Last night, I pulled out a kit that has probably sat undisturbed for 20 years,
I bought it in the late 1990s and worked on it off and on back in the day. The kit was one of Wave’s first forays into injection molded kits (they were already established as a high-quality resin and soft vinyl kit manufacturer). As first tries go, it had its share of rough spots, and the polycap jointing system was primitive at best.
I did my best with the kit, fixing whatever I could, but some of the problems I encountered were just a bit too much for my little brain. So back into the box it went for 20 years. Gosh I hope the decals are still okay.
So anyway, having a look at it now, I kind of have to laugh at myself for giving up. In the intervening years I have learned a lot of dirty fixes and shortcuts. I noticed that the seam cleanup and filler work was done to a pretty good standard, probably because I could see better back then! It’s a really neat looking model, and there is no reason now to not build it.
So what is my point? Well, it is a call to fellow modelers who have decades-old shelf queens, to dust them off and get them built!
I’ve got 5. 4 I really want to build - not problems or bad kits, just got derailed chasing the next group build/shiny object lol. The 5th one is a bit of a pig…
I have a fine collection of shelf queens. It’s going to take a lot more than lipstick to see many of them to completion. It’s sometimes rough to go back to them when there are more current kits, that would be easier to build, now available of the same subject. Motivation is lacking for those types of builds.
Wow, a shelf queen for the decades! Although I’ve yet to chalk up my first decade on a shelf-queen I can relate to the post, since I have a number of lovingly-gifted kits that I want to do justice and have gone about ruining a few smaller-scale cheap kits in the pursuit of the necessary skills…
Back in February, one of the YouTube content creators that I follow started a month long group build that he called “Finish it February”. I had this sitting on the shelf for well over 20 years due to paint issues.
Looks pretty good and it’s one more off the shelf into the display case. I think the lace pattern on the roof just probably doesn’t show well in the pictures. I had to look a couple times to really see the pattern, but it looks good.
I’ve always wanted to try that but have never mustered up the courage. Is this your first time doing the lace? Anything that you could suggest for someone looking to try it the first time?
This body has been stripped and repainted 5 different times. This time around I decided to go with something a bit wilder than what I had been and got to a good enough point.
This is my first actual finished one with a lace paint job. I did a practice piece on a test body I have just to see what would happen.
Suggestions? Go for it! Make sure your lace is taped down good on the edges or ends. Spray from directly over top the lace at a ninety degree angle to it or your pattern is going to look funny after you take the lace off.
While it looks like it’s only two colors, the lace was painted with three. I used white as a base, then painted the lace in gold. I followed that up with a Candy blue.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with it. This is supposed to be fun after all.
