This morning I did something I have done only a couple times before in a 50 plus year of modeling. Yup, I took a half built model and bent it up and threw it in the trash.
I recently found the HO Cornerstone “Team Track Scene - DeLux” kit that I had purchased a few years ago. I put the wood and concrete docks together, the telephone pole, and the small shed and painted & weathered them. Then I built the overhead crane, painted (Testor’s rubber color paint) and did some weathering on it. Then I took the 4 canvas covered loads and two wood crates, painted and weathered them as well. All came out very nice.
This left the fencing and the flatbed truck. As I had no need for the fencing, I put it all in the “to be used later box”. Then I started on the flatbed truck.
The truck is made of soft metal (white?) and resin parts. I have built with both materials before and while I don’t care for building with them, I have had success on prior attempts.
Well, in a couple of evenings I got the cab, frame, and bed put together and painted. When I attempted to place the bed side panels in place, it was obvious the 4 tabs on each did not line up with the holes in the bed. So I drilled some new holes, but soon realized they just would not stay secured to my satisfaction. So then I changed gears and worked on the soft metal wheels, and found that while they did fit, the bracket (meant to be an oil/transmission hump in front and a rear end in the back) just didn’t sit right either.
I am not a person of temper (when it comes to modeling), but this morning I just figured that my time and patience were getting taken advantage of and it just wasn’t worth the effort. And then I remembered all the other vehicles I built and decided that I just didn’t need another. So I made the quick decision to just bend it until it broke, and with the help of som
Yep![:D] Two Walthers tank car kits. Pain in the butt to build. Nothing fit right. Looked like crap and wouldn’t stay on the track for anything! Same problem with the hand rail stanchions around the hatch not fitting worth a crap.
They hit the wall at a very high rate of speed.[:-,]
All the time…but I never just “toss” something into the trash, unless it is truely broken or worthless.
I got several models that are not what they started out as. I started one project as an attempt to build a very early steam engine using a 1/26 scale Stephenson’s Rocket as a base, I got about 3/4s the way done when I realized it wasnt going to work out the way i had envisioned, I put it aside and eventually dissassemble the entire thing and reused it for a small backwoods geared locomotive project where I was able to reuse about 60% of the original model, rest either got put into the parts box, or was demoed in the conversion.
I had a Bachmann 2-4-2 Columbia that I rebuilt as a 2-4-0 plantation type engine, but it ran very poorly so I scrapped the entire thing and reused the cab, boiler, and tender shell to build a Heisler type geared engine. I still have the drive which I plan to use for a model of the 2-2-0 LA&SLC RR “San Gabriel”
I have done this to 2 Columbia’s, only one of the drives has been tossed, due to the gears being completely stripped or split with no replacements available.
Even though your kit was obviously giving you some grief, I think it was a tremendous mistake to intentionally break it up like that, let alone toss it, you could have taken the body minus the wheels and stakebed , rusted it up, and left it as an abandodned vehicle on the roadside, or at the bottom of a gully? or propped it up wheel-less in front of a repair shop? a junk load on a flatcar? Why toss it, put it aside save it till the inspiration strikes you.
The thought of it making a nice junk yard addition sure did cross my mind. But I was sure that everytime I looked at it I would be reminded of my inability to make the thing work out as it should have. Soooo, out of sight, out of mind. Yes, I did save the wheels/tires, but that was all. Again, this is only the 3rd time in 50 plus years (that I can recall) of modeling, so I guess that’s not a bad track record.
Yup, and like you, it didn’t bother me one darned bit. It was a Proto 2000 tank car kit and nothing fit right. I’ve had no problem with Branchline, Intermountain or Red Caboose super-kits, but that stupid Proto kit had me using language that if overheard by a student could probably cost me my teaching job. Finally hit the darned thing with a hammer, tossed the whole mess in the garbage, went back into the garage and did a little dance using the chant: PROTO SUCKS–PROTO SUCKS–
Not me! I had an old IHC dummy unit, but I din’t chuck it when cleaning. I cut off the body and the cab, the handrails go on scratchbuilding projects, and the rusted up cab is sitting next to my loco terminal.
I’ve not been to that point with mrr items yet BUT when I was about 12 I built a B-17 bomber, awesome paint job, had all the detail items in place. The last step was to decide if the landing gear was to be up or down. I decided down would be better for static display so I glued the ear bay doors open, and glued the landing gear into position. looked great laying there upside down waiing for the model glue to dry. Next day I turned her right side up and gingerly set her down on her wheels…only to watch it SLOWLY drop closer to the table…apparently the glue on the landing gear never set up! Out came all the direction sheets (all words were in a far eastern language!) to try and dicepher if I missed something…
After 2 weeks of sanding down to virgin plastic and attempting to reglue with other glues I had enough! Long story short-----a double barrel 10 guage shotgun aimed at a plastic airplane model with a 24" wingspan hanging from the old maple in the feild behind the house was a temptation I could not resist!!![(-D]
Yes, I have! It was the most valuable lesson I ever learned…“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should!” I had built a great operations based layout with 2 levels and having a Keddie Wye at the top of the helix, the lower level being the yard and engine service with the top level having several various industries and a small passenger station with its own house track and back track. Half of the 24"r. helix encroached in the doorway and the wye at the top was a duckunder for me at 5’7"… After scrunching his way into the narrow, short aisleway,a 6’1" friend’s polite comment was “well, you certainly have a lot of railroad in this 8 1/2’x11’ bedroom” It was so crowded that only 2 people could get in to operate it! Now I love big curves and turnouts so the solution was to tear it all out and change to building Free-mo Modules. This lets me do operations on big layouts with like-minded folks, and enjoy running on big layouts however temporary the setup, but usually 2 days or sometimes 3. Besides, I prefer to run realistically and even with 24"min. r. my 13 car Empire Builder looked like a toy! jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
Yes. I got frustrated and smashed a building and trestle that wasn’t coming out the way I wanted. When I was younger, I used to blow up bad models with M-80s.
I have banked a few projects off the wall at a high rate of speed but I always save the parts thinking I might use them for something else some distant time…Cox 47
Our origional club layout, not the 1st one from 1938, but the one started in the basement of a store in 1953 needed to be dissassembled, moved or demolished.
Many members thought that parts of the old layout could be configured into the new layout in our 10.000sq’ building. It was decided not to use any of the old and start fresh.
An auction to members and friends of the club was held to bid on certain yards and sections. At first I sugically disected the pieces for the winning bidders. It’s amazing what a worm drive and Sawzall can do to a plaster covered layout. All old handlaid turnouts that weren’t nickle silver were left with the rest of the carcas. Any decent pieces of the old frame (1xs) were saved.
Some of the younger crew now decided to have at the old thing with sledge hammers and one actually went around permanantly spiking over the old brass turnouts with a real RR Spike. He was having so much fun that everyone started taking a whack at them. I “NAILED” a few myself as I took a break from the dissassembly.
To think of all those 40 years of painstaking, hard work just getting pulverized. I knocked the legs off a section of benchwork to watch about 30 ft crash to the floor.
It was somewhat bitter sweet, but knowing that our new building and future layout was already under way made it easier to take. To find out more about the club history and see the progress of the new layout go to: http://www.ssmrc.org/club_history.htm and http://www.ssmrc.org/
This is a pic of what we have so far, many might recognize it.
paul3 actually has the old Union freight and engine facility worked into his “home” layout in the basement of a book store. I still have a decent yard that I managed to salvage before the mayhem started. It’s all brass track and handlaid
Perhaps we have all been there at one time or another. I think it’s on account that this is suppose to be a relaxing, enjoyable hobby, …Im not positive mind you…however it seems as if there are devilish grimlins that hide in some purchased kit’s and reconfigure things before the box is opened. I have also found that they do the same thing with instructions… changing the print back after its glued up incorrectley. In doing so they giggle a bit…but only untill impact.
Glad you felt better after…now you can kick back and enjoy…John
As a teen back in the late 70’s I trashed more than one project.
One of the worst was a Tyco C430 that I was faking an SP&S C425 with ( Bad idea that. ) where the paint fouled up due to humidity. Never really dried and came off in sheets. That body ended up in my parents fireplace, made real good kindling on a cold November night.[}:)]
I just finished bashing a Wather’s background building with some DPM walls to make a food warehouse. I had enough parts left over to build a machine shop.
Amazed myself, these were the first building kits I’ve built in 30+ years. I didn’t blow-up or foul-up. Seem to have calmed down a lot. [angel]
Yes, but not out of anger. I was building a model of a blast furnace, from company-supplied blueprints, but ran out of both money and space for the model. Mostly from basswood shapes (styrene ones weren’t available) and some styrene sheet. I had most of the casthouse built, plus the skip bridge, and the basic furnace shell, and had started on the cast house cranes. I gave away some of the walls, but scrapped most of the rest. I did save one of the cranes, and converted it to a different style, based on a couple in the mill where I worked. I don’t have too many pictures of the model or the prototype.
A view of the prototype at the slag pit:
And the same area on the unfinished model:
This is taken at the base of the dual-track skip bridge, which was about 3’ high:
The finished furnace and accompanying stoves, stockhouse, and dust collectors and gas scrubbers would’ve occupied an area larger than many home layouts, and was much too much for a one-bedroom apartment.
Here’s the rebuilt crane:
I still have those roof trusses, some of which can be seen in the second photo, but, regrettably, the blueprints are gone, too.
Ahhhh yes! The final moment when I snapped, still hear about it from my wife. I bought a Kato loco a few years back at my LHS. It ran really nice for about a week, then bagan to stall on the track. Tried several things, even blamed the track and a power pack. Nothing seemed to make it just quite dead on the tracks. Tested it, checked this checked that, same thing everytime. I took it back a few weeks after I got it, and told them to replace it or fix it. A week later picked it up at my LHS, with a “good to go from the tech”, brought it home, and it still stalled.
It took me about 2.5 sec to snap then, it took great pleasure to throw it hard as I could to the floor and pretend it was a fire that needed stomped out.
My wife says my best one was with a brand new weed eater that ended up on our roof, after I used it for a golf club. LOL!
I only moved to Texas because I had so many old and broken models piled up that my only choice was to live in a place where you can buy tiny explosives at the side of the road! [;)]
Shot up about 60-70 model ships (more major combatants than the US Navy had) one afternoon, all pretty nice models, also am an ace, having shot down more model planes than I can remember, and of course there was a Walthers steel coil car and 2 of their early building kits that turned into Tokyo.
So far, only to a section of track. I had fiddled and farted around with it to get it to stay put for days. Long story, I had not supported it well and was trying to shove thin bits of whatever into the semi-glued ballast to shore it up to the point where it wouldn’t sag a bit when a train crossed over head. I kept getting power cut-outs, no matter what. Finally, looked over at needle-nosed pliers, hardened my jaw muscles to wood, reached with pliers to the closest rail, and began a series of violent and determined tear aways. Oh, it might have included a curved #7 Walthers/Shinohara in that first grab of the pliers. [:-,]
I felt much better after my hissy fit, only had to wait for two weeks to get a #8 which fit better anyway, and I was back in business with proper ballast and weathered track within a day.
