Coincidentally, our club, Delaware Valley Scale Modelers, chose as a theme for the year, “Shelf of Doom”. At our meeting this month, we each presented a kit or two to be rescued from the backlog, told why we got stalled with the kit, and the challenge is to finish the kit or kits by the December meeting. There seem to be two main reasons for a kit to land on the shelf–a technical issue that needs to be resolved, or a loss of interest in the build.
I presented two kits, both 1/48 aircraft, the HobbyBoss F4F-3, and the old Monogram P-47D bubbletop. With the Wildcat, I ran into fit issues, especially with the way the fuselage is engineered, and got tired of them. With the Thunderbolt, I got stalled at the point of painting the aircraft.
The rest of the kits on the shelf comprise:
Monogram’s Hawker Typhoon in 1/48, which I had started for the current Monogram Mafia build. I got stalled at the point of painting. My club’s theme build was a shot in the arm, though, and over the weekend, I resumed work on this kit
The HobbyBoss 1941 USS Arizona, in 1/700, which I am converting to the Pennsylvania as she appeared in 1935. It’s a lousy kit, and I’m stalled at dressing it up with photo-etch
Hasegawa’s USS Essex in 1/700, which I am finishing in her original deployment’s configuration, including adding the hangar deck. Another attempt to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear
Monogram’s Tom Daniel’s Red Baron hot rod, started for an automotive group build, stalled because of some poor fits and because I stripped the chrome, to clean up the seams, and now, I have to re-paint the chrome
Monogram’s 1/48 P-80/F-80, stalled at the point of applying aftermarket decals
A pair of Monogram 1/72 P-36s. No real problems with the kits, but when I was building them a couple of years ago, at Christmastime, my water heater burst. That diverted my attention, then the holidays, and I never got back to finishing those aircraft
Hasegawa’s 1/72 F4F-4, with resin cockpit details. No problems here, either, just got distracted
Nichimo’s copy of the old Monogram 1/48 Helldiver kit, which I had started for one of the Monogram Mafia builds. When I got to assembling the wings, I found that the outer wing panels do not match the inner wing section, in thickness, so they cannot be installed in the down position. This was not a problem on the original kit, as far as I can remember.
Monogram’s 1/48 TBD, started as a yellow-wings build, but got distracted
A pair of Monogram 1/48 P-40Bs, also started, but got distracted
An old Aurora F4B-4, stalled because I want to try making a replacement turtle deck to correct the kit’s lines
An old Lindberg Goshawk, one of the first kits I started, when I got back into building models around '99 or so. I was scratchbuilding the interior, when I discovered Mark Buchler’s ModelNerd site and his resin upgrade set. And I got distracted.
So you see, I’m a nostalgia builder, and I get distracted easily mid-build.
But on the other hand, it’s a hobby, and it’s supposed to be fun, so I don’t sweat the backlog too much. But I do want to spend more time this year, at the bench, compared to my other hobbies.
Oh my god, if I had that many kits unfinished as some of you, I wouldn’t be able to sleep! I’f probably seek out a meth dealer somewhere, stay up for three months straight, and finish every one of them, lol. (JUST KIDDING about the “meth” part–I never touch ANY drug [N])
I only work on one model at a time until it’s finished. The few times I’ve tried, out of sheer practicality, to work on more than one, I almost ALWAYS seem to lose or misplace parts and then if I can’t scratchbuild the pat, I have to buy another kit to complete the first one. I can NOT stand the thought of leaving an obvious part off a model!
I’ve been trying to pull up the motivation to finish a few stalled projects. One of them is the 1/48 Revell A6-E. I’ve got her about half done…I had forgotten just when I started but I did find this:
That’s a sign that the page’s code can’t handle special characters correctly, in this case, the single quotes. If I’m not mistaken, the page code is presenting the Unicode definition of the character, instead of the character itself. We get this in my company’s web-based apps from time to time, too. It’s often a simple fix, often something a developer overlooked or left out.
Seems I got a lot of folks beat here . My shelves of doom take up half a garage .Yeah , I know , Quit Bragging . Actually I am not . After getting everything out of four storage places all over this great land , I just looked at them and said Oh ! Cr---- !
I didn’t know that travel would cause such a backlog of models . So I am giving most to the local V.A. recreation program ! T.B.
Small world. The creator of Garfield lives in a nearby town and his guy who does the Sunday illustrations, Eric Reeves lives down the road from me. My kids babysat his kids.
On to the topic.
An acquaintence that I did not know had been a modeler was about to trash his kit collection. Long story-short, he gave it to me. They were mostly 1/48, with a few of the other scales. There were 153 added to my 74.
I just finished a Bearcat and Mig-17 in 1/48 a Ju-52 in some odd scal. I have a Lysander, Havoc, Do-17Z, RA-5C Vigilant and Piper Super Cub on the bench.
Nope, Tojo the Shelf of Doom is where you place a kit that you started and either lose interest in(temporarily or permanently) or it aggravates you to the point where the choice is to put it there or throw it out the window.
All of mine are the former; I’ve noticed it tends to happen right about the time it’s time to paint.
Yup, TB, been a Garfield fan near on 30 years. The F-4C on my SOD is going to be a Michigan ANG F-4C serial #63-483 with the Garfield nose art by Bare Metal.
I just relegate my 1/48 HSG. F-86 to the dreaded shelf of doom.
During the THIRD re-painting of the black base coat ,prior to Alclad NMF, I forgot to cap the color cup and a large blob of paint dropped on the port wing ruining the paint job. ENOUGH ![bnghead] Maybe I’ll get back to it someday but for now it’s time to model something else.
I don’t have a shelf of doom. If I mess up badly enough or completely loose interest I’ll get rid of the kit. I have too many other kits to build to ever get back to the offending kit. Except for the Yamato, which I repurposed.
Yup. Don’t have one either. Not in the habit of quitting anything I start. But I’ve gotten fairly good at knowing if I’ll be able to stick with a project before starting one. And a lot of times these days I have no choice but to finish anyway.
I’m with you. I am currently building a Dragon M4A3 Sherman (ETO) and only have two other kits unopened and waiting. I try not to accumulate too many kits as it makes me feel guilty. The only exception is when I see a really good price on one that I know won’t be available for long.I think guys like us are in the minority though as all my modeling buddies have tons of unopened kits in their stash!
Our club’s theme build has given me new encouragement to resume work.
I have the Thunderbolt assembled, seams cleaned and kit primed. I have hit a minor snag, because I need decals, but they are on order from EagleCal. As soon as they arrive, I can apply the final colors (it’ll be a natural metal finish).
I also moved forward on my Typhoon. That’s primed and in progress on applying final colors. My subject carried the RAF’s ID marking, white and black stripes under the wings, and I have the white down, and am masking for the black.
But in the meantime, I acquired and started a brand-new kit. Our monthly build theme for February is “Cats & Dogs”, and for that, I picked up a Maschinen Krieger “Grosser Hund” (“Big Dog”). I have that about half assembled and primed, my goal is to finish assembly by this weekend and start working on colors and weathering.
I have way too many to list, but I do have a few I would like to get to this year.
Tamiya - Bristol Beaufighter Mk. VI 1/48
Hasegawa - Macchi C.202 Folgore 1/48
Pacific Coast - Macchi C.205 1/32 and C.200 1/32
Hasegawa - Foke Wulf FW190 1/32
AMT - Henschell Hs 129B Tank Hunter 1/48
HobbyBoss - A-7E Corsair II 1/48
I know I wont build half of these this year, but I would like to get at least 3 of these together. If I was to pick the first one to build it would be the Pacific Coast C.205 1/32 or the Tamiya Bristol.