Car Modeling peeves

I really love car modeling and have been doing it for years. With the help of this forum and a few other sources, I still learn new tricks and techniques and that "cures" a lot of mistakes I have been making.

However, there are a few pet peeves of mine that (unnecessarily) challenge me.

The first one has to be the mismatch between body shells and chassis that happen with so many kits. When I was less experienced, I credited my lack of skills for those mismatches; now, I don't think so. Especially Revell-Monogram seems to be designing one without regard for the other. They provided my top three mismatched models, so far:
1. Lotus Esprit - this one takes the cake. Total mismatch between body, interior and chassis. And when its finally fixed and done it looks like it going to participate in the next Rallye Paris - Dakar. :banghead:
2. BMW Z1 - too many moving parts, all not fitting together.
2. Ferrari Testarossa TR512

Pet Peeve number two is moving doors, hoods, and lids. I understand that it's necessary to open the hood to show that finely detailed engine, but why does it never fit in the closed position? :shakehead I really like how Fujimi solved the 911 series - without a hinge and a nicely fitting hood.

Pet peeve number three is the plating of plastic parts. I always remove it anyway because it looks too toylike. But one can't get a kit without plated parts; and ususally they are even used to tout the kit on the box.

So, this was my short list of pet peeves. Mind you, so far none of these issues have prevented me from finishing a model, it just takes much longer to make the model come together.

I am curious, what are your pet peeves? :evillol:

Distractions(women)

Colored plastic. I can kind of see that in a model aimed at the masses, but in that case maybe just stick with a body molded in color and gray/white parts for the rest? And how about a model meant for the experienced builder who would definitely paint it?

My pet peeve is people bitchin' about kit manufacturers :D

1) Don't move my models around without telling me
2) Don't take my tools/paints without telling me or reimbursing me for any damages sustained to them.
3) Don't complain about how much money is spent on these kits.

in no particular order:

1.masking/painting window trim (with the exception of precut peel'n stick masks)
2.headlights/tailights
3.colored/poorly plated parts
4.maintaining/cleaning my Paasche VL
5.crappy paints
6.when u mess up something in a kit, and it cant be fixed other then by buying another kit of the same model :/
7.fine sanding the body's paint(takes forever+hard to reach areas)
8.always having to order online, even for supplies at times

my biggest peeve is having to buy everything online. my local hobby shops ought to call themselves model railroad shops for all the auto modeling kits/supplies they have.

Painting window trim/surrounds.

Red plastic.

Tacky chrome plating.

Fitting lights. ALL clear components should be snap-loc.

1) Don't move my models around without telling me.

:1:

Speaking of that I was just finished moving few days ago and my roommate decided to help me move my entire shelf full of models one morning which i was going to move them myself that very same day(I put them all into a cardboard box the night before, protected with paper towels and making sure none of them are touching anything but the paper towels.). That morning I woke up at my new home getting ready to go back and do the moving, only to find out my box of models have arrived already, none of them undamaged, with a few of them ended up on top of the other cars. There were A-pillars, spoilers, mirrors, and suspensions flew all over the box!

My roomate later apologised to me saying that he tripped outside at the porch that morning while trying to help me move my models. :nono::crying::banghead: There were about 20 cars in that same box, and I won't be putting any of them back into my display shelf anymore.

Well at least now I can start my new model car collection from scratch, seeing how slow my progress is these days I can have my 20 cars back in about 30 years.

Sanding

my mom dusting my models wih a vacuum cleaner....bye bye rearviewmirror, byebye windscreenwhipers

in no particular order:

1.masking/painting window trim (with the exception of precut peel'n stick masks)
2.headlights/tailights
3.colored/poorly plated parts
4.maintaining/cleaning my Paasche VL
5.crappy paints
6.when u mess up something in a kit, and it cant be fixed other then by buying another kit of the same model :/
7.fine sanding the body's paint(takes forever+hard to reach areas)
8.always having to order online, even for supplies at times


Is there any part of modelling you enjoy? :grinyes:

Red Styrene :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Compared to that, everything else is easy :nono:

1) Women (especially those HOT one)
2) people who not modelers and yet talk crap on models, complain expensive, complain wasting time and worst, saying model kits a diecast, toys or even "Is those box(models) coming ready to display toy car?":banghead: :banghead:
3) people whose come in and ask,"Did you sell phonecards?""Did you sell batteries?""Do you have TF-02 body?":banghead: :banghead: :shakehead
Yap! I owned a shop...and these thing been happening since the 1st day I opened my shop.:disappoin
Rtuned

Having a work bench that self destructs 2 days after cleaning...
Hacking up a piece to "correct" and later finding out that the kit was right...
Opening doors
Painting the body
Sanding in nooks and crannies
Showing someone your collection and somehow the always pick up the one that the parts never stayed on right...

Oh, and living 70 miles away from an LHS and having to wait for Walmart to recieve new stuff... :banghead:

-having people around in the house who love cleaning stuff up and you discover missing parts from the kit
-having people who keep putting my workbench stuff away, making me lose some disassembled parts
-my mom complaining on how the tamiya acrylic smells but her nailpolish stinks even more. gah.

drying time of paint and glue:banghead:

I have such little time for modelling and its taken up waiting for things to dry.:rolleyes:

1) That gorgeous, Olympic-caliber somersault a minuscule piece takes as it pops out of your needle-tip forceps. You get on your knees and find sand grains, dust bunnies, and insect droppings, all about 10% the size of the already tiny part you lost, all to no avail. That hood ornament/radiator cap/door handle has vanished into the ether, gone in the way of the dodo and that missing sock, all in a singular perversion of the time-space continuum invented just for you, the poor sap trying to "relax" with his hobby.

2) The flying leap from your paint stand. You can use packing tape. You can bind it up like the very mummified remains of Thutmose. You can arc-weld the damn part to your hanger or paint stirrer, but in the end, it just doesn't matter. If you're using a slow-setting paint over a particularly grungy patch of ground (carpets are even better), the butter-side-down rule dictates a geometric escalation of the odds that a microburst of humidity will strike, the bindings will split, or the weld will break, smacking your still-wet piece with the maximum possible impact into the nastiest patch of real estate in a fifty-foot radius - of course, with the most visible side down.

3) The "it worked in rehearsal" paint phenomenon. Go ahead. Slop some clear lacquer over that aqueous acrylic base. Feed it from a garden hose if you can. Will it craze? Not if you're just practicing on a plastic spoon. But go one-tenth of one percent over the recommended dose on a dehydrator-cured lacquer basecoat - particularly when you have a deadline - and decals will crinkle, shines will mummify, and the Seven Plagues of Egypt themselves will each take a turn playing havoc with any metallic pigment in your base. And Brother, you ain't lived till you've tried to buff out the locust footprints.

Come to think of it, what do all of these peeves have in common? Why, the bad judgment of the hobby practitioner himself.

So I guess my dearest pet peeve is my own dumb-assitude.

:icon16:

^^^ :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

1 and 3 I've experience, I have yet to drop a fresh painted body :bananasmi Knock on wood. :uhoh:

-having people around in the house who love cleaning stuff up and you discover missing parts from the kit
-having people who keep putting my workbench stuff away, making me lose some disassembled parts
-my mom complaining on how the tamiya acrylic smells but her nailpolish stinks even more. gah.
yeah i got bitched out because of tamiya but they cant say nothing now that i switched to auto air i even leave my door open when i paint

Peeves hmmm
Ah yes,
1) having my airbrush propellant run out on me, half way through laying as near to perfect paint job as is possible whne your 14, and having it ruined by the fact that you dont ahve enough money for a compressor.
2) Having a younger brother who thinks your models are cheap diecasts for playing with, (bye bye rear dif of a nissan skyline).
3) Just as you get really into a project having someone clean your room, and ending up with fingermarks on your semi dry paint.
4) My local hobby store never having ANY photoetch in stock, and having to order it from abroad.
Thats a few, (i can go on for a long time)
Euan

2) Having a younger brother who thinks your models are cheap diecasts for playing with, (bye bye rear dif of a nissan skyline).


same here :uhoh: :uhoh:

My brother knows he'll lose an arm if he touches mine :evillol: :biggrin2:

Although he did launch a heavy pillow at me a while ago, blew a bunch of little exterior pieces off an Eclipse. It's all good, guess who's buying me a new one?

My brother knows he'll lose an arm if he touches mine :evillol: :biggrin2: Although he did launch a heavy pillow at me a while ago, blew a bunch of little exterior pieces off an Eclipse. It's all good, guess who's buying me a new one?
Yeah, I had him buy me another skyline, and he nearly lost his arm (not my fault though):evillol: He was running away, when i found the dif and back wheels on the floor, and a LARGE crack in the roof...
But I got another one. so like you its all good. But a shame, because you've spent a long time on it, and thats the most fustrating thing about having a model trashed, (i have yet to find a SECURE solution to storing the projects...) (Any ideas PM me!!!)
Euan

1) That gorgeous, Olympic-caliber somersault a minuscule piece takes as it pops out of your needle-tip forceps.

2) The flying leap from your paint stand.

3) The "it worked in rehearsal" paint phenomenon.

Come to think of it, what do all of these peeves have in common? Why, the bad judgment of the hobby practitioner himself.

So I guess my dearest pet peeve is my own dumb-assitude.

:icon16:
Guilty on all four counts. :(