Although I’m not a klutz in the 1:1 world, I seem to be experiencing some problems in my 1:87 world. Mind you, I don’t skate through life with the grace of Peggy Fleming, but I’m relatively accident free.
Not so with my recent modeling efforts. I find you have to move a little slower and more deliberately. This may seem obvious to most of you but I’m finding out the hard way. Yesterday while placing some structures on a diorama, I caught my rolled-up sleeve on the already in-place wrought iron bridge - good thing there were no people on it.
A few days ago while working on the same bridge, I knocked over an open bottle of plastic cement and wiped out half of the printed grid on my cutting mat - it didn’t self heal.
Do you have any idea how delicate steps and grabs are on passenger cars? Oh, and I sneezed on some ground foam before the adhesive was dry - wish I could do that on my real lawn.
Just looking for some moral support here - or any of your own musings.
What do you mean, “Welcome”. I’m the mayor of Klutzdom. I’ve lived here for over 30 years, about the same amount of time I’ve been in this hobby. If it is moral support we need, maybe we should form a self help group. And in case you are wondering, Murphy’s Law rules the land of Klutzdom.
I resemble those remarks. Last week I knocked a 1oz. bottle of silver paint over onto my lap. I was test fitting a section of back drop and smashed 2 overhead florecent lights onto the layout. Fortunately it’s just track and plaster right now.(2 steps forward, 1 step back)
I am sort of klutzy when it comes to delicate details - whether adding or handling them. The dilemma is that I love details and detailing rolling stock, structures, scenes etc. I solved this problem by switching to Large Scale which is just about indestructable (yes, I was even a klutz doing O scale). As for spilling paints, glue etc I guarantee I will happen at least twice while working on a project.
Two things I seem to have to be veeeeeeerrrry careful doing…soldering and getting down off my three step stool.
I have only singed myself lightly once or twice, and that is understandable, but it is in swinging my arm to get the cord to extend more so that I can reach what I am trying to solder that I have had the occasional “D’oh!!” The first time, I swiped the hot tip across the thin, formerly very white, plastic covering over those fibreglass ceiling tiles, the flimsy ones by Armstrong. [:O]
I have miscounted any number of times when descending from atop that stool, and once I actually fell heavily, narrowly missing the edge of the layout, and ended up jamming my thumb, but good.
That’s nothing! Here in north Jersey, about 2 years ago, a woman mistook superglue for her eye drops!!! Don’t know if she was a model railroader, but it makes you wonder!! I’m not at all klutzy - just because I stepped on the cord of the soldering pencil I was carrying & took a few seconds to realize what that smoke was from before I dropped it[:o)]
Let’s see…I’ve managed to spill a full bottle of Tenax, glue small parts to my fingers, cut myself (accidently, of course) with the x-acto knife… Need I continue?
My layout is up in the finished family room, which has a nice carpet, so I’m careful to do as much painting, etc., as is humanly possible down in the basement workroom. When I solder connections beneath the layout, I’ve got one of those plastic boot trays that are meant to leave wet shoes on when you come in from the out-of-doors on a rainy day. It has saved the carpet from numerous burns when drops of solder fall off the iron.
The one drop that didn’t end up in the tray was intercepted by my hand. Man, that hurt.
I used to buy my CA in bottles. Then I started wearing contacts and needed to start useing eyedrops. I went to grab my drops and got the top off only to look down to see I had the CA in my hand. Now I only buy my CA in those little metal tubes and I threw out all chemicals that even looked like a bottle of eyedrops. I can’t even imagine how bad that would hurt.[:O]
Klutzdom really shines when you are modeling with one good hand and one limited use hand…Thankfully I am mastering the old south paw and beginning to leave the land of Klutzdom.
I can’t even count the number of liquid glue bottles I’ve knocked over in my time, as someone mentioned, it takes the grid right off your self healing cutting pad. You should have been here last night while I was installing detail west lenses in the metal castings on my SP unit I’m converting. Had to remove the old headlights and install the correct SP headlight mess. Those lenses are tiny and of course clear. Try to see those with 60 year old eyes. Dropped them all over the place and the grabs (oh boy) those were fun.
Anybody have problems with bifocals while working on the layout? … or those Kadee coupler springs flying off the work table to… uh… gee… I don’t know where they go…
Oh yea, bifocals in this hobby are interesting, though think how fun it would be putting those grab irons on without them, though after having said that, couldn’t put them on without my Optivisors anyway. My other “favorite” so far has been inserting those Kadee centering springs in the 30 series conversions that require uncrossing the ends of the spring to tense it while loading it in the draft box. This meets the case definition of klutz.
You can add me to the population of Klutzville also…
Today has just been one of those days. First of all, I put tiny little road numbers on the number boards of a Southern Pacific F-7 black widow A unit that had to be cut out with a razor blade, and after I’d already sealed them, realized there were parts of the decals that I’d cut away still attached to some of the numbers. Then I thought I had trimmed a Santa Fe herald all nice and square, but when I glued it to the back of the observation car, it was a little off, so I ended up mangling it all up with a hobby knife trying to even it up. After that, I said to heck with it, and went out to play nine holes of golf, but before I could even get ten feet away from the pro shop, I backed over the cart charger cord and pulled it out of the charger by the roots… Not only that, but I’m willing to bet it was the worst score for a one man nine hole game in history!. I think I’m just going to crawl back in bed (under the bed) and not come out until tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be a better day.
Just yesterday I was making a loading dock. I needed to cut the edges off the back to leave a tab sticking out in the center to reach the door, which is recessed from the building. While I sat there paralyzed, some one or some thing took control of my body and did just the opposite, leaveing a nice u-shaped cut out in the middle of the back edge of the dock.