The less-than-brilliant modelling club

[Predatorpt]

No. 71 - Rolling your painbrush on your tongue in order to get a nice point, only to realise you hadn't properly washed the last lot of paint off.

I do this a lot of times and the worse part about that, is that I can recognize the brand of paint according to its taste...

[throwsFireball]

First time I've laughed out loud in this thread; my wife wanted to know what was so funny. Unsurprisingly she didn't get it.

No. 72: Seeing your miniatures fly off the 16th floor balcony
Spray undercoating 15mm miniatures on a tray on a high rise balcony and had them tumble to the ground as I forgot to Blu-tac them properly into place.

No. 72-1: Breaking your miniatures by priming
A subset of number 72, priming your miniatures and having them come off the sprue and tumble gracefully to the floor where that carefully pinned and glued arm comes flying off. Not only do you have to deal with paint on the carpet but you have to repin and probably respray.

[Mason]

No. 71 - Rolling your painbrush on your tongue in order to get a nice point, only to realise you hadn't properly washed the last lot of paint off.

I do this a lot of times and the worse part about that, is that I can recognize the brand of paint according to its taste...

It is not just that part, mate, but answering the knock at the door and wondering just why you are getting such odd looks....until you see the mirror later.
 

[Marine0846]

NUMBER 72 My cat's litter box.

Last year I was flocking some figures.
I had a plastic box that was about 10 x 10 inches.
This flock was a great blend that I had been working to get just right.
After flocking some bases I put the box on the floor by my foot.
(Did not have enough room on the table.)
I kind of forgot about it.
But not the cat.
He decided that it would be a great place to pee.
He did the deed before I could chase him out.
I ended up throwing all it all out.

[warlord frod]

73 - putting the varnish coat on and then finding a spot that still needed paint Nothing is more irritating then looking the paint work over and over, deciding its done and going ahead with the gloss coat. Then picking up the dry fig and seeing a glaring ommission or worse yet showing it off to a gaming buddy and having them say "did you mean not to paint this belt?" 

[Stu]

Number 63 - Cocking a leg!

Double-triple checking that a vehicles four wheels all touch the ground evenly throughout construction. So why does one of the wheels sit noticeable higher than he rest now and not touch the ground at all? Looks like the thing is trying to pee against a tree!

For the gold medal, slowly apply measured pressure to the whole model, slowly bending axles and all sorts to get all four wheels to sit correctly. Almost there until one or more snap off :-)

Not forgetting random bits breaking off in storage.

[Mr Tough Guy]

74. Accidentily Tattooing yourself

So I was cleaning out one of those old GW flip top bottle tops, as they tend to gather dried paint making them hard to close. using a toothpick I applied a bit too much pressure piercing the soft plastic bottletop through a bit of Snotgreen paint into my finger, leaving a tiny spot of Snotgreen paint beneath the skin. the wound healed quickly but years later there's still a spot of Snotgreen on one of my fingers.

[dijit]

This whole thread is really quite a LAF!

No. 72-1: Breaking your miniatures by priming
A subset of number 72, priming your miniatures and having them come off the sprue and tumble gracefully to the floor where that carefully pinned and glued arm comes flying off. Not only do you have to deal with paint on the carpet but you have to repin and probably respray.

No.72-2: Miniatures after priming fall off the tray on to the rather dusty and sandy loft floor. My nice new Perry desert rats platoon ended looking like they'd all had a severe case of smallpox.  Which is why I've never dared photographing them and showing them off here on LAF.

[Constable Bertrand]

#75 Super Glue mishaps

I was carefully using superglue straight from the little squeezy tubes, a pack of 6 from the dollar store for $2! Cheap and cheerful friends. Anyway, Carefully squeezing the glue onto glossy cardboard and styrene, holding it together with my fingers. Ensuring the finger rubbing technique whenever they started to stick to anything.

Lifting a corner of the build, I squirted a healthy dose between the layers and quickly lowered the top to get a good fix, SMACK, the materials came together that quick that little bits of superglue went showering everywhere, including my eye!!!

Excessive water, blinking and prayer later, I could still see. Isn't the human eye a marvel that tears can pretty much flush out any foreign body

[SBRPearce]

76: A dull knife, used incorrectly

Repeat the saving mantra: "Change Exacto blades often." Repeat the saving mantra: "Seek the right tool for the job."

The ill-used and aged blade in my craft-knife was not making it through the sprue on the plastic building I was trying to construct. Instead of getting clippers, or a saw, or changing blades like I should have, I got a better grip on the sprue and really leaned into the cut...

And of course the blade slipped and took off the end of my thumb. (Only a slice 6mm wide and about 1,5 thick, but boy, howdy it bled like the bajeezus...)

When I got back to the workbench days later, the little plastic building looked like the site of a massacre. My brother said I should leave the dried blood all over it - it looked better than any paint job I might accomplish...

[throwsFireball]

77: Boot the Bitz Box

Kicking your carefully arranged bitz box by accident and watching as all your bitz fly across the floor in a jumbled mess. Then having to pick up those hundreds of plastic limbs one by one.

Today was a bad day.

[Vagabond]

76a A Sharpe Knife, used incorrectly

When younger I was carving a boat from a solid piece of wood, using the knife as you would by slicing the wood, cutting towards your thumb. Of course I took a slice of of my thumb.
The following day I could not carve in the same manner because of the big plaster on said thumb so carved away from me and took a slice out of my left hand that required stitches.
I still have both scars 50 years later to remind me to be more careful.

 The worst part is that the boat was confiscated by my father as he was worried what I might cut off next  

When even younger I remember being told "be careful with that knife it is sharp, didn't believe it, it looked blunt. How do you test if a knife is sharp - run your finger along it off course. It was sharp and there was a lot of blood.

[PortCharmers]

“I don’t make every mistake twice, I make it five, six times, just to be sure” (I’m much better at remembering quotes that at remembering who said them). Here are some of my more glorious cock-ups:

#77:
Painted a Heinkel 111 in dark green, masked the splinter camouflage, sprayed the even darker green, took off the masking, realized that the two tones of green are almost exactly the same, once dried. You can still see the difference if you look very closely when the lighting is really good.

#78:
Dropped a part, spent looking for it for ages, eventually gave up, found it later in my rolled-up trouser-leg (back in the day when my mom bought my clothes a bit bigger so I could grow into them).

#79:
Freaked everyone out when a paint can popped open in my hand and Revell 31 Fire-Engine-Red flowed down my wrist.

But sometimes something good comes out of the disaster:

Spilled some wood dye over the planked and stained deck of a (wooden) ship model, exchanged the affected planks, which don’t match the colour of the rest of the deck now. Looks way better, it’s a workhorse, not some fancy yacht.

Crushed the undercarriage of a Mitsubishi bomber while hunting down a mosquito (a culex, not a DeHavilland). She looks very dynamic suspended under the ceiling with the wheels UP.

And by the way, the tricolore on my Junkers Ju52 is upside down.

As Confucius says: Shit happens!

[Harry]

Number 80
I tipped a bottle of poly cement on the desk .... not only did it melt the dungeon tiles I was working on but it melted all the lines of my cutting mat.

[Constable Bertrand]

#81 Paint Splatters

Was having a lovely chat with the missus, she was finishing up painting art. She was using house paint out of little film cannisters.
She starts closing the paint pots rather forcefully.
"I wouldn't do that" I think
Her fist comes down on the little lid containing a light grey...
SPLAT
A spray of light grey hits my slippers (its still there), runs up my best trousers, and finishes on my new T-shirt.
Thankfully I protected the floor and rest of the room from getting any paint.