All of you mofo’s who display your finished models, this thread is for you…what is the longest built model you have on display…that’s part one of my question.
And the second part is this: Have any of your models deteriorated over time (landing gear collapsed, bombs fell off, etc…) or spontaneously had seams come apart, decals flake off, paint fade out, etc…?
I’m not interested in stories about your cat or dog smashing your precious models to bits, or your ex throwing them in a pile and setting them on fire…just interested in them flying to hell for no reason at all other than they’d been sitting there forever and a year…
The oldest model I have is a 1/72 F-4 with full armament. It’s been around since 1990 and is the oldest model I have by about four years. To this day nothing has fallen off of that kit or split. It’s lived it’s life in various glass cases including one at the LHS for a number of years. I’ve had it at home in a glass case for about ten years until last Saturday when it and about a dozen of it’s 1/72 bretheren were transfered to Smithfield, a local small airfield, to be displayed/donated to the airfield’s model case.
Others I have include a 1/72 Ju88 that is about 18 years old. That one has suffered some case rot in that the alierons have fallen off. Very small glue joints there. Other’nat, she’s cherry.
All the kits I have have survived many moves with very few move inflicted damages and all in all I’m pretty pleased with how the collection has faired. Problem with that is since there is little attrition, I still have 99% of everything I’ve built in the last 20 years or so and am running out of display room. That’s the reason the 72nd stuff is going to the airfield.
Lets see the oldest model I have on my shelf is my Tamiya M3A2 Half-Track built in 1994 (16 years ago). And a couple of times the figures have fallen off their spots and had to be glued back and the paint/weathering has flaked off the tracks. But all in all not too bad except I look at it now and go ewwww I could have done that a whole lot better. [:P]
My oldest models still on display (and, for that matter, extant)…
1/48 Monogram P-47D
Built around 1993…so 17 years ago. This one’s been sitting on a shelf in my parents’ house out in Arizona. Blast tubes got lost somewhere along the way, and the windscreen fell off a few years ago. One of the bombs fell off and vanished somewhere.
1/350 Tamiya USS Enterprise
Also built circa 1993. This one’s been savaged by Arizona’s climate. All kinds of CA’d fiddly bits have fallen off. Some of the planes have fallen apart. The large surface area of the deck has been a dust magnet.
1/35 Tamiya Panzer IV Ausf H
ALSO built circa '93. This one’s actually still with me, and the only kit that’s survived my various moves over the past decade or so. The turret machine gun got snapped off somewhere along the way. Side skirts fell off on their own as the CA failed…
I have a 1/72 ME-262 that I got in 1987-ish, aside from damage from a dozen or so moves, all is well.
I have had two, built within the past 7/8 years that the decals peeled up on. That’s my own fault for not glossing and sealing. They were fixed with diluted white glue. I’ve had two others have their seams pop. Again, my own fault for using only CA.
Psssh, 1993? 1987? What a bunch of nooobs. I’ve got underwear older than that! Well, it’s in the rag pile now. But I’ve got an original issue Monogram M3 Grant I built in 1973 still hanging intact, and on display. It’s the first model I built using a Paashe airbrush, borrowed from a friend. I built it in my first apartment when I was a in my senior year at the University of Iowa back in good Old Iowa City, the Athens of the Midwest. I copied the camoflage pattern Shep Paine used in the flyer included in the kit. So far nothing has come apart on it, even after several moves, across multiple state lines and cities, two marriages, one child, now 30 years old, and several cats. I’m sure I used Testors tube cement on it, probably Pactra paints. There were dozens (hundreds?)of kits, since the late 1950’s, before this one, now all in plastic Valhalla, but this old trooper has carried on, with unmatched glory… I should place it in a shrine or something. It has earned it.[t$t] I think I got the $3 or whatever I paid out of it.
The oldest models in my display case would have to be a few I inherited from my recently passed grandfather. He scratchbuilt a wooden Fokker D.VII and a Pfalz D.XII just a few years back… they’ve been on continual display since 1939! They held together beautifully. The paint still shines and they are not faded. They also survived at least two major So Cal earthquakes.
I keep seeing the title to this & accidentally moving the “h” from shelf into sitting…
I don’t really have anything on display from any more than 15 years, no “wasting damage” to speak of other than some dust that needs cleaned off. They have generally always been in a spot that doesn’t get too much light which probably helps.
i got no record… but I have the Monogram M3 Lee and a few other white box Monogram armor I got in the late 70’s?.. 78-9ish… still look good, the only casualty was my King Tiger, the treads just disintegrated…
