Obvious silly things we do, or we do stupid things so you don't have to?

[Guest]

This is not something I did (honest), and may not count as a mistake as what follows was done quite deliberately - really, no kidding. When I was about 12 a friend was doing a Saab Draken and he spoke about how putting on the transfers (called Decals these days - apparently) was the best bit of modelling. Of course, I agreed, it's near the end and it looks terrific when done.

Anyway, his answer to the avoid the (unnecessary??) wait to put on said transfers was to put them on straight after gluing it all together and then paint. We could still see the shape of the transfers under the paint - if you held the Draken up to the light at the appropriate angle - and so he was still very pleased with himself.

[Guest]

My few models to date are displayed on a B & Q stand "thing".

Family party at house. Eldest son with youngest son & probably my two daughters rearrange all aircraft including all the little reference labels.

So last Saturday morning visited eldest son Mark & Paula his wife. While they were making tea rearranged a collection of his artifacts (junk) all over the Lounge area. Nearly gave game away with giggling all looked so silly.

That night phone call. Paula thinks we have had a poltergeist (she was serious also took them a long time to notice) after a while owned up mostly as I could not stop laughing. So was son but furious as well. Cannot remember teaching him all that gutter language !!!!

So reminded him of the old quotation. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Took it literally & did.

Sure this tale is not finished yet. He is most unfortunately like his father (in fact probably worse got some mother in him : shocking) & I fear the very worst at his next visit. My models will be safely hidden & there will have to be intense surveillance. Perhaps spots of super glue strategically placed next to my first model. A sacrifice. Worth it to see a Typoon firmly stuck to his mitt. In take off position.

Laurie

[Guest]

Quote - Great idea. I have far too many to list but one that happens with annoying regularity is with the head up gunsight and or display in aircraft. I tend to temporarily mount the masked cockpit while spraying the aircraft. I leave off the gunsight as a precaution in case paint gets through the gaps in the canopy as it is a tad delicate to mask up the cockpit.

When I have finished spraying I get all excited if it has worked out well and re glue the canopy on without first installing the gun sight. Done this four times now....

After reading this, I realised that I have done that exact same thing tonight....

[Dave W]

Knocking over a new bottle of microsol with the cap off.Done that twice now.

[Guest]

oh my god dave, i did that last night and it bleedin well stinks, the bottles are a stupid shape, too tall and thin, very clever marketing i think, returning customers buying because they dropped it all. smells like very strong vinegar.

[Gern]

Not quite to the point of the thread, but there's a couple of tips which might help. Standing these tall thin bottles in another container such as a small mug or egg cup should stop them being knocked over - if the container is big enough, even if you knock the bottle over, you can get back most of what you lose and the clean up afterwards is easy. Some folks also put a piece of blutack on their bench to hold them more firmly.

Gern

[Ian M]

I did some thing similar with a new bottle of liquid poly, I left the paint brush in the bottle....... Moved my hand to pick up my coffee mug and whacked the end of the paint brush.

Now we can talk about nasty smell.

Oh and if you spill CA don't mop it up with cotton wool.

Talking of CA, I was using some the other day, and I screwed the cap off, and went to squirt some CA onto a scrap of plastic, so I could take it on a bit of sprue to mount things for painting. Well as I was not paying to much attention, the actual top of the bottle had stuck in side the lid and I screwed that off along with the lid. Result half a bottle of CA all over the desk top!!!! Lucky I had cleaned up ready to spray other wise my build would have suffered.

Ian M

[Guest]

Model related, but full scale!:cheeseygrin:

I had been working on my Kit car on the drive.

I had the extension lead out as there was no power in garage and put the battery on charge sitting on a low wall by the back door.

Then decided I would modify some of the rear subframe for the car. This required the use of the angry grinder.

I clamped the metalwork into the work bench and moved it as far as I could away from the battery, limited by grinder lead length. Then proceeded to grind away at metal.

This worked quite well for a while until I forgot about the battery.

Instead of turning the bench around to get to the other side I moved around it.

It only took one spark to reach the proximity of the battery and BOOM!

I was showered in battery acid.

Fortunately I was wearing a lab coat and not overalls.

I rushed in to the sink and splashed myself with plenty of water. Then went upstairs and showered.

By the time I came down my lab coat looked like it had been attacked by a swarm of moths. There were more holes than material.

My clothes had been ruined as well, but they were only my scruffies for working on the car.

Lesson learnt! Never, ever charge a battery where there is the slightest chance of a spark.

I never did find the lead plates from the battery!

[Guest]

Not good, you were lucky. It should be known to those who are not aware... wet cell batteries give off highly explosive hydrogen vapours when charging. it is never a good idea to have any source of ignition present whatsoever. Just a quick headsup.

Andy

[Adrian "Marvel" Reynolds]

I recently built the Airfix Seafire, after getting the main frame all set I was looking at the wings, I had decided to do the Z fold. I looked and looked then thought, you idiot you glued the tips on the wrong sides, so out came the saw and an hour later they were reattached with new hinges scratch built and retouched up paintwork. So the next day I go to attach them and , yup, they were on the correct way originally !!!!!!

[Guest]

as most people have done i also have done some stupid stuff due to the lack of concentration, one of which resulted in loosing both my eye brows and a lot of hair, the most reason one was i had super glued some parts together and whilst waiting for them to dry i used my other hand to type on this forum a reply to a thread....when i had finish typing.....yes you guest it i had stick my fingers together well and truly, i then started posting for the best remedy.

sure there is a moral to this story

ps yes i have regrown my eyebrows lol

[Guest]

Although I didnt do it personally, I was present many years ago when my best buddy (We were about 12) decided it would be cool to place a banger (It was nearly 5th November) in the earth with its blue touch paper sticking out and on top of this (Mine) would go his 1:72 scale build churchill tank.. The paper was lit, we retired to a safe distance, about 2 foot away and waited. The fuse hissed for about 5 seconds and then the bang followed. The tank moved slightly and it was a huge anti-climax. My mate picked up the tank and screamed in agony as the melted plastic caused by the fuze fizzing ran between his fingers... A hospital trip, and quite a long recovery time followed...lesson... is obvious.

[Gern]

So anyway, last night I went into the kitchen to make a cuppa and noticed my fridge wasn't on and the door was open slightly. I'd obviously not shut it properly last time I got something out. Shut the door and waited a few minutes and it still didn't come on and I thought maybe the fridge motor had overheated and had blown the fuse in the plug - 'cos it would have been working hard to try and cool everything when the door was open letting warm air in.

How to check it? I know! First check the main fusebox and see if any had tripped. They were all OK so what next? Dug my toolbox out of the store cupboard and got my electric drill, tried it in a socket and it worked. Moved the fridge and tried the drill in that socket and it worked so not the socket. Undid both plugs and swapped fuses. Drill worked but fridge didn't so I knew it wasn't the fuse. Reassembled plugs and put drill and toolbox away, and put fridge back. I'm doing well here methought. 10 minutes and I'd completely eliminated any problem with the power supply to the fridge.

Next thought, maybe I'd disturbed the setting on the temperature control inside the fridge? Opened the door and checked and it looked OK. I didn't have any problems reading the dial 'cos the fridge light came on when I opened the door .....

Gern

[eddiesolo]

Model related mishaps:

Impatient me decided to play with rust pigments, upstairs...yep, knocked over a bottle, it stained the carpet...then, not learning from this (as blokes tend to do) I then proceeded to knock over a full bottle of pigment fixer...again onto the carpet. I of course tried to clean up, making it worse. The wife appeared, scowled, cleaned it up and then downstairs and the offending items put away, I was well and truly given a rather stern telling off.

I still didn't learn as I also got black enamel paint on the carpet...I think this modelling lark could end up in divorce.

I have also cleaned my brushes in my tea pot and then drunk the tea...o_O

Si

[dave]

Learned the hard way, never drink coffee while painting, lost count of the number of times I've tried to clean brushes in my coffee mug.