I don’t know how many of you might have run into this situation.
You’re looking at you’re flightline, or parking lot as the case may be, that you call your modeling shelf and you see a few older models that aren’t quite hitting the finishing standards you can hit today and the more you look at them, the more they detract from the over all display.
They aren’t bad models, they still have potential, but you just can’t leave em’ as they are any more, you know you can make them better, but how?
I’ve got Revell’s 1/32 F-16 on my shelf. She’s dusty, paint quality’s a bit crude as she predates my airbrush days, decals are starting to flake off and deficiencies that I didn’t know how to fix when I built her but do know how to fix now are really eating at me, begging to fix them.[:(]
The problem, it’ll take a complete tear down of the model to properly fix everything. I had been toying with the idea of tearing here down and trying to convert her to an F-16 XL with the delta wing, but I haven’t commited to it or any other course of action. She’s to good to toss and maybe too good to break down for spares, so until I decide what to do, she sits there getting more derelict.[:(][:(]
I was looking at a book about the U.S. Air Force’s surplus aircraft “boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona recently and I got to thinking about that F-16 and the potential in it to be resurected, but how and into what?
Perhaps someday I’ll know what she should look like and commit to getting her there.
Anybody else got a derelict or two on their shelves begging you to restore them to some state of glory?
i have tons of models on the shelf that are wrecked or busted…
Oh, yeah. I have some that go back ten, maybe twenty years, and clearly they no longer represent my best work. I’m gradually buying kits to replace them and bring them “up to par”, but they do detract from the others.
But they also serve as a reminder of how far I’ve come in regards to painting, finishing, etc. Chalk 'em up to practice.
I’m in the process of restoring one now, the car that got me back into the hobby, AMT/Ertl’s 66 Ford Fairlane.
Lee
Midnightprowler…
He!!, I was building them back in '66! If I was gonna restore an early kit of my build, it would be a AMT 1959 Ford, an unknown manufacturer’s helicopter (I know now it was a Sikorsky), a “Wren” bird (animal, not aircraft) with included paint (manufacturer also unremembered, but could be Hawk…) and other early plastic.
Hey, I wrestled with Palmer, Lindberg, Aurora, early IMC and others…the good, the bad and the REALLY ugly.
Rick…BTW, the smell of old AMt lacquer really takes me back. Ever notice how smells are more important to your memory than images?
I’m so old glue only came in tubes, decals were slightly better than cutting up ypur local Sunday paper and detailing supplies all came from from your mothers sewing basket…
Rick
MarkIV, the kit I’m talking about was the 1992 new tool of the 66 Fairlane. It’ the model that brought me back to the hobby, and I want to do it justice, and it’s cheaper than trying to find one now.
Lee
all my models are derelicts…but my next one won’t be (i say that about every 'next model though [:)] )
cya
You could maybe do a mothballed aircraft??? I re-modeled a F7U Cutlass that way, after having viewed a few books about those graveyard sites in the US. Don’t know if F-16 are being mothballed, though… My Cutlass was not based on a particular aircraft in storage, but I was just experimenting. It looked quite good, maybe even better than before! The white stuff they spray onto aircraft to seal them can easily be replicated with correction fluid (T-Pex)…
For me it isn’t DM on the shelf, it more assembly line work stopage. I donate a lot of my old completed models to hospital kids wards. It makes them happy and even gives them something other than cards and flowers to decorate their rooms.
Now if I could only get the assembly line going again.
I don’t mind that some on the shelf are a little old and don’t have the fit and precision of some of my newer builds. They serve as a reminder of fun times building. Once I get the hutch pretty full I pick a bunch out and hang them in my friend’s history classroom. But some I’ll keep forever no matter how bad they look. I’ve still got my first diorama, a A6-M Rufe sitting in the H2O, next to a dock. Yeah it doesn’t compare to anything I do now but it will always be a favorite. I just think it is neat to have a bunch of A/C and cars sitting around the house – saves hiring a decorator.
Oh yeah. I’ve got a few. Several F-16s of different makes. Have 1/48 Hasegawa 16-B and C, Academy A, aand Monogram C. Then Monogram MiG-29, F-105D, F-15C, F-18 Blue Angels, F-5E, A-4 and 1/72 SR-71. All of them are waiting to be ‘resurrected’. Some of them are really in bad conditions like broken wings, tail plane, canopy to say a few. Throwing away… far from it.
Possibly any derilict models can be saved for parts, especially the ordnance. I’ve always wanted to buld a model like you see in the plane manufacturer photos - the ones with all the ordnance the plane can carry laid out on the tarmac infront of the plane.
Possibly the model can be reused to test new painting techniques, such as weathering…
Think of them as history! Being an engineer I used to work on the KC-135 (no I am not that old), but when you see analysis for a B-17 or KC-135 (stress/structural type) and how they built them compared to how we do things now, I say, “you have got to be kidding me!”