# Modeling accidents, whats your worst?



## Flatlander54 (Feb 24, 2010)

Ill start this one...last night I worked on my Tamiya A-10. Cockpit painted and glued into the joined fuselage, wing halves glued together, everything going smooth. So I leave the fuselage and wings on the table overnight to dry sitting on a large shoptowel. Woke up this morning to discover that the Zippo lighter fluid can that was full of Laquer Thinner had somehow formed a leak in the bottom of the can and leaked the entire contents out onto the shoprag...the A-10 fuselage and wings are now permenantly joined to the shoprag, not to mention the wifes new plastic table cloth is a mess as well. 
She was not happy aout the mess or the smell. :freak:


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I photograph everything right after I finish. I was shooting cockpit closeups of my finished Tamiya 1/48 Do-335B, with the lights moved in nice and close. Yep, when I got my nose out of the camera and moved the setup back, one of the 200W bulbs had melted the port wing into a nice wavey shape.

On the personal injury side - I have this reflex when I drop a part of snapping my legs together to catch it. I advise against that when you drop an X-Acto knife. I reenacted a moment from Young Frankenstein.


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## Flatlander54 (Feb 24, 2010)

Oh I wont even go into the personal injury part of it...too many to even think about. The last one was the worst though, a fresh razor blade and a thumb cut nearly to the bone. Took about an hour with ice, a home made tourniquet, and some super glue to get that one staunched. :thumbsup:


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## Jafo (Apr 22, 2005)

Pointing an airbrush into an open bottle of red paint and for some unknown reason pushed the trigger. Talk about red faced........


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## Flatlander54 (Feb 24, 2010)

Jafo said:


> Pointing an airbrush into an open bottle of red paint and for some unknown reason pushed the trigger. Talk about red faced........


 That would certainly do the trick.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I wss once blue-faced when I held a can of spray paint backwards!
It went with my Scottish heritage.


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## alexrest (Feb 22, 1999)

*Am I the only one???*

As a result of my incident, I can now pass along this pearl of wisdom. Never ever use your teeth to hold the lid of a CA bottle. That stuff bonds lip tissue like right now.


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

Dremels are NOT your friend...

I was scratchbuilding an AT-AT and was using the metal cutting tools to cut a hole into the bottom of the feet for those toes. On the last hole, as I first pushed the cutter into the back of the slot I was cutting then pushed forward to make the channel, The tool snagged outside of the foot and the cutter spun around the outside of teh bottom of the foot, and as it did, it cut the skin off my left hand from thumb to index finger as it went around about 4 times before I was able pull the tool away. I was unable to do much of anything with the left hand for 6 weeks as the many deep scabs healed.


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

alexrest said:


> As a result of my incident, I can now pass along this pearl of wisdom. Never ever use your teeth to hold the lid of a CA bottle. That stuff bonds lip tissue like right now.


I had ca all over my fingers and an itchy nose. So I was smart and rubbed my knuckle across the ol' honker. Well, there was ca on my knuckle... 

I felt the wet ca turn hot and set near the inner bridge thing separating the nostrils... I started to inhale and felt the ca fumes spider-web their way up the nostril. I immediately exhaled but it was too late. The spider-webbing continued up my nose, down my throat and expanded into my lungs -keep in mind this is an exothermic reaction going on. By that time I was at the sink trying to affect the ca with running water and lots of exhaling. NG. 

The actual drop of ca at my nostril solidified my nostril flesh and stayed that way for a month or more. The lung effects seemed to go away after a month or two as well. I didn't panic at any point, but damn I was moving with purpose and concern. Inhaling ca can't be good. I did read at that time that if you ever get it in your eye, it will eventually work it's way out over a couple weeks w/ no perm damage. Getting it into the bronci is likely another matter entirely.

But if we're talking modeling accidents, that's another matter.


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## ryoga (Oct 6, 2009)

This didn't happen to me but I was there when it happened. Was at one of our usual small gathering of friends comparing kits and sharing knowledge/criticisms/praises etc etc. I didn't bring my kit then as the paint was still wet, but those that did let their half completed kits sit on a folding table at the centre of the room when one of my friend leaned on the table and the whole thing came crashing down, him along with 7 or 8 kits. 

You should see that moment of shocked silence from everyone's faces ... of course now we can laugh abt it. Getting the correct parts together was fun .... NOT!


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## Auroranut (Jan 12, 2008)

I remember judging the hot rods at a model comp in the late '80s. There was a beautiful T-bucket that had all the bells and whistles and it was a jewel!
I picked it up to look underneath and the chassis hit the floor!! He hadn't glued the body to the chassis. It was a write-off and the builder was absolutely crushed as was I. 
He'd lightly tacked the body on with tiny dabs of superglue and they hadn't taken the weight of the rest of the car when I'd picked it up by the body. I profusely apologised but he admitted he should have glued the body on properly- he'd just forgotten to.
I'm surprised he was as philosophical about it as he was.....

Chris.


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

This didn't happen to me, but ... at a model train show, my dad was operating his portable layout. Sitting on the layout was his prize scratchbuilt coke car (there's a print of it in the linked image). Sure enough, some ham-fisted jerk picked up the thing and nearly crushed it. Dad was good about it, politely asking for it back, but he never did get around to repairing it. Someday I hope to give it a shot.

I was always taught to attend car shows and hobby shows with my hands behind my back. This jerk probably thought it was for sale or something so he could pick it up.

But did I ever suggest to Dad he shouldn't have brought it to the show? Nope. He was always rather innocent, never suspecting someone would touch (much less manhandle) something without asking. Oh, well.


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## Timescape (Feb 2, 2010)

Two incidents:

1) I attended a model show in an aviation museum where the museum had large scale aircraft in displays scattered around the upper viewing area. The aircraft descriptions were in plexiglass picture frames. I had a 1/48 Hobbycraft Sea Fury on the Propeller Aircraft table and it was beside one of these displays. As you can imagine, someone was leaning over the table looking at the models when he bumped into the display knocking the picture frame off the top of the display and flattening my Sea Fury. 

2) I was building an entry for SSM's online contest SF109 in which one was to convert an Me109 (or several) into anything but a WWII German Fighter. My idea was to make a Star Wars Pod racer using two Revell 1/48 Me109s as the main components of the two engines in front of the pod. Everything was coming along quite nicely until I returned home and found plastic parts strewn around the house. Near as I can figure, the cat knocked one of the engines off the table and was batting it around when the dog decided to take the "toy" away and start chewing on it! Surprisingly, both the dog and the cat still among the living. I put the model away and plan on completing it but in a diorama of a crash in progress where one of the engines clipped a dog shaped rock formation....


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## Cro-Magnon Man (Jun 11, 2001)

When we were kids, me and my sister accidentally pushed a window display of kits, which had been standing one on top of the other almost to the ceiling with their tops facing outwards, over and into the bay of the window.
This thread just reminded me of it.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

About 3-4 years ago I spray painted my PL 350 refit with an under coat of light blue and then the next day I sprayed it with what turned out to be a laquer based acrilyc paint and cracks the in the paint right away, no waiting.
It did not pass go and did not collect 2 hundred dollars.


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## Jinja (Mar 26, 2010)

John P said:


> I have this reflex when I drop a part of snapping my legs together to catch it. I advise against that when you drop an X-Acto knife. I reenacted a moment from Young Frankenstein.


 That's hilarious! I have the same reflex too, hope I never do the same....


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## Ductapeforever (Mar 6, 2008)

I have an 8 foot long workbench in the laboratory that I build on, and I use an alcohol lamp to stretch sprue. One night late while working on a project, the alcohol lamp ran out of fuel. So, fetching the large bottle of rubbing alcohol from the bathroom I set out to fill the lamp. After filling the lamp (about 2oz) I replaced the cap on the big bottle but neglected to replace the cap wick assembly on the lamp . Being old, I get sidetracked easily so there the lamp sat at the other end of the bench. I began working where I had left off, ten minutes or so went by when I needed to bend a piece of rod stock so I grabbed the lighter to warm it so it would bend easily. The lights were low, just my worklight was on.*WHOOOSH!*A sheet of flame rocketed across the bench, and just as quickly went out. My wife, down the hall and in the next room raced to see what had happened. She found me, jaw still dropped, and eyebrowless with hair smoking in shock. Safety Note: Alcohol fumes travel!


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## jasonalun (Jun 23, 2009)

alexrest said:


> As a result of my incident, I can now pass along this pearl of wisdom. Never ever use your teeth to hold the lid of a CA bottle. That stuff bonds lip tissue like right now.


I'm a little new to modeling (used to do styrene airplanes a lot as a kid but just got back into it last year) so, what is "CA"? I want to make sure I avoid your and Model Man's accidents!


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

jasonalun said:


> I'm a little new to modeling (used to do styrene airplanes a lot as a kid but just got back into it last year) so, what is "CA"? I want to make sure I avoid your and Model Man's accidents!


Superglue, I try to stay away from it as much as possible. Several times I have glued myself to something I was working on.


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

One year for christmas I got the revell 1/144th scale Saturn V, an F-104 Starfighter and the Space:1999 Eagle. I was in modeler's heaven, I spent the rest of the holiday break from school building (in my mind) the best models I would ever build. I had all the painting just right and I even weathered the Eagle, the first time I ever tried doing that, everything was perfect. 
Comming home from school one day I saw to my horror part of my Saturn V laying beside the driveway, in pieces. I rushed inside and saw that all of my models were gone. One of my aunts had came over that day and was still there with her two young boys. She had decided to let her little brats play with some of my "toys", which they promptly took outside and demolished. I was only 15 at the time, but I let her have it, I let loose with a string of obscenities that they still talk about at family reunions. It was over three months before she visited again, and only then after I was forced to apologized to her. She did replace the models destroyed, but it was not the same.


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## Scorpitat (Oct 7, 2004)

Link to my worst!

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=295532


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

*@ kenlee*: That's awful. Seems to me like your aunt should have been the one to apologize. Even if she didn't know the difference between a toy and a model, even if she was clueless about what your models cost and how much work you had put into them, what kind of adult would have so little respect for other people's private property? 

Well, I suppose that was many years ago and a lot of water's been passed since then. Or something like that.


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

scotpens said:


> *@ kenlee*: That's awful. Seems to me like your aunt should have been the one to apologize. Even if she didn't know the difference between a toy and a model, even if she was clueless about what your models cost and how much work you had put into them, what kind of adult would have so little respect for other people's private property?
> 
> Well, I suppose that was many years ago and a lot of water's been passed since then. Or something like that.


True, I never blamed the children for that incident, and after learning the truth behind what happened, I'm glad I didn't.


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## barack (Dec 9, 2009)

I've had two big incidents:



I was trying to cut some foam when I cut through myself with a knife. Right through the blood vessel. Not good, especially when you can no longer do any work 

I accidentally dropped a bit of glue on a piece of the model. Ruined the whole model by burning through the decal and making the thingy called the tail flexible and deformed to the point that it couldn't be used anymore.


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## modelguru (Mar 31, 2010)

*modeling accidents*

Two incidents the first I had almost finished my starship enterprise and had it sitting on it's stand awaiting the final phase of painting. I didn't work on it for a few days when I resumed working on it I found one of the nacelles had been broken off, re-glued and brush painted several days later after being upset with my oldest son my wife admitted that while trying to straighten up my model room according to her the enterprise went into warp and flew off it's stand without her touching it.so she tried to fix it hoping I wouldn't notice it. YEAH RIGHT. She no longer enters my model room without me present. #2 About 10 yrs. ago I painted the cockpit tub on a 1/48 A-10 after it was dry I didn't like the job I had did. I had read somewhere you could soak parts in paint thinner and remove the old paint, I had some old auto lacquer thinner in the garage so I thought this would remove it easier, well after soaking a few hours I tried cleaning the tub with a tooth brush as I was holding the part I noticed the cockpit was warm & squishing in my hand, evidently auto lacquer thinner is to strong for styrene plastic Off to the hobby store to buy a new kit.


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## HabuHunter32 (Aug 22, 2009)

Summer 1977. I had just gotten out of the Navy and went back to Westchester county New York to my parrents house to retrieve my personal items that were in storage there. All of the items that were in my old bedroom were packed up and moved to the garage before I went away so that the room could be used by my mom for her sewing, needlepoint ext. When I went to the garage half of my stuff was gone! I asked my mom what happened and she said that they were cleaning out the garage about two years before and that they had kept all my stuff and just put it all in one corner. The only things that were thrown away was the old Christmas decorations that we had not used in years. I told my mom that I had thrown out all of the old decorations and used the boxes for some of my kits! I lost all of my boxed unbuilt military models! About 70 or so Aurora airplanes , tanks and ships! About 100 Revell kits of all types! Thank goodness that all of my figure and Sci-fi kits were packed in boxes that were properly identified! It took me along time to get back some of those kits! Some I never found again untill E-bay came along. 

Lesson learned! If you reuse a box remark it with the current contents!


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## jgoldader (Mar 26, 2008)

A little over a year ago, I was minutes away from finishing the Revell Dracula repop with Posthumous Productions Lugosi head. I had also reposed (ha ha) the model. This represented, oh, 6 weeks of modeling time, it was the first figure I'd built from a kit since I was about 10 years old.

One last job--just gotta put some pins in the feet to hold the Count to the base. Let's see... 1/16 brass rod, check. Dremel, check. 1/16 drill bit, check. Insert bit in Dremel. Fire that puppy up, yes, all good so far. Better steady the Count's leg by putting my thumb on the top of the foot... drill... carefully...

The plastic was so soft the bit went through the bottom AND TOP of the foot in about 1 second. Then it entered the meaty part of my left thumb.

I yelped, and the model took flight. It crashed to the floor and blew apart. The head came off, the cape came off, and several fingers broke off the hands. What's more important, I thought, finding the model's fingers before the cats started playing with them, or finding something to stop the bleeding?

Aiyee. I probably should'a gone to the doctor, but I knew my tetanus was up to date, so I rinsed the finger off and used a whooole bunch of paper towels over the next half hour or so until it stopped bleeding. Took several days' work to fix the darned model, and it was tough to do one-thumbed. 

But in retrospect, I guess, being the Count and all, bleeding all over the place right at the end made some sort of sense. I just hope the upcoming Moebius Dracula doesn't also demand a blood sacrifice.

Jeff


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## Rocky1775 (Dec 30, 2008)

I was reading in the living room one December when my wife got in the holiday spirit and lit a candle and set it on top of the tv - a couple of feet under my Monogram 1/72 B-52D!  It took me about five seconds to realize what she was doing and leap to my feet, but it was too late. The port wing melted at the root. We are divorced now.


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## iamweasel (Aug 14, 2000)

Evidently I am bush league, as many years as I have been doing this, the worst things I have suffered are a few x-acto cuts on the tips of my fingers, some worse then others but still nothing major.


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