What Dumb Things Have You Done???!!!

[Bob Bufkin]

I'm talking about stupid things you've done while modeling.  You know the cuts from sharp blades or droping small parts that roll to the same place that socks in the drying go.  I once was using some superglue on a project and placed it on some paper on the table so I could dip a toothpick in it for the project I was working on.  Next thing you know, I take off my glasses and lay them on the table.  You guessed it, right on top of the glue (plastic lenses no less).  Another time I had finally finished a P70KR passenger cars, painted and ready for trucks and decals.  Left it on the table with a new puppy in the house.  Work up the next day and it was in a thousand pieces chewed by that damn dog.  If I didn't know better I swear he's a NYC fan.  What dumb things have you done over the years?
Bob

[John]

I'm talking about stupid things you've done while modeling.

run a railroad forum !!!

[Bob Bufkin]

Cute John.

[John]

Cute John.

No .. I am serious ..

[tom mann]

I'm talking about stupid things you've done while modeling. 

Run a weathering challenge!

[DKS]

Back in 2000, in an emotional fit of pique (I'd lost my job and my wife, and was at risk of losing my home), I sold, gave away, threw out or otherwise disposed of nearly everything, which included tens of thousands of railroad reference photos (most of things that no longer exist), hundreds of hours of videotape (trains that no longer run; once-in-a-lifetime trips like the Train to the Clouds in South America), full sets of Model Railroader magazines dating back to 1960, nearly every Railpace magazine published, and just about everything else that wasn't nailed down at the time. When I think back to those dark times, I can understand why I did it; but even though I've since recovered emotionally and economically, in terms of what I lost as a modeler, I'll never recover. It wasn't just dumb, it was tragic.

[3rdrail]

In the distant past, I had been known to imbibe intoxicating liquors while modeling, resulting in some interesting decal jobs especially. Some were so bad they were trashed, but others were fairly minor, like reversing the logo and reporting marks on automobile boxcars.  The worst of all was before I was in N scale, when I tripped over my HO model railroad and sent my brass scratchbuilt Mikado crashing into my scratchbuilt catenary, destroying both.  :'( :'( :'( (This was 43 years ago.)

[Train Nutz]

Hi all,
   Well this isn't such a dumb thing that I done but what my wired hair terrier Scruffy did to the HO layout I had a while back ago. I don't know what had inspired her to do this but she climbed up onto my layout and ate some of the lifelike fall color trees I had. These were of the green, yellow and red variety. Later on I took her for a walk. To my suprise and histerical laughter, she look to have turned into one of those playdough fun factories while taking a dump. I won't go into detail here but you can let your imagination run with this and figure out what this looked like.........
Another time when my dad was home alone with her someone had knocked on the door and he went to answer it. Scruffy knocked the can of beer he had sitting on the table next to his chair. When he came back he found that not only did she licked up most of the spilled beer but she had chewed the can in two. Her teeth were actually lined with bits and pieces of the aluminum of the can. We took her to the vet and had her checked out. She got her teeth clean of the metal and the vet determined that what ever she had digested had passed with flying colors. We learn two things about her on that day.....one, her favorite brand of beer was Budwieser and somewhere in her family history she has a distant relative that was a goat.
Train Nutzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[umtrr-author]

Not enough space in this little text box to name them all... 

[Mark5]

Plenty.

I'd rather not try to remember.

[nscalesteve]

I'm talking about stupid things you've done while modeling.

please swallow your coffee first before you read on, I'm not responsible for your keyboard, ok ?
when I'm using superglue I placed it on a little plastic bag on the table so I can dip a toothpick in it for the project I'm working on. once upon a time I took off the shell from a nearly ready custompainted engine and place it on the table. yeah right, belly side up with the fans right on top of the glue. and to make the whole mess worse I've tried to remove the glue with a Q-tip, yup, fans with white hairs...
...that was the time when I did paint the NC:VA GP38 with working nose and ditch lights for a 2nd time !!
(how do you spell  i d i o t  ? - no ! not funny...)

[mopaustin]

Weeeelllllllllll....

  There's been the times I've changed roadbed between AMI and Woodland Scenics, then there's the times I've switched back and forth between Atlas/ME Code 55 and Peco Code 55.

  That's all that comes to mind right away. 

[mopaustin]

Ok, didn't know about that one. Still not a reason to hate the forum...   

Sorry about that bold-ing, just wanted to point out what I wanted to talk about.  ???

[Nato]

  You asked for Dum Modeling Mistakes, so alrighty here goes. Way back in the good old days,when I was just a lad of eight Years old I built my first plastic model kit. Don't remember the manufacturer, could have been Monogram or some such, it was a model of a U.S. Navy Panther Jet, parts were pre molded in blue which helped ,no painting. Aside from a couupe of nasty glue drips, I was so proud of my finished work untill a male second cousin ,my age, who had built several kits came over for a visit and pointed out to me that I had the wings on backward,and yes I did, the air intakes near the fuselage were facing rear not front. An easy mistake to make as the assembled wings just fitted into equal size slots on both sides,I had really plastic cemented them on good, would have had to break them to remove, so I sheepishly lived with my mistake. Ah the joys of your First Model Kit!                                                  Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[SquirrelHollow]

A couple weeks ago I forgot about the expansion of Gorilla Glue when it cures.

Roadbed + track + Gorilla Glue on a photo module...  I laid the track and road bed at the same time since it was only a 22" section.

Needless to say, that piece of ME flex was completely useless.