Foolish Modeling "disasters"

Stayed up a little to late trying to finish a Revell Helldiver in time for a competition the next day and applied liquid glue to the decals insted of solvent. I didn't win.

Not too long ago I was using my OLD Aztek airbrush when I didn't have the lid on all the way and the paint spattered all over my hobby table and the wall. Well I had to clean up the mess and repaint the wall. Thank goodness the wife didn't find out.

I dropped an exacto knife with a double edged blade inserted. Tried to catch in instinctively before it hit the floor. You can guess the rest. 7 stitches later, to both thumb and forefinger, I threw the double edge blade out. Couldn't build anything for a week.

FUTURE MODELING MISTAKE: I'm going to imbed a 1/72 dh.2 in a block of resin. - Disaster waiting to happen!

The wings on my second model fit forwards and backwards, so I put the wings on backwards. Later I removed the wings and put them on backwards again! I got it right on the third try.

The stories that we can all tell, Mine is spent hours building the "Bismark" motoried kit converted to Wire control. Was testing in the bay when the tide went out and my cable broke and i watch the bismark sail away. Another one i am a C-130 nut was transferred to a new duty station, i packed all my models myself and i had (note the word had) a hugh box of C-130's about 15 of them, the moving company said them were not to blame. So somewhere there are 15 very detailed hand painted beauties that someone needed more then i did.

Once I painted a greenhouse canopy the color of the frames, in hopes that I might simply scrape the paint off the glass portions....

2 pieces of sandpaper, one fresh hobby blade and a canopy with 6 nice, big scratch marks on it later.....

..... I learned to buy Eduard's masks.

(I eventually bought a Squadron vac-form canopy replacement for the plane)

Nothing like getting ready for a show and putting undiluted flat finish on it.. which turns white.

In the 70s I got real heavy {this is not a pun} into 1/32 scale aircraft. The Revell P-38 was a real tail dragger but, the nose and engine compartments had lots of space for lead weight. when finished this thing looked great and weighed a ton. It did however sit on all three. So one 74 winter afternoon I was pondering my growing collection and decreasing elbow room. Mom came to the rescue!!! She suggested reverse my display technique. What a dummy, how obvious. Hang the large ones, and put the smaller ones on the shelves. Great idea! When I got around to the P-38 I hung it the same way I had the others. About an hour later I'm in the living room when comes a loud crash from my bedroom. I still have some of the parts in my parts box.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Kugai I don't have many "disasters," but I have a lot of projects that are "incomplete and awaiting further refinement of my skills as a modeler." OK, enough plausible deniability ( or should that be "denial"? )... The biggest goof-up I can think of ( one from which there was no recovery ) was the time I left a completed B-2 in the car during a move. I was tired after a long drive and decided I'd unpack the car the next day ( I'd arrived at about 11 pm ). though the outside temperature was only about 60 fegrees, greenhouse effect in the car saw to it that my B-2 looked like an attempt at a "folding wing" variant on one side and ... Hmm, how can I best describe the rest? Ask a 4-year-old kid to make a B-2 from silly putty or plastecine. Now imagine that far-from-aerodynamic, uneven surface in 1:72 scale with accurate colors and markings with about a 45-degree downangle on the right wing. All other incidents resembling "disasters" are pretty much covered in my contribution to the "10 things I've learned" thread. Now, as for dealing with other people's mistakes, only 2 come to mind. One occurred when I was helping a newcomer to the hobby and time came for them to paint their project. The lessons on "black caps for enamels, gray caps for acrylics" and "how to clean enamel and acrylic paint off the brushes" were apparently not as clear as I thought. The worst part was that the brushes and paints were mine! The other ( asking for advice here ) has to do with a recent trade I made. I am now the proud owner of a partially completed first-edition Enterprise kit ( original series ). The catch is, I now know why the previous 2 owners gave up on it. It turns out the first guy used the old 2-part epoxy glue from the '70s to try to put the thing together. This stuff is about 5 times harder than the plastic in the kit, so any attemts to remove it will at best wear out my sanding materials and X-actos at an unbelievable rate, and at worst ruin the kit. Anyone out there have a better way to remove the stuff? If not, maybe I'll just trade it to someone else who underestimates the epoxy. maybe it'll become a modelers' legend. The eternally-traded, never completed kit that passes from owner to owner... "Til next time I couldn't even find my way back to "normal" with the Hubble!

Gee, that would make it the model builder's answer to the theory that there is only one fruitcake in the whole world and that it just gets passed from owner to owner every Christmas.

Just yesterday I spilled nail polish remover with acetone all over my nearly completed F-18. I ruined about half of the paint, and it debonded one of the rudders and a landing gear door completely. Crap. At least I wasn't totally finished with it. Maybe it's salvageable, I sure hope so. It was coming together nicely.

madda