Greatest mistakes

Biggest mistake....painting an A6M-N in tundra (sort of a marroon). Looked so good, never changed it. :-)

For some reason, I keep buying the occasional Testors/Italleri kit...

i really like the old big/clunky testors. but yucktaliary? shudder. want the he111z kit?

No thanks...I'll pass...

...though right now I have my eye on the 1/48 Grippen kit.

are their 1\48 better than the 1/72?

We have the PE monster under the bench, the gremlins in the compressor, and the small-part faeries; we are haunted by various incarnations of Murphy's Law.

Most of Murphy's Corollaries can be defeated by not cutting corners, but who am I kidding.... we all cut corners, and we all get burned!

I think so - from what I've seen, the 1/48 Grippen and Eurofighter kits look like they may both be worthy.

...but I've been wrong before.

i really wanted to build that zwillig, put the sucker is a nightmare of bad fits and wierd assemblys. wish i could find the 1/48 gigant, then i could get motivated.

The NIGHT BEFORE THE CONTEST (Have you ever noticed ho many f-ups seem to start with that phrase?) I had just finished a BEAUTIFUL OOB Monogram AV-8A Harrier in kit decals. It really was fantastic to behold, and I was only in tenth grade. I sprayed it with Dull- Cote from a Testors can and the stuff came out GLOSS WHITE!!!

I almost cried, I sent the can and pics of the kit back to testors who mailed me three cans. I set the kit up on the shelf and it stayed there for about two years. One day I took it down to throw it away and figured, what the hell... I sprayed it with gloss-cote and the WHITE WENT AWAY!

Weirdness abounds.

Airfix 1/72 RAF Beagle Bassett 206

Thought it would look better with a tinted canopy so applied green cellulose dope. Gave up modelling aftet that. There was also a Junkers Ju88 which as far as I remember I painted all the parts before assembly (in order to get a cleaner line) but never got around to actually putting it together.

No, I'm wrong. It was a Tamiya Jagdtiger for which I purchased a radio control receiver (in 1969) and even wrote a magazine article on how I was going to fit it but never got around to buying a transmitter. The receiver is still in my toolbox under the stairs.

(kim)

I'd like to see a nice 1/32 Grippen...which is still a small model. Preferably a two-seater...got a thing for dual cockpits these days. I have the Revell 1/32 Grippen, but I haven't hauled it out and looked at it in some time.

You should grab two Monogram He 111s and splice 'em.

I still remember the first time I started a kit when I hadn't finished the one on the work bench.

Dave Boksanski showed me a couple of techniques when I was converting an Airfix C-47 to a XCG-17 cargo glider. Did a complete cockpit interior and what's visible from an open cargo door inside the the cabin. Bo showed me how to carve plastic for the pods over where the engines were. Took two Frog He 219 and a layer of styrene for each, carved, filed and cut away everything that didn't look like the pods. Finished up with a coating of MEK, then lightly sanded and polished with Brasso.

Now, that's the majorty of the work, right? Got the wing dihedral corrected and reshaped the nose, but then I picked up a brand spanking new Airfix SAAB Draken (gives you an idea on how long ago this was!) and that just had to be done first. Detailed the cockpit, grafted Revell Draken intakes, reshaped the tail and that's it.

These two kits marked what I now know is AMS. They sit on the shelf to be done almost thirty years, two marriages, four kids, a half dozen moves and the like, unfinished. At least they're not alone. There are a couple of dozen models in the same catagory on the same shelves.

At least I have finished about the same number in that time, not including many for clients.

Tom

You know the instructions on a bottle of MicroSol? Y'know, the bit that says "Do not touch decal after applying MicroSol, as the decal is now soft and can easily be distorted"?

Did you know that Microscale aren't just saying that because they needed to fill up the space on the back of the bottle? Do you realise that there is actually a reason for them to say that? Do you know that if you use your thumb to gently smooth out the wrinkles in an upperwing roundel after applying MicroSol, then the roundel instantly grows in size by about 20% and ends up a strange eggy shape?

One of my biggest screw-up's happened while building a re-issued Polar Lights Wolf Man kit. I had it about 95% done and painted, thought it looked really good, then I attempted to attach it to the base. That's when I noticed that I had put his feet on wrong. Left foot on right leg, Right foot on left leg. I couldn't believe it, I had to hack his feet off at the ankles and then reattach and putty the crap out of them. Took me a long time to get the fur looking right and now every time I look at it I have to laugh a little....

-Dave

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"I used to have a handle on life - but it broke"

Possibly my biggest screw-up was with a Kiel Kraft Sopwith (I think) Camel. It was all built, but unpainted. I wanted to give it its first test flight. I wound up the rubber band. I wound it and I wound it, then I wound it some more. Then all of a sudden, the rudder ended up in the cockpit.

Spudgun

Yeah - I remember the Gigant, but I don't recall whom did it...

...Google says...MPM:

thanks. i wonder how many fortunes it would cost. i'm almost afraid to look. if you hear screaming from my direction.....

Somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000. (GBP516)

A cool grand, that's a pretty Gigante sum...

;)

E.P.