Gallery of Mistakes 2010

[Martin H]

You're not modelling unless you BLEED!   

Never viewed the hobby as an extreme sport before lol

[ChernayaAkula]

"We don't make mistakes.
We have happy little accidents."

[puddingwrestler]

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).

The professionals do that sort of thing too- Empire Strikes Back was meant to have AT-STs in it (the chicken walker things seen battling ewoks in Return of the Jedi); however the stop motion animation crew didn't secure the back drop well enough, and it slipped slightly during the shoot. By the time anyone noticed the sky falling in the background of the finished animation (which took days or weeks to shoot) it was to late to replace it...

[Radish]

I make creative mistakes all the time.....I just work them into the model in some way and don't tell anyone.

I also make fashion mistakes, but I don't give a stuff

[Mossie]

Nothing major since the last thread, although I did manage to gash myself with a scalpel blade.  We use them at work & I even teach the students good technique & tell them never to cut towards themselves & if they really have to, keep the blade well away from themselves.  What did I do?  Put my thumb right next to the blade to guide it, well, I deserved the big chunk I took out of it.  If that wasn't enough, I didn't learn because almost immediately after I stopped the bleeding, I caught it again.  Stupid.

Oh & just today at work, I was boasting that although I'd cut myself with a scalpel when modelling, I'd never done it professionally.  Guess what I did within the hour???

The professionals do that sort of thing too- Empire Strikes Back was meant to have AT-STs in it (the chicken walker things seen battling ewoks in Return of the Jedi); however the stop motion animation crew didn't secure the back drop well enough, and it slipped slightly during the shoot. By the time anyone noticed the sky falling in the background of the finished animation (which took days or weeks to shoot) it was to late to replace it...

I heard a rumour that in Red Dwarf, the reason we got the 'pencil' CGI version that the fans disliked wasn't because of any 'remastering', but because somebody dropped the large master model off a storage shelf & completely destroyed it!

[Sisko]

I guess that I have sealed up more than one model before realising I havn't put the nose weight in!

Back around the turn of the century I was building the old snap kit of the USS defiant from DS9. This is not an easy kit and the paint job is very complex.

I laboured for months filling and sanding then masking and painting and finally had a finished product I could be proud off. I then grabbed the rattle can of testor flat clear spray to seal everthing in. After the first past I realised to my horror it was gloss white!!!!!!!!!!!

Fixed it with plenty of battle damage!

[Eddie M.]

I don't know what the fuss is about. I make a major mistake on every build I do!  If one doesn't happen then I make one on purpose so I don't change my routine.

Baz, I see a razor saw in your DC-3's future

[Gary]

For me, it's always been painting the final product. I've had to resort to rattle cans lately as my compressor is on the fritz. Now I my stuff is loaded with teardrops of paint on everything. My booth is too small and too underpowered to pull my spray cans back far enough to use them properly. So I squidge through, and stuff the finished things with the least imperfect side facing outward.

[John Howling Mouse]

Last night, I was working on a scratchbuilt Soviet SnowTrak (will post it in the Let It Snow Group Build if by some miracle it actually turns out). 
Kept telling myself "don't get the idler wheels and drive sprockets mixed up (I'm very inexperienced when it comes to tanks and such).  Had to do all sorts of conversions since I'm not using the die-cast Tamiya chassis that came with the base kit.  Made my own axles to fit the various wheels.  At some point, I got mixed up b/w the kit's instructions and working with my own scratchbuilt chassis and, sure enough, all the mods I made are for the opposite wheel/sprocket.

I think I can fix it.  Either that or have a front-wheel drive snow vehicle without any engine...     

[sequoiaranger]

Mistakes are great inducements to invention and innovation.

One of my first resin kits was a He-280 jet. It has a very small windscreen, and on this particular early resin model, there was no "cockpit" or well of any sort. One would just set the canopy on the fuselage in the right spot. The fuselage there under the canopy was painted black to simulate empty space. I had Future-Floor-Waxed the inside as well as the outside of the canopy to improve clarity and smoothness of the somewhat rough clear plastic. The plastic-to-resin bond needed for the canopy to stick meant no plastic solvent-type glue would work, so I used my trusty "RC-56" hi-strength white glue.  I made a minute "worm" of glue where the canopy would rest, and set the canopy down. The glue set up, and the interior of the canopy fogged from the vaporized moisture of the white glue interacting with the Future.

I waited for hours for the fog to go away, but soon realized that there wasn't enough air space under that tiny, sealed canopy to EVER allow the evaporated moisture of the glue and Future to escape or dry. HOW was I going to rectify THAT? Painting the canopy black was one idea, but not a pleasant one. But I reckoned if there was a way to CHANGE the air in that small space, the white glue and Future would eventually dry so I hit upon an idea...

I drilled two tiny holes, one in each rear corner of the canopy next to the turtleback. One was going to be an "inlet"; the other was the "outlet". I used a hypodermic syringe to carefully inject fresh, dry air into the canopy space. The "bad" moisture-laden air would then be expelled out the other hole. I did this, very slowly, maybe twenty times. The canopy gradually un-fogged!! I plugged up the tiny holes and "we were in business" again!! Whew!

[beowulf]

I then grabbed the rattle can of testor flat clear spray to seal everthing in. After the first past I realised to my horror it was gloss white!!!!!!!!!!!

i almost did that this afternoon! got the cans of primer and matt varnish mixed up........i only just stopped myself in time and tested the can in my hand....the nearly finished Weasel almost got re-primed!

[Joe C-P]

There are no mistakes, only opportunities for us Whiffers! Cut off the wrong part? Replace it with something from the parts box! Install a bit backward? Call it a prototype or experimental! Paint it the wrong colour? Lose the decals? You weren't going to build it "real world" anyway! That giant fingerprint in the paint? An early form of Zimmermit!

My worse wound: I plunged a chiseltip X-acto into my left thumb, and it only stopped going all the way through because it hit the thumbnail from the inside.

[Nick]

Recently I gave away or chucked out a sprue from what looked like a JB kit, thinking I'd finished it.
Last night I closed the toolbox for the first time in aaaaaagggeeessss.... and in the lid compartment was a near complete JB Landrover Ambulance. Only obvious bit missing? The doors.

So if I gave the sprue to anybody here, please let me know! 

[puddingwrestler]

That's not a mistake, it's an excuse to make a doorless Ambulance as a whiff.

[beowulf]

roof off, roll cage on, a few gimpy's and hey presto....instant battle wagon