Woke up yesterday and got a rather nasty soggy surprise. Water heater busted and flooded my stash closet and half of my hobby room. Have been too busy to survey the damage to the kits. Has anything like this happened to any of yall?
Not at home, but it did happen once at my old job. Water was an inch deep when we arrived that morning. Needless to say, our regular duties took a back seat that day to the clean-up.
Good luck salvaging the decals and instructions. The rest should be OK.
That’s why I use the large plastic storage bins they sell at Wal-Mart, or keep them up on shelves to store mine. If a storm is coming in, I bin them all, when it is gone, I re-shelve the few I want to “play with”.
I also keep my decal archive in a small water-proof tool-box as well as the instructions in another.
Looks like you probably need to “bag-and-tag” the kit parts, put them in a bin, and see what you can save of the decals, instructions, and boxes.
Tom. [C):-)]
I did have that happen a few years ago when the drain backed up in the basement where they were stored. Luckily, I went down to do laundry as the water was coming up so all I had was some soggy outer boxes. [sigh]
Ecept for possibly the decals and the instructions (the latter can be saved with some work)—that’s almost nothing.
A friend of mine had a fire in his basement, where his collection and workroom was. He lost everything, tools, airbrush, paints, putties, workbench—nothing was salvageable except a few kits furthest away from the fire. He was not only a builder—he was also a collector.
Fortunately, he had a record of everything he lost. The insurance settlement allowed him to buy another small house to live in while his other one was being repaired. He was also able to contribute substantially to the financial success of several LHS’s. But the ancient kits were gone forever.
But it did have a happy ending.
Then he sold both houses, moved to a nice house in a remote location, and built happily ever after.
Man I feel your pain. A couple of years ago I moved into a new house and had not yet unpacked my rather large reference library. I had all of the boxes sitting on the floor . A hot water pipe for the shower sprang a leak in the wall. I came home after work to this strange hissing noise. I walked into the room and it was like a steam room. The wall board had fallen down and the whole carpet was soaked along with every book from my library. The only ones that were saved where the ones that were packed horizontally in the boxes so the ones on the top survived. Mabye about twenty book in all out of roughly 400. Insurance payed for the replacement value but trying to find most of these old out of publication books is next to impossible. It took twenty years to compile all of that data now I have started all over agian. Sometimes life just is not fair.
Soulcrusher
At one time we lived in an older, two story house with a full basement. Because of it’s location in town, the sewer line exited the basement about 4 ft above the basement floor and it had a rather hefty sump pump hooked up to it to keep the basement dry. And unknown to us, it had an on-off switch located in a post near it. One week end we left Saturday morning to attend an out of town event and returned on Sunday evening. It rained all weekend long and when we returned there was 2 1/2 to 3 feet of water in the basement. Of course, my modeling area was in the basement and my stash was stored on the floor under the table I worked on. Luckily, it was small enough I had very little trouble replacing the instructions or the decals (and those I couldn’t replace those items for went into the parts stash - In those days, an expensive kit cost 5 bucks or more) - and yes, one of the neighbor kids had turned the pump switch off thinking it was a light switch
Well luckily the only damage to any of the kits was a few soggy boxes. The only decals I am concerned with are the ones for my 1/25 scale Monogram Huey. They got wet but did not peel from thier backing. I have them laying on the counter now to dry.
Man, I’m sorry to hear of your back luck.
I’ve got to admit, I’ve not been unfortunate enough to suffer unexpected water damage to my stash…but I did (many years ago) suffer from Neanderthal Damage.
We moved from California to Oregon, and the ham-fisted, sub-moronic movers managed to shove as many kits (built AND unbuilt) into as small a box as possible…and if this meant getting INTO the box and stamping everything flat so you can fit more into the box, then that’s what they did.
Fewer boxes to pack means fewer boxes to move…nice one.
Almost everything was a write-off. I wasn’t very pleased.
That’s certainly good news!
As for the decals: place some small, non-rusting weights along the edges and corners or the sheet will curl horribly as it dries. A small fan will help, as the faster it dries, the less adhesive gets sucked into the backing sheet.
Sorry to hear about your misfortune. That is terrible.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Sorry to hear of your bad luck, hope the damage isn’t too bad.
Sorry to hear of your loss and hopefully you’ll be able to minimize the loss. About those Huey decals, if htey got wet I would forget about them. If they look OK scan them and then print new ones out on some decal paper. That or contact Revell/Monogram and get a new set, I am not too familiar with any aftermarket sets for that kit.
While I always makes sure to have a floor drain between my stored models and the water heater, I had a washing machine with a leaky connection ruin a stack of models. The decals that looked fine, in fact were already wetted and dried and couldn’t be removed from the paper.
Good Luck!
man i feel your pain way back when i had revell b-17 and my family was travelling around the country and our trailer rolled twice needless to say i learned that you never stop learning and that there are no absolutes be happy that something was salvageable and that you are alive to use and pass on your skills! dave
Water and fire are not “helpful” in model building! No running water in my shop, just have to worry about a big oak tree branch coming through the roof of it during hurricane season! Makes me want to finally plumb the drain line from the pan under the new hot water heater, well 4 years old, through the outside wall though! I’ve got an inventory of most all my models but not my books and magazines! I should back that up with pictures too!