What's your worst project?

My father bought me the conversion kit for a 1/48 He111Z from KL Productions. the resin center wing from KL was beautifula s was the smaller resin parts. The problem was that I had to use the Monogram He 111. The aftermarket stuff fit better then the kit supplied parts it was a struggle from beginning to end. Finished it but didn't like it so I took apart the center wing and after market stuff and threw out the kits. Might try again soon because it looked really cool.

Had to be the Airfix (if I remember correctly) 1/72 Short (on quality) Sunderland. I finished it and taught a friend to shoot a pellet gun with the Short hanging from a tree. Its life as a recognizable plane was short. Aside from that it was the Lindberg 1/400 scale HMS Hood. It shared the fate of the original. I sealed it up and blew it in half with a .22 at about 50 yards and it still occupies the bottom of a lake in rural Virginia. There were others that never got far enough to qualify as "projects"

I have a Pioneer 2 1/72 FW-154 that I started 10+ years ago. I got off to a strong start but when it came time to put the fusalage and wings together, it just wasn't looking right! I lost heart, I boxed it up and quit building for many years. I guess I blamed that kit for my burn out. For some strange reason I keep it close by and look through the contents every once in awhile.

Without a doubt the one I finally finished today. I finally got the nerve to look at the Minicraft 1/350 Titanic that fell off the entertainment center less than an hour after finishing. I repaired damage as best as I could, but it's ugly. Both masts have been broke in several places, P/E all bent up, some P/E missing (crane hooks, ladders, etc) I drilled holes in base and hull and used deck screws to mount together (s-o-b won't fall now!). Wife is happy it's done, I did build for her. But I think it looks like hell.

Worst project?
My Academy 1/72 scale OV-10D Bronco.
No pilots, no cockpit detail, and a need to remove molded in plastic made this one very bad kit(at least when compared to other Academy models), and the fact that I kept stripping off the paint didn't help! Soon, all the times I had bathed it in mineral spirits(I repainted it about 15 times, if I remember right) had destroyed the propellors, melted the wing's recessed panel lines(which I rescribed--horribly), and fogged up the cockpit.
Finally, about a month ago, I tossed that model into the trash, I had let it hang out in my closet for too long!

It had to have been the 1/32 Testors F-22,worping,gaps,no recessed panel lines and lotsa flash. I did not waste my time I gave it to my kid with some water colors and a paint brush. He enjoyed it.

Now that I think about it, there was that 1/48 Monogram (i believe) B-24 Liberator I made many moons ago (I think I was 10). I used the box art as a complete set of assembly instructions and then decided to come up with my own european theatre camo scheme. Needless to say, a few years later when I had developed actual skills, I found that Frankenstein's monster in the basement, and decided it was time for see what the explosive power of an M80 would do to a Lib. Called it a study in battle damage techniques. Worked, too. Never flew again........

Mike

I've been thinking about this and I look back at a lot of my older projects and think that they are my worst, but at the time I made them I thought they looked great, and they did at that time.

Now if I have to pick one it would be an AMT 1/35 M1 Abrams. The kit didn't fit right, I ran out of paint and tried over thinning it, so now my desert sand color has diffrent shades of green showing because the kit was molded in 2 or 3 colors. I have since repainted and weathered it so at least it looks OK.

Holy Cow!!!!!!!


Too funny....

Wow the 2 "Worst" that stick out in my mind would have to be the Hary Gant Stock car I tried doing years ago....or the !/72 P51 I did years ago....what happened???? Well I was trying to strip the paint off of the stock car so figured Mineral Spirits would do it.....I gues I Let it sit to long in the tub of it because when I went back 2 weeks later I had an un recognizable plastic shape that was very soft!......The 1/72 well I glued it to my hand(read....had glue on fingers and picked it up!)....Well without thinking I started to shake my hand so the model would get un-stuck....IT DID!!!!! Yupp flew right into the wall and wound up in more pieces than what came in the kit!

ooooo the horror.........



i did the fireworks display once with a B-29.....

The only kit I really remember butchering was an old AMT Mustang Cobra that my father got for me when I was 9 or 10. By the time I got through with it, you couldn't even see through the windows, there was so much glue on it. The engine came out as a huge, messy blob, and everything else was even worse. On a high point, it became the featured "Guest of Honor" at our 4th of July Fireworks display. Cobras really can become airborn for long periods of time! Parts of them, anyway...

demono69

hey stoopidfish, i bet that would have made a good diorama of a crashed plane!!??!!

Airfix 1/72 PB-Y. Mostly their fault. Although throwing it across the room didn't improve it much.

-fish

my woorst project???? MY WIFE!!!!!! LOL


nothing as of yet..........

I built a Polar Lights Godzilla for a friend's kid. When I went to put a final coat of Dull coat on it I picked up a can of RED PAINT by mistake!! I didn't know Godzilla could fly-or that I could curse like that!

For me it is still the F82e by Modelcrap.

Tamiya's 1/24 scale Lotus 7.

What? Isn't that a good kit? Yes, if you're careful with your tools. Not long after I started af FSM I started work on this kit, and decided to remove the molded-in-place battery from the firewall/engine compartment. Instead of using a razor saw as I should have, I started whittling away with a blade, and ended up in the emergency room not long after to get the middle finger of my left hand reassembled.

Ouch.

The kit's still on the shelf -- I really should "strike back" and finish the thing just to prove a point!

Matt Usher @ FSM

Phantom II w/ camo. I was nine though. Discourged me from models til I was fourteen. I found it the other day in the back of my closet where I pitched it in frustration. Might try to finish it yet after i finish the vietnam scout dog diorama i've fought with for almost four years.
cdw

I kit-bashed a 1/48 scale RT-33A and F-80C to make a RF-80C. The nose had a smaller diameter than the fuselage so I had to shim out the nose. After grafting the nose to the fuselage and sanding to get the parts to match up, I sanded a hole in the nose section. There was no way to get to the inside to beef it up so I tried using milliput and wet sanding to fill in the hole. I made it worse as the surrounding area then developed holes. I finally seperated the nose section and removed the cameras, mounts and everything I had installed there. I beefed up the areas from the inside and reinstalled everything. After the nose was glued to the fuselage again I noticed it wasn't alligned correctly. I threw it on a top shelf to collect dust.

Revell 1:32 corsair, horrible kit. Warped, no detail, I gave up. Waiting for my trumpeter to arrive!

WORST:hhhmmmm...a $50 Testors-Fujimi 1/24 Lamborgini Countach that ended up totally WARPED from the front side when i attempted to straighten out a slightly-deformed windshield post. with all the 300+ parts still around, i plan on making it into a totalled Countach diorama for 'Amazing Police Videos' fans out there!
lucky for me, a friend of mine (who's much more into Wermacht) just gave the kit to me, instead of ending up in the bin!
more WORSE stuff later...

There are kits that just do not want to go well together and everything you try does seem to make worse... Out of the 400+ models I've built since I became 'serious' about the hobby, I recall an Airfix 1/144 Caravelle airliner that must be the closest I came to disaster. First, part of the wing had not been molded properly so I took ages to re-build that out of normal putty (did not know about Milliput then!), the fit was notoriously attrocious and despite doing a decent job in filling in and sanding down, I must have missed a step as my spraying silver onto the model revealed tons of little scratches and imperfections... The decals were a problem too and as I had left the cabin windows open (I never use those awful strips of transparent plastic the kits come with) I had to cut away the decal film that went over the windows. This was not the easiest of all tasks, me ending up damaging the coloured parts of the decals... Still wanting the world to recognize my talent, I promptly entered it in a contest, in a Civil Aircraft class, where I ended up alone, and only collecting bronze... I think the judges were being kind...

Shame...

When I returned to building after 20+ years, I was working on a Monogram P-38, in NMF. This was before I bought an airbrush. I used Testor's silver (1/4 oz. bottle), which promptly spilled all over the newspaper. Not wanting to lose all the paint (the bottle emptied), I just dipped my brush into the paint. Dust, hair, bits of plastic . . . you name it, it was in the paint & on the model. Still have it, somewhere, just for memories.

I would have to say pretty much most of the ones I did before I discovered the fine arts of weathering, CA glue and enough patience to really pay attention to details. To many to remember.

Over the years I've tried to find about every way I could to terminate different projects. Knock an open bottle of glue over in the kit box - knock a heavy object off a shelf on a nearly finished project, glue my fingers to the project - name it and I probably have tried it. But the worst project for me is the one I still have not completed. Somewhere in my basement you will find a box which contains a semi-completed Italeri 1/35 M-109A5.
Eight or nine years ago my Guard unit was transitioning from the M-109A5 to the M-109A6 (Paladin). At that time I had already built 3 or 4 A5s for guys in my unit, so I decided that I had to build and super detail one for myself. I shot about 10 rolls of film of the interior, engine compartment and exterior of an A5 that was in the OMS shop being prepared for turn in and got copies of every manual the unit had on the vehicle.
I bought the kit and started to work (for the record, I ended up buying a second kit for spares, an AFV M-998A1 for parts, and a Tamiya US weapons kit.) For the first six months or so it was fun. Then things started to get less fun. As I changed things, built new items, rebuilt old items and rebuilt scratchbuilt parts I started to get burned out. Just wasn't smart enough to walk away from it for a little while or just stop detailing. Got every line (hydraulic or electrical) and every piece of equipment inside of the turret. Removed all molded on equipment on exterior of turret and prepped new mounts for those items. Every time I added or changed something found something else that needed to be added, removed or modified. Finally just put everything in a box, stuck it in the basement and haven't looked at it since. But never fear, I'm working on a model of an Paladin for my former Ops Sgt. (Any body know where I can get a set of plans for a FAASV?)

novo lynx helicopter, nothing fitted nothing went right and it didn't FLY right (missed the trashcan). Greg

Probably Tamiya's 1/12 scale Kawasaki 500 GP bike - didn't like the way the paint went on so I dipped the fairing, seat and tank into "enamel thinner" to soften the paint so I could scrub it off.
Well, it softened the paint just fine, along with the plastic bits, too. Ended up with a very droopy bunch of plastic.
Also, Italeri 1/24 scale Ferarri 250GT California - chassis and interior went together like a dream and looks fantastic (even to this day) but the body got a beautiful shade of red enamel, I put it into a warm oven to "bake" the paint a little.
Ended up being a touch too hot in that damn oven. I only switched it on for about 30 seconds.
The body ended up in a puddle on the baking tray.
The paint came up beautifully, though.....................
Cheers
LeeTree

I made a diorama of Stonehenge, for which I used plaster as the ground material. I improperly mixed the plaster and it never fully dried. I also poured the plaster onto the base with inadequate forms and I ended up with a plastery mess all over the basement carpet

DJ