Never lay your x-acto knive near the edge of your desk - WHEN it rolls off it will almost invariably land point first on a body part. (I caught mine before it hit my leg, the point went into my palm of course[:p] )
Never leave a bottle of paint open for a fraction of a second more than is necessary. That fraction of a second is all that is needed to knock it over.
NEVER leave your hobby room door unlocked if you have children.
If more than 10 people warn you about a kit and how badly it goes together, think twice about buying it… maybe even three times.
8 Hours drying time means 8 consecutive hours.
Airbrushes do not balance on anything and cannot just “stay” in one spot… they will shift and fall on the needle.
Super Glue comes out in globs the size of a quarter… no matter what tip you are using.
Putty will fill, spread, rumple, flatten, shrivel, and mishape everything except the hole it was put in.
10 minutes drying time means 45 minutes to 1 hour in a normal, non Mt Everest house.
3 - 4 Day UPS really means 1 week to order, 3 weeks to come in from distribution center, 1 week to send it, plus 3-4 days in the UPS truck.
Acrylic paint dries upon contact when you use the wrong color.
Acrylic paint takes 72 hours to dry when you use the correct color.
Liquid Cement does not cement anything to anything, especially not plastic to plastic.
Airbrushes splatter when you are spraying a dark color on a light color and doing very fine lines.
At the exact moment you need precise steadiness in your airbrushing… is the exact moment you get the caffeine jitters.
If you can find the missing/replace part form in the box of the kit, that means the company has gone out of business years before.
Only after you have superglued the parts in step 10, will you realize you missed steps 6-8.
You only discover you need a nose weight after the model is totally done and sits on its tail.
You only find out about a sale for a large purchase you want 3 days after its over.
The most complex and scant instructions are not in English.
The paint color key for a model is always found on the very first page… the exact page you cannot get to because your model is sitting on the instructions drying.
Even very expensive mask tape will pull up paint if its impossible for you to repaint the place easily.
Airbrush holders do hold airbrushes… all the way to the floor when they fall.
If you accidently spill the wrong kind of thinner on yourself or your work table… don’t worry. It will eat through your clothes, your chair fabric, and your table… but it still wont clean all the paint from a brush.
The $9 dollar brush you just bought, will be the exact one that you use accidently for super glue spreading.
When someone says “just use the artwork from the box as reference” do not believe them.
You can find reference photos for every piece of armor, truck, bicycle, wagon, and moped that has ever existed… except for the modern vehicle that is still in use that you are searching for.
Dremels can catch plastic on fire with a sanding drum.
Small replacement parts for airbrushes the size of a thumbnail are made of some rare metal because they are atleast $60 each.
When you place a very large model order they will ship every piece out to you instantly… except for the very first color of paint you need for the model that is half-built sitting on your table.
Ron’s Exception: or the kit you have been trying to get for 3 months, but they do send the resin accessory kit for it… nice of them.
Toothpicks can be super glued in place if you need to answer the phone real quick.
If you try to prop something up so it can sit and dry… that means it will fall the second you leave the room and dry in the wrong shape.
DO NOT wear a nice shirt if you are doing a quick touch up job on a part.
At minimum label the tops of these two paints so you can see before you spray them: Clear Flat… .Flat White.
Instruction sheets will stick to anything if you super glue them, including your fingers, your table, your hair, the carpet, a cat’s paw. The same goes for other things except for plastic.
Primer is never needed on the models you primer, but always needed on the models that you have just finished and now the paint comes off on your fingers.
Dust sticks to flat paint like super glue.
Sprue cutters work great, except on very small pieces and they will either split them in two or fly off in some direction to never be seen again.
If you come into possesion of someone else’s old built up models that they don’t want anymore watch yourself. You never know what was going through their heads when they built them. (I found a small glass tube of mercury acting as a nose weight in something once).
Good reference materials abound, except for the subject you’re building. You will only find an abundance of reference for it a week or so after you completed it straight from the box because you couldn’t find the reference.
Even the best decal setting solutions are powerless against a decal that was meant to thwart decal setting solutions. (See AMT decals from the mid 1980s)
5 minute epoxy can be a great tool, but only if you’ve got a lot of mating surface area between parts, for pin point applications its a lost cause.
Red paint: acrylic, enamel, flat, glossy… it doesn’t really matter, if you don’t clean your airbrush or brush out with heavy industrial cleaners for at least six hours straight, the red paint will taint every colour you use thats lighter than it is afterward.
“Experts”: They’re a dime a dozen, some are real, others imagine themselves to be experts. They’re everywhere and if you show off your model they’ll come running to tell you what you did wrong. Screw em’
Modeling outdoors: I love to do my airbrushing on the patio, but I have learned that bright paint colours tend to attract wasps and honets more than darker colours do. Also, Testors clear gloss and flat from the spray can seem to have a great appeal for them. (I’m terrified of wasps and hornets)
Addendum to #11: ALWAYS use the hobby knife well over the bench or it will be painfull. I leaned back in my chair to change a blade…as I was removing the knife from my leg (It went in to the handle) I remembered why I always clip the tip of #11 blades.
Water based paint stains don’t wash out with water.
You always run out of paint in the middle of a big job.
Super glue isn’t so super when your hands stick together.
ALWAYS remove your fingers/body parts from whatever you’re cutting (the tip of my thumb got sliced off once, i didn’t intend on a sherman with a red paint job!!!)
The more expensive it is, the more likely it’ll be trodden/sat/jumped/landed on.
Ebay is a scam!!!
The Best just isn’t good enough.
You’ll never know where that crucial part went until you here it rattle in the tube of the vacuum cleaner.
and a little adjustment to erush’s #13: Don’t have children.[;)]
If the paint color is wrong, it can’t be removed with Sulfuric Acid. If the color is correctly painted on, it will remove with a brush of your finger or a light breeze caused by an air conditioner.
Canopy masks can be removed cleanly with no adhesive residue from canopies of the average quality model, its when you’ve got a real showpiece that the residue won’t let go, even with a blow torch.
You beat me to it with #75, Tigerman. (I’ve mentioned cats destroying my models when I was a kid in other posts.)
An addendum to #57: You choose a beautiful, still day with no wind to take the model outside for spray painting. Everything remains nice and calm as you set up the newspapers, the platform to rest the model on, the model itself and when you shake the “rattle can.” The instant you pop the top off and aim the spray can…hurricane force winds! Roofs are flying; cars are tumbling end-over-end down the street.[:)] And of course half the spray paint is wasted. Well, it’s not exactly wasted; you’ll see it all over your neighbor’s new Cadillac.[:)]