Gallery of Mistakes 2010

[John Howling Mouse]

Hi, figured it was time to ressurect this idea.  If you've made any modeling blunders that made you look at the mistake and down at your own hands as though you just could not believe YOU actually did that, feel free to post them here.  Go ahead, tell us.  You'll find it's very cathartic.

My own motivation for this post?

Was completing an Airfix DC-3 this week, whining and complaining the whole way through about how Airfix can never get the parts fit correct, etc.  There was this big, wide gap where the wings should join to the chord on the fuselage, you see.  Because the fuselage and wings were already painted, I did not want to putty-sand-repeat and ruin the finish.  So I ended up putting in a lot of extra effort to cut and shape styrene patterns where the wings join to the fuselage chord.  Yes, very nice: gap filled on both sides along the top of the wingroot joins.  Blood Pressure returned to normal.

Today, I was looking at some DC-3 reference photos online to confirm location of antenna, etc.   Hmm, whaddyaknow?  DC-3's had a rather pronounced dihedral.  Those wings really do bend upwards...like the ones on my model would have if I had NOT slipped in those styrene filler panels at the wingroot!

So, my DC-3 now sits with a laser-beam straight set of wings like some sort of modern jet fighter.

I am John Howling Mouse and this is the emoticon for which I am known:  

[Weaver]

Well what you do is, you cut off the outer wings, re-attach them at an increased dihedral angle, and concoct some story about the guy who designed the F-4 seeing one of these 10 years earlier......

I just did a minor one: painted some rocket boosters Aluminium, but carefully left the nozzles bare so I could paint them with Gunmetal later. Later, opened a tin of Gunmetal to paint some bits of steel tube, and thought I'd do the nozzles while the tin was open. Got 3/4 through the first nozzle before I realised it was the same colour as the body: yep, I'd opened the tin of Aluminium again instead of the Gunmetal....

[puddingwrestler]

I never make mistakes. Never. No. Not Ever. Not at all. No.

I just tend to find exactly the right part for a kitbash two weeks later and stab myself in the foot with my hobby knife. No really. And not the top of the foot either. It fell off the desk and somehow got past the sandals I was wearing and stabbed me about an inch behind the base of the big toe. Through a gap in the sandal one centimeter square. Such accurate knife dropping; it's almost like I planned it!

[The Rat]

I did one that a lot of others have messed up - I installed an F-80 nose gear backwards. The oleo scissor should point forward. I knew it and I blew it.  <=== Borrowed shamelessly from Baz.

[philp]

I don't understand the question.  Every one of my builds has some uniqueness to it.  One of my best builds, a F9F Panther, had plans for folded wings.  I actually cut them straight and everything was looking good till I found a photo showing the flaps under the fuselage open when the wings are folded.  No way I was going to try and cut them out since the fuselage was already together and psr'd.  So, glue the wings back straight and psr like crazy to get it looking somewhat presentable.

As for the knife trick, not me but one of the guys in the club was sitting on the floor modeling on the coffee table.  Put down his xacto and said he watched as in slow motion, it rolled across the table and dropped point first into his...leg.

[ChrisF]

I think every model has its own little mistakes and screw ups.. but thats the challenge isnt it ? If it was too easy it wouldnt be so fun..

That said on my recently completed Tornado Gr1, i did prove how id been away from the hobby for too long by some very school-boy errors.. especially when it came to masking...   

[Army of One]

Many years ago.....when I was 13'ish....I had been painting some 1/72 troops. Having painted them I used a razor blabe to slice of the bases of the soft plastic figures.......after a while I noticed a puddle of red liquid.....I initially thought 'I haven't used any red paint....' a few seconds later I realised that I had skimmed off without feeling it a fair bit of skin from the tip of my middle finger on my left had.....a shout of DAD!!!! as I ran to the bathroom.....blimey did it bleed!!! Oh....having had it washed n dressed....sort of....I retrieved the blade n turned it over n there was the tip of my finger,the only way I can describe it is....cut a baked bean in half longways.......took years to heal n still feels funny 30yrs later.....H

[PR19_Kit]

Also umpteen years ago I was modifying a Jo-Han '63 Plymouth Belvedere (it's a car kit.........) into an A/FX drag racer, which involved cutting large rectangular holes in the wheel arches to install the big exhaust headers. Jo-Han's plastic was thick and strong but also brittle and it took mucho cutting passes with my Stanley Model knife to remove one of the rectangular bits. For the second one of the holes I gave it some stick, a bit more than before, and all of a sudden the bit in the middle detached and the knife went clean through the hole.......... into my knee!

The blade on the Stanley Model knife was about 1.25 long, and it went all the way in, right up to the hilt of the alloy handle, and stuck there, with the model hanging off it! My mother-in-law, who was staying with us, heard my exclamation () and came to see what was what, and passed out on the floor seeing the blood all over the place! I had to have 3 stitches in the knee, it took ages to heal and I've still got the scar to this day.

[puddingwrestler]

This morning I realised I'd installed the chassis/interior plate of the tri-motor ute I'm building out of a Mazda K360 wihtout fitting the bits to hold the front wheel forks. Fortunately, since I'm replacing the front wheel with a jet engine the forks where the wrong size and I scratch built something else, but it meant I could not use the kit parts to attach the whole lot to the chassis...

Actually, if you are a scratch/basher like me you can get away with most mistakes...

[bobbo]

Heh . . . Read this yesterday, laughed a bit - "Been there, Done that."  Went upstairs later to work on my Amodel Mig 9, promptly glued the intake turbine fans to the BACK   of the engine/intake/exhaust assembly.  And I only discovered it this morning. 

Army of One:  Not on a modelling experience, I did something like that while changing the radiator hose on my old Ford station wagon.  Twenty years later, that part of my middle right finger is still numb.  And I play guitar . . .   

bobbo

[Steel Penguin]

tryed to add some weight to a 1:72 airfix red arrows hawk ( over 20 years ago when i was a kid) did it by squezzing a load of tube poly cement into the nose.
at the time i didnt unerstand how the glue worked or  things like vapor pressure, solvent leeching and atmosphear drying.  The nose section went realy squidgy, and i ended up with a rather long and slightly droop nose hawk, fortunatly i managed to avoid leaving fingerprints all across it, as i notice the problem when i picked it up

[cthulhu77]

Set up the temporary photo set to take pics of a recently finished tank with all sort of neat do-dads all over it, and forgot to attach the backround panel to the wall. Yep. Took one photo, and the backdrop fell smack onto the vehicle. Snap crackle pop. (the pop was me opening a beer and trying to decide what to do).

[Hobbes]

I just spent six months waiting for new (resin) leading edges to a VC-10 wing to create a Super VC-10 wing. They arrived this week, so I fitted them to the wing. During cleanup I checked some photos for placement of the wing fences, only to find out that the aircraft I'm building didn't have that wing type  . Luckily I've got another VC-10 in the stash.

[NARSES2]

My best (among many) was whilst building the Planet MB5. Somehow I managed to glue one of the tail wings on upside down  I finally noticed two or three days latter... all I can say is that "super glue" dosn't have that much strength in the vertical plane 

[Scooterman]

I honestly haven't had any major boo-boos modelling wise, however I've been known to get the fins on Starfighter wingtip tanks on the wrong sides (long fins INBOARD).

And let's not count rolling knife/stabbing oneself/bodily harm.  You're not modelling unless you BLEED!