Can cats and models peacefully co-exist?

Oh, boy...Cats.

I tell ya, we're down to seven of these house rodents now. Used to have twelve. Most of them are very well behaved but, like people, there are some bad apples. I have at least two of these rotten-fruit-types and they raise holy hell if given the chance. I always tell folks that my cats have test-flown more airplanes than Chuck Yeager!

The past 2 decades have been a research and development period for anti-cat-entry devices around the workshop. We've been tight and secure for the last ten years, but over the past few months there's been 1/1 scale work goin' on around the house. Because of this I've had to "disable" some of these anti-cat devices and, as a result, daily feline infiltration into the A&T lab has increased tenfold.

They're just curious and I realize that, but I have to go out and get some more duct tape and velcro. This cannot go on! LOL

I used to have one that would jump 8 feet up to the top shelf and knock a Sidewinder off an F-14. He musta seen that blue body of the missle and gone nuts or sumthin'...

Then there was the time one of 'em knocked over a shelf unit with no less than two dozen models on it. Grrr....

Oh man, then there was the back hall incident. I had just come back from a Regional and had my hardware-winners in the box on the bench in our back hall. Ran to take care of business, (you would too, after a four hour drive!) and returned to find the box upside down on the floor. Musta left the door open a bit and they went out and jumped up. Hell, they've learned to open doors anyway, so it might not have mattered either way! They are resourceful little creatures.

Yes my friends, if you know felines then you know that true happiness is being owned by a cat! I personally wouldn't have it any other way. I love my FLF's (pronounced "Fluffs" and stands for "Furry Little F....uh...Fellas. Yeah, that's right!) and I wouldn't give them up for the world. To top it off, I'm slightly allergic too! LMAO I'm a glutton for punishment!

Cats, can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em...

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My two cats sit on a corner of the modeling desk and watch when I build. They won't stay around when I paint due to the compressor noise. The youngest cat has been helpful in finding pieces that were sacrificed to the tweezer launch gods. Several times she has seen the piece fly through the air and goes after it as if it was covered in catnip. She doesn't always bring the piece back without knocking it around first, but at least I'm not crawling around on the floor with a flashlight.

I also have 2 cats. I think they are working together to see how far they can push me. LOL.
One of them simply loves my chair. She will jump in the second I get up. My other cat is a little more strange. He likes to sleep in the model box no matter how big or small it is. It's funny to look at with his body wrapped up in there. It doesn't seem to bother him if there are model parts still in the box. I don't know how he does it, but he hasn't broken any parts. Some have come off the trees, but never broken. I wonder what he's trying to tell me? hmmm...........

To put it in a single word....NO!

We have two, and now I have more 'Nic-Nacs' to repair on my work bench than I do models. These two see to have a sense that there is something new in the house to break, my model building has come to a literal stand still. Ive decide to build a studio in the back yard to work in! (solves more than the cat problem), its just easier that way. Cats are natures coolist creatures, but they are the bane of a modelers existance

Madd Dawg

My cat likes to be in my lap while I build models. She's not really interested in my efforts, though... and her fur gets full of little bits of plastic and resin (I don't let her on when I'm working with metal)... which tends to annoy her. If that's not enough, I like to tease her with sprues and plastic rod until she's had enough and leaves the room altogether.

I don't want to find out, so there are no felines in my household!!

CAUGHT IN THE ACT!



HA! GOTCHA! So, that's how she does it. Going back to old tricks I guess... How she got up there, though, I'll never know. The other side of that wall there's some solid bridging like the bay next to her and she musta squeezed thru.

How I dunno, only a couple of inches for her to get thru. I know cats can squeeze themselves, but GEEZ! They never fail to amaze me, and I've been owned by a cat since I was born!

Cats, can't live with 'em, can't kill em...

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Well, I'm rather attached to my three cats (they're more like surrogate children) and would never consider parting with them. As with anyone who has a toddler in the house, I take extra precautions to make sure my models are safe from the cats and the cats are safe from any modeling materials I may use. I have had a few problems though... My Maine Coon took all four funnels from my Minicraft Titanic a couple years back. I found all of 'em within a day or two. I believe he was also responsible for the disappearance of an engine from a Minicraft 737 around the same time. The 737 had to get put on hold until I could locate the missing engine...two years later! (I pulled that refridgerator out TWICE...) Maybe he just likes the smell of Minicraft plastic, I don't know..........

Know 'watcha mean about safety. All the measures we've taken to deny the cats entry to the workshop have been as a direct result of their damaging something. But there's also a bunch of stuff in here that could seriously hurt or even kill them, and that's really in the forefront of my mind. Not just modeling stuff, but lotsa other things.

I'd hate to have something happen to one of my little PITA's (Pain In The A...). I already feel bad, years ago one of them tried to jump up on my nightstand, fell and broke her pelvis. Snapped the spinal chord and that was it, had to have her put down.

All my friends, as well as myself, have joked about the running battle with the cats. But in reality, it's not the models that matter so much, I just don't want to lose another to anything but natural causes!

Cats, can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em...

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I don't know about the "can't kill 'em" part, they are pretty tasty, from what I've heard!(J/K)
Actually, I have a cat, and she's the best behaved kitty that ever lived(except for when she's having "that time of the month", then she leaves "little nuggets of sunshine" pretty much everywhere, marking her territory and all!)! She has never gone after a single model, she never jumps onto my hobby desk, she's sniffed one or two of my models, but other than that, hasn't laid so much as a whisker on em! Good Kitty! But then again, It's prolly all the catnip she was on early in life, my cat used to be the catnip equivalent of a reeferhead, LOL!

I have 3 cats that allow me to live in 'their' house. Oscar, makes a game out of getting into the hobby room and hiding (today he was behind some books on the tops of one of the bookcases). He loves paint brushes and q-tips - can't leave them laying around. Last weekend he took and hid the entire carton of q-tips that I was using to polish a clear part. The other two (the girls) could care less - just like my girl friend.

I must be lucky because my one cat only has one incident with my models. And, it involved a finished model, not something on my bench. My bench is a MESS and you would think it would be a heaven for a cat. In fact, the litter box is about 5 feet from my bench (don't ask...) and I've NEVER caught her on top of it.

The ONE incident involved me coming home from work and seeing her bat something around on the floor. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the rear wheel of a Formula 1 1/20 car I had just completed. Last I saw it, it was on top of a wardrobe in a room with a hard floor. Somehow it got knocked off and smashed quite thoroughly when it hit the floor. After examining the crime scene, I think that the cat tried to jump on top of the wardrobe, but didn't quite make it all the way. Her claws made it to the top where they likely got hold of the model, but her back legs didn't quite make it and slid down the side (claw marks to show for it...)

M.

So far I've not had any trouble out of my three cats. Every so often, "Ling" will come and lay in my lap while I'm building, but she doesn't bother anything on my workbench. The other two cats stay outside more, and thus out of the way....

I mostly build wooden sailing ships. When we were first married I was rigging the clipper ship Sea Witch. I kept it on top of the TV between work sessions. My wife, who always had a cat, warned me that leaving the model out was a baaaaad idea. But stubborn old me wasn't going to change my ways to accomodate some peky cat. Well, I came home one day to find the ship looking like she just went through hurricane feline ... rigging in tatters, spars dismounted, etc. I learned my lesson.

I think the same anwer applies to kids(under 5),wifes(who just thinkmodelling is for kids) and dogs, as well as cats.................... A BIG FAT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



LOL

QUOTE: Originally posted by shaggy I also have 2 cats. I think they are working together to see how far they can push me. LOL. One of them simply loves my chair. She will jump in the second I get up. My other cat is a little more strange. He likes to sleep in the model box no matter how big or small it is. It's funny to look at with his body wrapped up in there. It doesn't seem to bother him if there are model parts still in the box. I don't know how he does it, but he hasn't broken any parts. Some have come off the trees, but never broken. I wonder what he's trying to tell me? hmmm...........

Sounds like my cat, Shaggy! She watches closely and the instant I get up, ZOOM! she takes over the chair!

When I was a kid, we had two to three cats and they would constantly get into my bedroom and knock the models off their perches. I can't tell you how many times I'd get home from school to find a model smashed all over the floor! I certainly had plenty of parts for the spares box!

Nowadays, knowing what cats can do to models, I keep them in clear plastic boxes or under a clear plastic cake cover; one of those round things that you put a cake on and then put the clear plastic lid over. For further protection for the model in my living room, I've placed several of my extra telephone pole insulators from my collection onto the box so the cat can't use the box as a route to the window sill. It makes it a bit difficult to see the model, but on the other hand, the cat's not "test-flying" my MiG-21!

Whew! I am glad that I read on...I was afraid that you meant you put your cats in clear plastic boxes or under a plastic cake cover...I was hoping that you at least put air holes in them!

Jerry

hi , i had to join in about cats , i have had them all my adult life now 56 young and i have never had a moments trouble with any , even our two new ones who joined us 11 weeks ago , they just sit at my feet and look or pace up and down waiting for me to pat them , cats are life people treat them right and they are no trouble . cheers ian

Yeah, cats are like people. Many different personality types. Some, however, don't seem to care how you treat them. You could regard them as royalty and they'll still raise holy-hell 'cuz, to them, it's fun!

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Our cat is a bit more placid than most. She's at my feet right now, purring her heart out. If she test flew some of the model a/c in the study, she'd wind up being the next scale rug in the room. Love 'em anyway.

A cat discussion on a modeling forum! I'm also on the forum over at "Cat Fancy" magazine - perhaps I could start a modeling discussion over there! LOL!

CAT FANCY ROCKS!

MEOOOW! (translation: YEAH BABY!)

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I've got 2 cats and have never had model trouble with them. My girlfriend, however, is another story. She got the urge to dust and, I had to reglue the main gear on my 48th Hind, the canopy on my 48th P-38, the droptanks on my 48th F-86, the pipes on a Harley , and a "daisy cutter" fuse extension on my 48th AD-4 Skyraider.

Never had trouble with our 2 cats either.
Lee

I lock my 2 cats out of my "cave" where I build my models. Usually for the first 1/2 I'm in their I can here them meowing that they want to come in. Sometimes they get so anxious that they will break down the barrier I have set up to keep them out.

This is a trick that works real good with my cat:
Give them every last ounce of cuddling you can give them, right up until you go and work on your model. That shuts em up, real good!
As for your GF and her dusting fetish, I reccomend asking her to not dust no matter what, and, if that don't work, try bribery, and locking your hobby room!

WHICH GIVES YOU MORE ENJOYMENT? LET'S SEE NOW, CATS VS MODELING? CATS COST BIG BUCKS, THEY SH_T, THEY SMELL, AND CAN COST YOU MORE MONEY THAN AN EXWIFE AND CHILD SUPPORT. MODELING COST BIG BUCKS, THEY DON'T SH_T, YOU CAN SNIFF THE GLUE, BUT DO NOT REQUIRE SUPPORT. I WILL KEEP MY MODELS AND NEVER HAVE A CAT. THEY ONLY GOOD CAT IS A DEAD CAT.

Well, well, well! Someone is touchy!
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPSLOCK!! EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS GETS SOMEWHAT IRRITATING!!
Chill, dude! Cats will NOT cause World War III!