid and spilling those little bottles of paint. It's amazing when those tiny bottles gush out a full gallon of paint!

I think my worst disaster was ever getting involved in the first place.  It's cost me a fortune over the years (decades?) and I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to show for it all - other than scarred hands and a slight addiction to the smell of polystyrene cement!

If I had my time all over again, d'you what I'd do?  I'd do it all again I s'pose. 

Michael 

Moving a few years ago, at the time I had roughly 15(?) kits built, amoung them my very first, a rather large and OOP 1/48th scale YB-49. I had packed them all carefuly and was 110% sure nothing would happen to them, and, nothing did.

 One day someone is shifting boxes before I get the chance to unpack them...puts the boxes on the dead bottom of a 10 box high stack, most of them with rather heavy things in them.

Most everything was destroyed, the salvage list is as follows:

Revell B-25J

The OOP YB-49 (Never looked as good again )

1/48th F-15

1/32 Monogram(?) B-29A (Monsterous beast of a kit, never found the gears so I remodeled it to have the gears up)

 I still to this day am working on salvaging some of the kits on and off, almost done restoring an SR-71.

ridleusmc; I'm sorry about your accident, but I can't help to say that the picture of the tank that got melt just made me laugh.

Here's one of my disasters: 

Had just been at the Hobby store and bought a Humbrol tinlet of Desert Yellow color.

Opened it, and stirred it,stirred it well. And I turned around to get a brush and touch up a german tank. And I hit the tinlet with my elbow and all the color flowed down on my bench, down on my my shirt and pants. Dripping from the table down on the chair, on the floor. Have you ever thought of how much paint there actually is in one of those small tinlets?

There was color a little everywhere in the house after that, on door handles etc. 

 My Mama wasn't too happy about it.

My worst modelling disaster happened while taking some pictures of my completed Harrier.  I had a light bulb too close to the model for too long apparantly.  After 10-15 min the top had melted and come apart at the seam.  Fortunately, I got a few decent shots of her before she turned ugly on me...

I'm currently LIVING my worst modeling disaster. This Tamiya F1M2 Type O "Pete" floatplane is kicking my butt. The FIRST paint job came out too green, it looked like the Geico gekko. But oops, it really didn't occur to me until after the decals went on. OK, so I painted it over, not disturbing the paint or decals. No problem, as the kit included many more decals. The SECOND paint job was about right, but after applying the hinomarus and any other red decal, it occurred to me they're almost a day-glo red! Yick! Now, I went to glue the top wing on, but after it dried, it occurred to me the cabane struts are too short at the front, thereby angling the top wing downward. Hmmm. I think I shouldn't sleep while I build! I never made so many absent-minded goofs on a project in my life.

But just so you know, these early Tamiya kits do not fall together like their newer kits! Several areas will require extensive reworking. And you'll be shocked at the lack of detail in critical places, such as cockpits.

TheLastPriest wrote:

ridleusmc wrote: I don't know if this really qualifies as a disaster, but there was carnage involved.  I built this collection while on deployment to Djibouti (pronounced Ja-Booty), Africa.  They were very helpful in killing time for 7 months.  It was a tough decision to leave them there, but I thought my friends (who were relieving me) would enjoy having them around.  They did.  The story I heard was...  One night around Christmas my buddies got a hold of some beer and liquor.  Then they got a Christmas tree from the neighboring Air Force unit, but I don't think they asked.  There was a great battle for the Chrismas Tree.  The Corsair fought the Zero which fought the Spitfire, and the Sherman fought the Tiger which fought the T-34.  It was the epic battle for the Christmas tree.  There were no survivors.  One M3 Lee was hit hard and caught fire while attacking the Ordinance tent.      I would be flippin furious, thats just down right disrespectful

I was a little miffed at first.  However, it didn't take too much time to realize that drunk Marines are like toddlers in many ways.  One way is that they're just going to play with models.

Semper Fi,

Chris

ridleusmc wrote:

I don't know if this really qualifies as a disaster, but there was carnage involved.  I built this collection while on deployment to Djibouti (pronounced Ja-Booty), Africa.  They were very helpful in killing time for 7 months.  It was a tough decision to leave them there, but I thought my friends (who were relieving me) would enjoy having them around.  They did.  The story I heard was...  One night around Christmas my buddies got a hold of some beer and liquor.  Then they got a Christmas tree from the neighboring Air Force unit, but I don't think they asked.  There was a great battle for the Chrismas Tree.  The Corsair fought the Zero which fought the Spitfire, and the Sherman fought the Tiger which fought the T-34.  It was the epic battle for the Christmas tree.  There were no survivors.  One M3 Lee was hit hard and caught fire while attacking the Ordinance tent.

I would be flippin furious, thats just down right disrespectful

I don't know if this really qualifies as a disaster, but there was carnage involved. 

I built this collection while on deployment to Djibouti (pronounced Ja-Booty), Africa.  They were very helpful in killing time for 7 months.  It was a tough decision to leave them there, but I thought my friends (who were relieving me) would enjoy having them around.  They did.  The story I heard was...  One night around Christmas my buddies got a hold of some beer and liquor.  Then they got a Christmas tree from the neighboring Air Force unit, but I don't think they asked.  There was a great battle for the Chrismas Tree.  The Corsair fought the Zero which fought the Spitfire, and the Sherman fought the Tiger which fought the T-34.  It was the epic battle for the Christmas tree.  There were no survivors.  One M3 Lee was hit hard and caught fire while attacking the Ordinance tent.

OUCH!

I thought the idea was to build a model on a subject from a war not to actually inflict it upon yourself!

My worst was snapping both wings and the body of a F-14 tomcat which was an expensive exercise!

Hope the rest of our modelling experiences continue on scratch free!!

Lucien Harpress wrote:

My worst disaster?  Check this: Before: After: Six foot flight, straight down.  First, last, and only flight.

My guess would be that the prototype was not airworthy!

goss this just hurts just reading all this. i've hadn't had any thing major happen to any of my models. had my guillow p-51 fall down which put a good sized gash in it that i repaired. most of my mistakes have been relatively small.

 I think the dumbest thing i've ever done was with my 1/24 tamiya nissan skyline. it had been sitting on my self for awhile and it had collected a good size amout of dust so i took it to the sink to wash it all off but not only did i wash the dust off, some of the decals too went down too. i felt like a straight retard for doing that. i got another decal sheet from ebay so it's all straight now but dang!

This isn't technically a "modelling disaster," but it's not exactly good. 

 My stash was located on some shelves in the cellar.  The washer and dryer are located directly above the area where the kits were kept.  Long story short, I didn't check on the kits for awhile because they were in a safe place.  Then, when there was a problem with the washer, I went downstairs and discovered that about half the kits (Tamiyas, Hase's, AM's, a couple Revellograms) had at some point been doused with water, and the boxes were rotted out; in a couple cases, the boxes and the kits inside were moldy.  Being stubborn and cheap, I got out the bleach and saved most of the kits. 

 Other than that, my biggest disaster was the P-47N that someone dropped and broke a couple years ago.  I put it most of the way back together, but the gunsight is still missing.  No one ever owned up to it, either. 

All of those are pretty bad... Mine was when I was finishing a 1/48  testors bearcat I just got done airbrushing some dark blue paint on it as it was drying my little brother came and spilled baby powder all over it! I was pretty mad... it stuck to the paint so I had to throw it out. But luckly they're pretty cheap at squadron so I got another one.

Lucien Harpress wrote:

My worst disaster?  Check this: Before: After: Six foot flight, straight down.  First, last, and only flight.

Ouchh.... Now that is a real disaster. How did that happen?

Worse disaster?

Deciding, 15 years ago, that I wasn't going to build models anymore.
Gave away 300+ kits, decal sets, scratch building material, detail sets, photo etched spats... just about everything. Some of that stuff is now going for HUGE money on eBay now-a-days.

I've had a few disasters.  One, my 1/48 Tamiya Lancaster decided to fall from the ceiling.  Broke into major pieces mostly and I was able to repair it.  Second, my 1/48 Monogram B-25 took a similar nosedive and amazingly though it hit the concrete floor of my garage, I was able to repair it as well.  Both are still "flying" through my garage in remarkably good shape.

Which leads me to the real disaster:  In my garage workshop I had 4 shelves on the walls displaying most of my non-hanging models.  Two of the shelves decided to pull out of the molly bolts they had been in for a year or so and took roughly half of my built models, dating all the way back to when I got back into this hobby in '95, with them.

Got a call at work and was told that there had been an accident in the garage and that, well, ahem, my models were in many hundreds of pieces on the floor.  Well, there wasn't much I could do at that point, so I went about my business until it was time to leave.  That drive home was kind of a dreadful drive, wondering just how bad the carnage would be.  When I got home and pulled into the garage, the first thing I saw, in kind of an homage to Robert Ballard's discovery of the Titanic, was a lone propellor from my Monogram 1/48 P-40.  Coming around the corner, the remainder of the mess was there every bit or worse as I had imagined.  But I used the disaster as an excuse to get replacements of most of the kits I lost.