Ever file 13 a kit or kits in progress?

[MikeC]

5 hours ago, ScottsGT said:

Just started my He 111 last week.  I’ve come to realize that if the instructions were a little better and clearer and the friggin parts on the sprues grouped into build sections and corresponding parts numbers had some sort of order, it would be a much more enjoyable kit. 
Cannot believe the time wasted searching every damned parts tree for part #87.  
Kit has 7 or 8 sprues.  Someone should have taken a tip from other companies that letter each sprue. 

I have felt your pain, and here's my solution. It takes a bit of time at the start of the build, but it's worth it imo.

 

[DonH]

I can enjoy building and painting a kit but then run out of interest at any random stage in the build. I do this hobby for the enjoyment, so if the kit has served its purpose, regardless of stage of build, I can justify discarding it. 

 

I should say, I finish kits most of the time.

 

I have recently gutted my display cabinets of 50% of the built kits because they have no interest for me now (and they were going moldy in the humidity.

[Rick Griewski]

Moldy!!! Yikes!!

[Rick Griewski]

A Combat Models Do-335 “binned” itself. Plastic crumbled after a brief period in a box while I moved.  A Ju-88 (Combative Models again) required punishment for revealing that the engine and landing gear were closer to 1/35 scale.  This after cockpit and other areas were almost done.  Many old vac kits become paint test mules. 

[BarryWilliams]

I don’t know what is meant by ‘file 13’ but by reading the answers it seems the question is about binning unfinished models. 
 

I don’t have a shelf of doom,  I finish a model (building one at a time) or I bin it.  Binning is rare though, about 8 binned out of over 100 models over the last 13/14 years.   I will only bin a model if I lose enjoyment in the build, some of those include the dreadful Kitty Hawk OV10, the Revell FW190F and the Special Hobby Aircobra.  In some cases I have binned for other reasons, for instance a Trumpeter Avenger that did not have a turret transparency after six months chasing and trying to get one I binned the model over 90% finished.   In another case a Hobbyboss Black Widow, nose heavy with ballast fell off the table when I was trying to fit the drop tanks onto a concrete floor and irreparable smashed. I can be clumsy!

 

I know that I will never return to an unfinished model so no shelf of doom.  

Edited February 6 by BarryWilliams

[Alex]

On 2/3/2024 at 7:43 PM, hworth18 said:

Have you ever just got tired of working on a kit and just trashed it? Or cleared out the shelf of doom with one big swoop??

I'm contemplating just cleaning out everything and starting fresh.. The kits I'm thinking about doing away with aren't that expensive, so the dollar loss is minimal.

 

Opinions??? 

 

Once.  I had a half-finished 1:350 aircraft carrier that I wasn't terribly happy with, and I was moving house, and in the bin it went.  I think I've finished every other kit I've started (although many of the early finished ones got binned during the move as just being below the level of the work I can now do, so why keep them).

[LSP_K2]

21 hours ago, ScottsGT said:

Just started my He 111 last week.  I’ve come to realize that if the instructions were a little better and clearer and the friggin parts on the sprues grouped into build sections and corresponding parts numbers had some sort of order, it would be a much more enjoyable kit. 
Cannot believe the time wasted searching every damned parts tree for part #87.  
Kit has 7 or 8 sprues.  Someone should have taken a tip from other companies that letter each sprue. 

 

Speaking of vague instructions, the Kinetic 1:24 Thunderbolt that I'm currently working on, is pretty bad in that regard. I've already messed up the engine, despite following the instructions.

[MikeC]

8 hours ago, LSP_K2 said:

 

Speaking of vague instructions, the Kinetic 1:24 Thunderbolt that I'm currently working on, is pretty bad in that regard. I've already messed up the engine, despite following the instructions.

That seems to be an issue with Kinetic kits generally in my - admittedly relatively limited - experience of that manufacturer.  I remember scratching my head trying to work out the nozzle mechanism on their 1/48 Harrier a few years ago. But then, we are modellers - we don't need no steenkin' instructions, surely ?

[kalashnikov-47]

LEM Kits La-9.  It fought with me and I thought I had beaten it until I got paint on it

and really saw what an irreparable mess it was.  I figured out what went wrong and

plan on buying another later on.

[Out2gtcha]

45 minutes ago, kalashnikov-47 said:

 I figured out what went wrong and plan on buying another later on.

 

What went wrong?

[Dpgsbody55]

I bought the old Heller 1/8 scale Citroen Traction Avant model in the late 70's and slowly started to build it.  I was renting at the time so didn't have much space to do it, then I moved into my own place in the early 80's and had no time for modelling.  It go put away with the body built, "glass" installed and coated in liquid mask and many years later I got it out to find the liquid mask now caked on permanently and nothing I did helped much.  It go tossed out in the noughties when I couldn't get another to try again to help rescue the old model.

 

A similar fate was met by a Revell Messerschmitt 110.  I got it for my son to try building, but he showed no interest, and I didn't have the time for modelling then, so out it went.  I have another one hanging from the ceiling anyway and was having a clean out.

 

I really should throw out the Trumpy P-51B Mustang presently on my shelf of doom.  It's part done but some of it is wrongly done, I've since found out, and the kit is not worth the effort of trying to correct.  But I dislike throwing out things I've bought unless they're trashed otherwise why did I buy them in the first place??  But I really hate this kit, so you've talked me into chucking it this weekend.

 

Such is the sum of my unbuilt kit disposals over the last sixty years...

 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

 

[kalashnikov-47]

13 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

 

What went wrong?

It was just a bunch of fit problems that I didn't catch earlier on.  A lot of it was the kit's fault.

I don't know if you've ever bought one of these, but he packs them into pretty small packages,

probably to save on shipping costs.  Being tightly packed, the resin can get misshapen.  The

airfoil shape of the wings at the wing root is particularly bad.  It can be fixed but I just did it

wrong.  I have a better idea for next time around.

Edited February 10 by kalashnikov-47

[Tony T]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:55 AM, chrish said:

1/48 Great Wall Hobby; nearly complete, ran into issues, got tired of the build and it's issues....jammed it back in the box, took the box outside on the sidewalk and walked all over it

Roden 1/48 Turbo porter (see above)\

Airfix 1/24 Typhoon is going that way

Zvezda Boeing 777 gonna get stomped soon

Tamiya 1/35 Tiger buggered up the paint, was going to toss it but gave it to grand kids (same end result)

Trumpeter Mig 15 half done, back in the box, lost parts tossed it.

I'm much worse, or was much worse at saving auto parts that I may need someday, finally cleaned out boxes and boxes of old Holly and, Rochester carb. parts HEI distributors, cams, coils and all that old performance stuff

very therapeutic to clean out old parts kits and crap every now and then

sooooooo ya

 

Yes, sometimes you just have to give them a dam* good thrashing! 

 

* * * * * * 

 

I've taken to leaving unwanted kits on the bric-a-brac shelving at the local recycling sorting centre, in ziploc bags or original boxes. It then becomes someone else's problem whether to take it home for junior to do or to bin it. I never know its fate and so never feel bad.

 

Started keepers go into plastic lidded crates. They stack nicely out of sight in those boxes and can always come out for further attention. Have a 1:32 Thud, Phantom, Crusader, two SLUFs, Fishbed, Fresco and Midget in crated limbo, though the MiG-15UTI is back on the bench for interior work (fuselage shell conversion now finally done).

 

My real problem is what to do with old completed kits I don't want. Have an SA-9 and ZSU-23/4 which aren't doing any harm but I need to downsize a bit. Ditto a Zil-157K + SA-2 on its trailer, and separate SA-2 on an SM launcher. Actually the latter might live a couple more years. I'm long past stuffing old unwanted kits with firecrackers on Guy Fawkes night.

 

Tony

[Juggernut]

I've taken to becoming VERY selective in what I purchase and for the last few years, I haven't increased the number of kits that wind up either on the Shelf-Of-Doom or get jettisoned; the Rye Field Models 1/35 Late Tiger I kit being an exception.  Knowing that most of us (me included) lose interest in a given subject from time-to-time, I only buy kits that I'll know I'll build. After starting a kit, I exercise a lot of restraint and stick-tuitiveness (a fabricated word for determination) on the current build and I don't start anything else until the current build is complete, no exceptions.  Now WHEN any given kit will get built is an entirely different discussion!

Edited February 14 by Juggernut

[tomprobert]

1 hour ago, Juggernut said:

I've taken to becoming VERY selective in what I purchase and for the last few years, I haven't increased the number of kits that wind up either on the Shelf-Of-Doom or get jettisoned; the Rye Field Models 1/35 Late Tiger I kit being an exception.  Knowing that most of us (me included) lose interest in a given subject from time-to-time, I only buy kits that I'll know I'll build. After starting a kit, I exercise a lot of restraint and stick-tuitiveness (a fabricated word for determination) on the current build and I don't start anything else until the current build is complete, no exceptions.  Now WHEN any given kit will get built is an entirely different discussion!

This is where I fall down. I start a kit with the best intentions and then see another that piques my interest and start that… and the process continues. 
 

Hence an ‘on the go’ list of far too many models. But, as I said earlier in this thread, I tend to put them out of sight and out of mind in the loft, and will then rediscover them with a new wind in my sails. I don’t think I’ve ever binned a SOD victim… yet. 
 

Current models I have partially built are, off the top of my head: 1/32 Shackleton, Spey Phantom conversion, Stirling, Hunter, Ju88, with a 1/24 Spitfire, along with a 1/48 Fw200, B-24, Avro Vulcan and B-52. I’ve recently started a 1/72 Avro Manchester conversion too. They will all get finished… one day. I’ve devoted too much time and effort to them to ever bin them!