What's your worst model "uh-oh"?

I was almost complete with my 59 Ford skyliner, and things were'nt coming together properly, I lost my cool, set it on my bench, and smashed it with my fist. I found parts months later!
Lee

Yipe!

Well, I've only bounced a model off the wall once, but that wasn't a "whoops". It was quite intentional! LMAO

My biggest "whoops" was when I was about 13 or 14. I was still using evil water-based and acrylic paints at this time, and the Tamiya Acrylics had just come out.

I brush-painted my Monogram 1/48 P-47D Bubbletop in the RAF far-East scheme (I was still afraid of the airbrush at the time! LOL) and it looked groovy. I had also brushed on gloss for the decals, and needed to put on a flat clear.

Well, seeing as I had used Tamiya's new acrylics for the scheme, I decided to use their flat-clear as well. I put it on and left the dungeon only to come back the next day and find that the modeling gods had really intended for me to put a winter camo scheme on this particular Jug, 'cuz the whole thing had turned WHITE!

It was after this that I discovered that Tamiya's Flat Clear was not a "clear" at all, but a Flat Base to be mixed with gloss colors! (After all, that's what it said on the jar, but who am I to pay attention to such trivialities? LMAO)

So that's my biggest modeling "whoops", next to the time I melted a scratchbuilt P-40 cockpit with too heavy an enamel wash, but that's another tale...

Fade to Black...

I pulled what midnightprowler did, but with a model of the original Enterprise. I screwed up the painting twice and accepted it quite well...the third time was too much. I felt bad after I smashed it...but it felt good right at the moment of impact!

Jerry

I had just finished the old Revell USS Nautilus and decided to try to speed up the paint drying with a lamp (I had read a modeling hit in FSM). Well the sub was ok, but the top of the conning tower was too close to the light bulb and melted. I was able to repair it after much cursing….

my mom tried to dust my model and it fell and the parts scattered everywhere:(

and i tried to weather my mg zeta ($80 canadian) and it got busted :(

Just this week.... building the Trumpeter "Bear".... I spilled a bottle of Tenax.
the room quickly became R-rated.... Luckily for me the only part majorly affected was a main landing gear strut. I let it dry and I doubt it will be noticed when finished. If it had been a fuselage or wing half..........

I had just finished airbrushing one of my P-47's and before I could take it out of the spray booth......I knocked a small bottle of Lacquer thinner on it. Took out about half the wing. Had to sand it down and rescribe that part of the wing.......cause the lacquer thinner did a little melting. Turned out good in the end........but what a FUBAR.

Many years ago (about 30), in a far off land (Mannheim, Germany), I built a 1/72 scale FROG Focke Wulf in about 20 minutes. I used a whole tube of Testors glue on it and realized it after I painted it. Sink holes started to form on the fuselage and wings, as well as that gorgeous finger printed canopy with enough fumes to turn it completely white. What a job!

This here is a proxy reply, sorta. I dunno where this guy is now, and I'm sure he'd rather not have this story noised around but...

When I first joined the club that I'm in (1983) the president of the group was an accomplished modeler, photographer and published author. Matter of fact, he had several articles published in the very early FSM's.

Anyhoo, some guy who had won an award at an IPMS NATS (Ju 87 Stuka with that snake scheme, Braille Scale, either 32nd or 24th, possibly Best Aircraft? I don't recall...) sent this fella his model to photograph for a magazine article, I believe. Well, this bloke took a bunch of pictures in his basement studio, then took a break and went upstairs to get a cup of coffee...

I forget how long he was away from the photo setup, but he came back down to find that he had forgotten to turn off the flood lamps. Needless to say, the Stuka was a pile of goo.

I guess that's one way to soften up the competition, eh? At least he got some good shots before meltdown! LMAO

Fade to Black...

Having carefully replaced the 'bubble' canopy on the Bandai Moonbase Interceptor with a more accurate version from 5 thou plasticard, I 'degreased the model with Humbrol Thinners prior to painting...
I've never seen clear plastic fog so fast!!!

Aside from blowing up a lot of models as a kid (I wanted to work for ILM!), the worst incident ocurred when hanging my freshly completed Testors (Italeri) 1/48 C-130 from the ceiling. It slipped from my grasp just as I was about to secure it to the hook, plumetting to the floor, where it nearly disintegrated on the hard tile. I had to leave the room to collect myself before trying to assess the damage.
It was gone, Daddy, gone!
I gently collected all the smaller pieces, zip-locked 'em up, and put them right back into that big box from whence they came, where they have rested until this very day, hoping to be reconstructed. But the damage was far too great for that. At best, I had hoped she'd become a hanger queen of sorts, fueling a later Herc project, but alas, that has yet to be realized.
Been building too many tanks!

My most common mistakes are a result of my lack of patience. There are countless examples of wet paint that has a cloth dragged through it, or finger prints in it. Even worse is ca glue that hasn't quite dried yet and somehow I drag a Q-tip or rag or something through it and make a big mess. Just last night as I was completing my CBP F-18 (a little late...) I tried to do a 'wash' . I had applied a coat of future and it was thoroughly dry/cured. I used Tamiya paints thinned with water and 'mooshed' it all around the surface. I couldn't get the excess paint to come off with a wet rag, so I put a littl ealcohol on the rag... It did a good job of taking the paint off, but it softened the Future underneith too (surprise, surprise!!). I knew this would happen, but I didn't think it would happen so FAST! My prior experience is that I can swipe alcohol over Future a few times without softening the Future. But not this time. Needless to say, it looks pretty rough, but I've decided to just say that it's 'heavily weathered....'

M.

I used to build ships...big ships....big ships with lots of sails and masts and spars and all kinds of paraphenalia sticking out in all directions. One of these used to sit on top of my bedroon dresser. I came home one night (in a rather tipsy state) and reached out to turn on the light. Flicked the model onto the floor, the noise scared the heck right out of me and I made a quick step....in the wrong direction...and planted my foot right in the middle of this beauty. No more ships....ever!!!! No more drinking...ever!!!!!

The total destruction stories are the worst, eh?

Putting my freshly glossed P-47D in front of a box fanfor 20 minutes in order to get it to dry faster. Every bit of dust that moved through that fan landed and stuck to the still wet gloss coat. I called it my P-47D Fuzzybolt!!

Those are some funny stories.

My worst modeling incident takes place on modeling's periphery. I was standing in the living room talking to my girlfriend while shaking a bottle of Alclad II high gloss chrome. And since I am made purely of muscle; I was able to jiggle the little steel ball in the bottle hard enough to bust the glass and launch shiny Alclad all over the room. On the couch, the TV, the bookcase, the floor, and all over me.

99% of it came off, there is still a touch on the antique oak bookcase, but the sight of all that silver all over the room was quite an inital shock.

As a young lad of about 13 I had built a 1/72 F4U Coursair that I had so proudly displayed by hanging it from the ceiling of my bedroom. I also owned a BB gun, well one day I had an AD (Accidental Discharge) and guess where that random shot went. That's right into my prized Coursair.
There was a nice hole in front of the wing, broke off the pilots legs and came out through the canopy. I was crushed, but I did learn a lesson about gun safety.

Trevor

WELL!!!
Is it the spilled bottle of Plastruct liquid cement? The entire bottle of Metalizer non-buffing aluminium that soaked into the carpet? The polyurfethane casting resin spilled all over a $120 pair of Levis (they're expensive in Australia)? So many of the above stories makes me say "Yeah, I did that once.......".

Probably the ugliest boo-boo was a Tamiya 1/12 scale bike with multi-colored fairings. Painted the thing with Tamiya acrylics - probably somewhat thick coats. Got a fantastic gloss - waited 24 hours, then threw on the decals, wait 24 hours, then a nice thick coat of Tamiya clear gloss, wait 24 hours, then admire. All the paint, decals and clear gloss dried and shrank at different speeds, and I ended up with a beautifully finished bike with about a thousand cracks running every which way.............The Tamiya rep said he'd never seen that happen before.............
Keep the shiny side up, boys

Ohh Ohh Ohh! A topic about screwing up models! Finally something I'm good at!
My biggest most recent screwup happened last night. I was pouring metal paint into the mixing jar, and as I was doing so, sneezed, spilling about 6 bucks worth of paint on my hand. After wiping it off, I continued to prepare to airbrush (second time only, other time was future) and as I pick up the model to clamp it for painting, one of the drop tanks gets knocked off! Then, as I begin to spray, I realize no paint is coming out. A good job on my part, having forgot to put the straw back in the paint jar. Finally putting the straw in, I realize I over-thinned the paint, but having no paint to counter-thin, I end up waisting about 10 dollars overall in paint. Then as I go to pick the model out of the clamp, the stabilizer falls off.
Well, all I can say is Thank God for armor!
EDIT: oh yeah, my fingernail's are still nice and shiny aluminum!

ROFLMAO
This thread is really starting to make my ribs hurt.

My worst "uh-oh" just happened today. I'm trying to get a kit finished for a local show this weekend so you know sh...tuff is going to hit the fan...Anyway, I was gluing the interior into my Lamborghini LP500S (Monogram) and left the glue to set. I came back a while later and picked it up to go show my wife how well things were coming together. Well, wouldn't you know it, I had bumped it or something and it had been sitting on my crazy glue palette and had glue smeared all over the rear wing.[:0] Looking back I guess I'm lucky that the palette itself didn't stick to the car but...that's definitely not something you want to see. I managed to sand it down and repaint so hopefully it will dry and everything will come together by tomorrow night. This is also the first contest I've ever entered so I wanted this to be my best effort so that was doubly frustrating.
Oh, well. What is it that they say? Live and learn.
Just remember the moral of this story people, models and glue don't mix!!

Ray

When I was about ten I built a Lindberg 1/48th FJ-3 Fury ( their F-86 molded in blue plastic ! ) using tube glue. After gluing on the windshield and canopy I sat it upside-down in the box to glue on the landing gear. I left it to dry, and when I came back hours later to check it, the glue had run down inside of the canopy ! Never did THAT again ! I know I have had many more serious flubs in the last 45 years, but that one just seems to stick in my mind.

A more recent one is leaving a fingerprint in the paint of a 1/32nd Hasegawa Spitfire 5, and having it pointed out to me by one of the fellows who worked in the hobby shop where I took it to be displayed.

Jim

So, the solution to most of these tales of woe would be; model by remote control, using an idiot proof computer programme, using prepainted kit parts. And if Tamiya would forget the motor in model idea and simply invent a small enough anti-grav unit, none of the above could happen again. But of course, we all know it will, the question is...WHEN?

just today i had a modeling accident. i put the scratchbuilt cockpit of an a6m5 on the floor then dropped the xacto.. the rest is history... well not it was in brass

USS Enterprise NCC-1701A from Star Trek VI. Worked on that bitch for 3 years and never got it right and finally threw it away and bought a replacement to someday work on.

The worst modeling mistake I made, without actually glueing anything together, was to purchase ICM's 1/72 MiG-31 Foxhound. The dry fitting revealed she was going to be more trouble than she was worth. I persevered for a few weeks and then thought about checking myself in to a mental institute for a well deserved rest. Never did get her done.

I've probably had more uh-ohs than I can remember. Overdone nose weights glued wings to my fingers....

Worst for me, I was building a small resin aircraft (Spanish made kit if I recall). I had it all together, painted and on the shelf and it didn't look half bad for my first go at a full resin kit. I was dusting it a few months later and a huge air buble in the wing gave way and I had a meteor crater on the upper side of that wing. She wasn't cleared for take off but that didn't stop a cross room commuter flight (one way, of course).

That pretty much put me totally off of full resin kits.

I've been working on a Meteor III for a while and bought a new pack of blue tac to weight the nose....... making sure no tail sitter here.........separatly building the wing assy i had a great idea (?), why not use more blu tac ( plenty left ) to weight the engines and give it some scale kgs..........yep you guessed it - tail sits a treat - DOOU !

Most of mine involve paint but the one that really stands out was the time I knocked a nearly full bottle of Ambroid Proweld on the model I was building. let's just say I lost a little surface detail on that one. But darnit I let it dry, sanded out the ripples and finished the model.

Many, many moons ago, while in the Air Force, I was "preping" a Monogram F-10? As I was dry fitting the fuse, I found one side was terribly warped. Well, not even considering the strange possibility of straightening the parts as I glued them, I proceeded to soften the plastic with heat. I don't remember what I used, but it wasn't anything so mundane as a light bulb. Nope, not me. I used the Tim Taylor method of "More Power!!!". The vertical stabilizer shrank and twisted! It wound up a good 3/8 of an inch shorter than the other side. Needless to say, it's been in a box somewhere for the past 25 years. Someday...maybe I'll find a way to replace that tail!

Have a great one!!

Bill