A funny tale from my early days.

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone again.

Codyr's attempt at painting a model got me to thinking back to the time when I first started using an airbrush. I remember being in the fourth grade in this incident. I had just finished building a 1/144 scale 747 with decals included for Air Force 1. I had painted the gloss white base coat and had let it dry for two weeks. I was ready to mask the airplane off but was side tracked by a small problem. I couldn't find the masking tape. Between my Dad, and my two brothers, (who all till this day are active model builders) the masking tape had dissapeared. Me being quite frustrated with this little incident not wanting to be held up came across a roll of duct tape. I thought AHA! I will use this. And proceeded to mask off this 747 model with duct tape. I was quite pleased with my self as it was the best masking job I had done on any model since. and when I was done masking proceeded to paint the blue. But all did not go well afterwards. As we all know, duct tape is comepletly the wrong thing to mask off a model with. Because of this when I proceeded to peel it off it wouldn't come off, and I had to enlist the help of my dad. Who was also quite perplexed. We ended up soaking the model for several days in water which separated the plastic backing paper from the adhiesive and then used an automotive adheisive remover to remove the glue off the model. The model was eventually completed and lasted many sessions flying the President of the United States on and off my layout. (He always switched from Air Force 1 to his presidental car on my layout. My layout at this time was a triple track oval with cross overs between them with an airfield in the middle) Since then my modeling skills have improved the layout was rebuilt two more times before it finally succumbed to dry wrot, and the model suffered the indignity of being scrapped when one day while moving boxes, one landed on it and I didn't feel like repairing it.

But I still get a chuckle and bear an amused smile on my face when ever I think back and remember the model I once masked with duct tape.

Have a nice day everyone,

James

[Anonymous]

join the club now for a annual payment of only$5

criteria:you have stuffed up at least one model

LOL

[Anonymous]

Ok put me into the club my first paintjob was a life like 0-6-0. I got the brilliant idea to paint the whole thing fire engine red. I took some acrylic art paint and just went at it. It was horrible. Black still showed through places I wanted to be black were now red. Paint was on the wheels and it was a lost cause. Then i took a black permanent sharpie and wrote CP on it, DOn't know why that roadname, but no number just a 10 years olds scribbling CP. I'm so ashamed of myself. Luckily no pictures were ever taken of it.
Andrew Miller

[Anonymous]

It looks like i have good company.

LOL

[Anonymous]

I have actually used gaffa tape/duct tape to mask a coach roof. I bought a (new) Con-Cor passenger car kit and was dismayed to find a chunk knocked out of the roof moulding at one end. Given that I would have spent more than the cost of the kit in fuel if I had taken it back to the shop, I decided to fix it. A little car body filler and CA adhesive filled the hole, and some careful filing shaped the filler to the right profile. I found a Tamiya aerosol that was a close match to the Nickle Plate blue that the roof was factory-painted in, and covered the clear parts of the roof moulding (these form the window glazing) with gaffa tape to keep the spray off it. It was a complete success - I recently managed to find the Kadee #508 kit to fit proper couplers to the car (should have bought the #506 as I had to shorten the mounting arms...) and now only need a couple of #22 couplers to complete the job.

As far as mistakes/foul ups are concerned, I've made a few. Usually when painting Athearn handrails - I have at least one loco with some minor paint marks where they shouldn't be. Luckily, as I use acrylics so long as I spot the paint before it dries I can remove it using a damp paper towel - this "wicks" the paint off the bodywork and saved my BNSF "Warbonnet" Dash 9 from having a large blob of yellow paint on the nose!

[Anonymous]

I feel glad I am not the only person to have made such a blunder.

James