Your Most Careless Mistake? Let's confess...

This one has to be the stupidest one ever. I was building 2 Red Arrows Hawks at the same time . The first one went like a dream, the second one..... well I had joined the fusalage halves but the wings on, just about to put the canopy on when I suddenly realiased I hadn't put the cockpit in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do'hhhhhhhhhhh

There I was, finnishing a 1/72 Hasegawa P-40 the night before a model contest here on Long Island. Just finished vacuumforming and trimming the canopy. I put the kit supplied canopy back into box and took a five minute break and put the vacuform machine away.

I went back to paint and install the canopy and couldn't find it. After removing every thing from my model table and looking on the floor under and around the table, no joy, *&$%#?! After going over the same ground two more times amid several loud outbursts, I started to panic. More @#$%&*!!!

My wife appreared and asked what the problem was and asked if I couldn't keep the obsenities to a minimum. I explained what the problem was and she offered to help find the canopy.

So there we were, my wife, my teen-aged daughter and me, crawling around the floor on our hands and knees looking for that @#$%&^*! canopy. After a half hour of this, my wife asked me to look in the model box just one more time. After assuring her it was not there, I looked just once more. When I picked up the kit canopy, lo and behold, the new one popped off. I had done such a good job in the trimming, the new one was totally invisible over the top of the original.

I never did that again! I always put the newly vacuuformed canopies immediately into a baby food jar before getting up from the table. I also think my daughter learned a few new curse words in the process. I got lucky, the next day this model won a gold in its category.

Pete

Yeah,tiny pieces disappearing into the carpet are just the smallest of my many youthful blunders. Probably my worst wasn't really a blunder but more an act of sacrilege! Having diligently saved all the excess bombs,missiles,guns etc. from my first few kits I promptly glued them all to my 1/48 Harrier to make it look nails...only they were mainly 1/72 WW2 munitions,plus I'd seen a picture of a Sepecat Jaguar with the overwing Sidewinder mounts that day so thought it'd look really cool to stick a pair of 1/72 'winders straight onto the top surfaces of my Harrier. Hey come on,I was only 8...well,maybe 10! At least it burnt well....!

Not one careless mistake, but shall we say a habit that, in the process of moving out and cleaning, I'm paying for!!

See, the condo I've rented for the past four years had a small "bonus" room, about half the size of a bedroom, with linoleum floors. Perfect for model building, says I, no more carpet to eat small parts.

Well, the linoleum floor was too much of a temptation for lazy old me, who detests cleaning more than anything. After the first itty bitty paint spill, it was a slippery slope till the linoleum was covered with blothces of this and patches of that.

Did I mention I'm renting and am now trying to get a security deposit back? :O
Yes, yes, spare the preaching - an ounce of prevention IS worth a pound of cure as I'm learning (and oh by the way, there was a cliche about cleanliness is next to something... but I forget....)

On the bright side, I'm learning that there isn't a spill known to man that can't be brought up sooner or later with Ace Hardware Extra Strength laquer thinner :D
Of course, I'm learning this lesson 10 minutes at a time as that's as long as I'll allow myself to work with the stuff before taking an "air break!"

So, young grasshoppers - a drop cloth near the painting area is worth its weight in gold!!! :D

While building the MPM XF5F-1 Skyrocket, I was going to paint it NMF with yellow wings, as the Navy had done before WWII. Before I painted the NMF Floquil Platinum Mist, I noticed that some static had caused some dust to settle on the plane's surface. I used some of my wife's Downy fabric softener on the surface to eliminate the "static cling." Not removing it properly, I found that when I started to mask for the yellow wings, that the silver paint was pulling up! The plane now is in a blue overall color. Sigh.

I am 52 years old and have been building models since age ten !
I have made too many mistakes to mention but I have formed 2 important rules:
1. NEVER get in a hurry.
2. NEVER work on a model when you are not in the mood to do so.
Dennis Sasse Iowa Boy

Well, Well..............
All of you guys have pretty much mirrored many of my mistakes over the past 35 years spent making plastic models..........and Dennis Sasse has the only two pieces of advice you'll ever really need to succeed.
The first and foremost : Patience!!
The second: Concentration!! Never build when tired or preoccupied or angry.
Mayhem occurs when rules 1 or 2 are not adhered to.
Cheers
LeeTree

Well - in early '70, when we had a chance to buy some "western" models in Poland, I became a happy owner of 1/72 Grumman Hellcat (Matchbox). I was extremaly happy - because I read a lot about Pacific war and about this plane and I do wanted to have one Hellcat in my collection. As it was long time ago (the era "without internet"), I had no reference materials about painting it, so I've followed boxart and box' backside picture - it was a very nice (and as we call it "jolly") green colour, so I've painted it in green ! After few years I discoverd my mistake, but I hadn't power enough to change it - now my Hellcat is standing in the darkness corner of my bench, wainting maybe for better times ! Regards ! Aleksander