Man, I was so close to finally finishing this thing!!!

You know the feeling? You are getting ready to put a final coat of clear flat on your great looking model that took you a long time to get it to this point and that you fought ALL THE WAY to get it looking acceptable when, WAMMM!! It falls from your hands and hits the floor shattering in a million pieces. Yes fellows, this just happened a few minutes ago to my almost done Dragon Pak 40 (late). If this never happened to you, well, I congratulate you. I just can't believe it! This kit was a true bear to build (for me) and ending it this way was not in my plans. Since there was no way to hold the model while painting I ended up supergluing a piece of sprue to the bottom of the base. It worked very well until just now when it broke off and sliped from my hands (despite my cat-like reflexes to try to catch it). I am pretty annoyed with modeling right now so I'll stop here before I get all of you bored.

I just wanted to know if this ever happened to any of you. I guess I am looking for some consolation at the moment.

Ok, rant over.

Take care,

RobC

I just dropped the turret on my Thunderbolt 7, of course missing the carpet and hitting the kitchen floor. Fixed it though

Earlier this year my magnifying lamp base broke and it hit my 1/350 North Carolina battleship and flipped it across the table. Most of the 400+ pieces of PE were attatched already. Unbelieveably only minor damage was incurred.

I would put it asside for a bit if the damage is substantial. Start on a build you have been dying to do, when it starts to slow a bit and you get a little tired of it take the other one out and fix it.

Rob you poor bastard!
I feel for you, even if you were building German thingys...
Did the same thing with a Sherman turret, but I did the feline reflex thing, making good return contact with it but managed to connect like Bo Jax and put it into the wall of my living room... Not so bad if it wasn't covered with Formations resin update parts which kinda disappeared...
Can it be salvaged, or maybe placed under a Sherman in a mid '45 scene? :-)
Cheers
Brad

Dude,
Very sorry to hear about that, but I think we've all done it at one time or another!
Pick up the parts, put'em aside, take a break and then come back to it later. I think you might be suprised how salvageable things can be. Don't chuck it out, save it use it in a dio or beside a group of figgies or whatever. Take a break
Regards
Joker

Those sherman turrets are hard to hang on to! :-)

Rob,

I've dropped models that were nearly completed, botched paint jobs that had to be stripped and re-painted, lost countless small parts to the carpet monster and misplaced at least one of every type kit part you can think of. It's all a part of modeling.

All the mistakes are ment to help you develop character, welcome to the club!

Best wishes,

L Witter

I think we all know what you are going through! I really hate when that happens to anyone after all the hard work that is put into it.

hehe I hear you! Mine was an early low bustle, at least yours was up armoured! :-)

Thanks for the kind words all. So I guess I'm not the only butterfingers here. That's good to know. Well, the gun barrel, slide, and shield are beyond salvaging, but the base and trail arms seem to be worth of working on it to get it to where is was. I'll just put the thing aside as some of you segested and maybe I'll get a replacement gun mount in the future.

Thanks again all,

RobC

Been there, done it. Dropped my Warrior after 3 months worth of work.

It hurts!

HI

I've had that but what really bummed me out was the time I applied a dull coat to a really super job I had done on a Tamiya MiG only to have the paint wrinkle and craze ..

It actually flew, for about 10' before it hit the wall .... :-)

Tom

My wife swears blind that stomping, shouting and the occasional expletive all form part of the hobby. :-) :-)

Well, not exactly that happened to me but................about a year ago, my wife took in a stray feral kitten from outside. We're both animal lovers, so I was cool with it. being Feral, he had no idea of what he could and coultn touch in the house. I awoke a few mornings later to find that he decided to attempt to eat my recently finished Abrams tank! a month of hard work full of tiny tooth holes. I couldnt even pass them off for bullet holes being the subject that it was! Needless to say he has since learned to stay away from my models........the hard way LOL

Relax... it is a part of the hobby...

Just last week, I was getting a Sdkfz 234/2 Puma out of the closet, when I saw a Desert Patrol Chevy too near to the edge of the shelf for comfort. I put it back a little more, take the Puma in my hands to finish it and.... suddenly the Desert Chevy jumps forward (somehow the tip of my t-shirt got stuck somewhere on it), then following the law of gravity drops down about half a meter (a little less than 2 feet) in a roll and crashes on the ground UPSIDE DOWN!

I don't need to tell you that the basical Tamiya kit with a few pieces become something like a "Dragon 3in1 Chevy" in an instant. After a load of work to make an old dog of a kit look better...

So yeah, I really really do sympathize with you. But again, relax, it is a part of the hobby. Look at the bright side (I, for myself, counted the kill as belonging to the Puma I was holding, should add a killmark on its turret, eh ).

Managed to hang on to everything to this point but I did have one giant mishap a few years back.
I had just finished painting and a (final?) wash on a T-34/85 on which I had used my first PE set.
I was impatient with waiting for it to dry so I moved it a bit closer to the light (like a 150 watt bulb in a cone shaped metal housing)
Took my eyes off of it for less that a minute (I did have the fleeting rational thought that this could be wrong!)
That split second was all that it took. Starting around the PE air intake grills and the rear section of the turret. That slow distortion of melting plastic pulling away from it's normal form.
I was disgusted, mortified and embarrassed that I could have been so stupid.
Learned a great lesson though....definitely a hobby that needs patience.

I'm sure I'll drop something soon.
Cheers,
Charles

Just a thought, but wouldn't this post been more appropriate over on MODELGEEK?..Jim

Hi RobC,

Sorry for you man! For me, I always seem to have the tiniest parts flit away while handling them and they become eaten up by the local time/space warp never to be seen again!!!

Gary