This evening I decided the mouldings of a current project were not accurate, and that grinding them off and replicating the detail with bent paperclip would provide a more representative outcome. The good wife is a teacher, and good teachers usually have a surplus of stationery lying about the home. The problem? The wife and I are packing to move, so she’s either drawn down or packed the stash, and the chances of finding random paperclips in the house short of unboxing packages of pure chaos were getting slim…
…so at 6pm on Easter Saturday, I’ve driven to the local convenience store and bought a pack of 100 paperclips to ensure continuity of the project…
I can’t think of a specific example, but I am sure I have done it. I think the cost of the item in question would determine that magnitude of the ‘problem’ though. I would not lose sleep over this one
I’m sure that we all have done it at least once in our hobby. Recently, I went to two different stores and bought two different types of spray starch to try and stiffen a sail on a Viking Long ship. Neither one worked and now I sit with two cans of aerosol spray starch that I’ll never use again.
I found out I glued the caging(is that what’s it called?) on my biplane cockpit absolutely wrong, and it wouldn’t fit . After 3 minutes of trying to get it to fit, I finally was like — okay, I know this could break and ruin everything, but I have to cut the glue. I very very carefully cut it up into the very thin plastic pieces with my trusty “modeling knife” (it’s a kitchen peeler ), and then stared at the instructions a million times to make sure I glued it currently.
Now that I look back on it, the cage piece wasn’t essential to the model, but I was just so detail oriented lol
Well it’s Easter Sunday, and I’m enjoying a hot cross buns and a coffee after experimenting with the ductility of stainless steel paperclips. Yes, I ran out of the house at 6pm on Easter Saturday for a $2.50 packet of 100 paperclips (I only needed one) but I regret nothing
@MR_TOM_SCHRY … Yes, that’s exactly the sort of desperate dash I was thinking of! I do hope your longship sails achieved the desired rigidity in the end
@Comrade_Shmersky … Oh what a pain! Yes, when crisis hits, no household implement is safe, even though it might not be the most appropriate use of technology (worse still, we’re fully aware that it’s not)
I can’t think of something for modelling that I’ve dashed out to buy, but there may have been a time or two that someone in the house “liberated” one or two of my wife’s nail files, then plead absolute ignorance as to even having seen them.
For some reason, she no longer stores them where she used to….
Nothing that I’ve dashed out to buy - but you mentioned ‘paper clips’ and my eyes lit up. One of my favorite modeling materials, I’ve collected an assortment of them over the years in all sizes and thicknesses. Most commonly use them to beef up landing gear struts or to replace spindly axles, but also good for mounting ordnance (or making it removable), as reinforcing struts or braces, and occasionally as gun barrels, control columns, etc.
They’re easy to cut cleanly and clean up ends, strong enough to be rigid but just enough ‘give’ that those last-minute adjustments are do-able without fear that delicate assemblies will fracture.
Rock on!
Well pr154, the aerosol spray starch did not work. I think the fact that the sails was made out of some type of plastic vinyl probably had a lot to do with it.
Bob, thank you for your suggestion but alas it was not meant to be. I ended up going with a tissue paper sail that was furled up since the kit had oarsmen.
Ah, I’ve used paper clips for landing struts on a Waco glider, mechanical pencil tips for rocket nozzles on an Apollo escape tower, and am currently in the process of using large plastic straws around a dowel for the lower stage of a Saturn 1b. Anything useful is fair game!
The sad irony is that as the wife continued packing up her “b!tch cave” this morning (don’t worry, it’s a term of endearment - we are strange here in Australia) she was able to find a solitary bloody paperclip amongst the piles of chaos…
Fortunately I didn’t discover this forbidden knowledge until I was well into the task at hand. Had I not made last night’s mercy dash, I’d have spent the morning wrapped up in errands as I am now instead…
. After 3 minutes of trying to get it to fit, I finally was like — okay, I know this could break and ruin everything, but I have to cut the glue. I very very carefully cut it up into the very thin plastic pieces with my trusty “modeling knife” (it’s a kitchen peeler 
), and then stared at the instructions a million times to make sure I glued it currently.
