We all love building our model aircraft, I love it with a passion, but there is one aspect of the build I hate the most - waiting for the paint to dry - it's like watching grass grow, seems to take for ever.

There must be many of us out there that have a pet hate about the hobby - any comments? I would like to know what irks you the most about building your plane.

Cheers.

'Mornin Des -

Clean up. Especially my airbrush.

Steve

Putting on the last decal only to have it roll up in ball. That's what I hate most.
That and multipart swastika decals. Usually these two things combine to ruin
my day.

Being too exhausted once the kids are in bed to even pick up the current project for an hour.

Every build:
I hate filling and sanding, passionately.

Most hated moment of all times:
I built the 1/48 Hasegawa Kittyhawk Mk IV. Finished it; looked good, best thing I'd built yet. All decalled up and just waiting for flat coat. The flat coat went opaque, not a little, the whole thing. It did a nose dive into the concrete driveway.

Decals... I hate'em... I've just made F-15 and after placing 30th "NO STEP" sign I wanted to throw it away through the window...

Hi fellow model maniacs

Honestly I hate all and nothing, it just depends on the situation. In general I do not like doing cockpits, because you mostly see nothing of it, but I know every glitch and mistake .. but there are times when I am in the mood to do 'pits .. same goes for airbrushing or decalling the model ... Thats why I have several projects running parallel. Some will be finished in a month or so others will need several years, like my Fw 200. But if I would really hate something in modelling, so why should I do such thing in my spare time?

Of course nobody likes when things go wrong or Murphy has his best day .. but that's life. Just yell and swear a few hours, break your knuckles hitting the wall or do whatever you need to steam off and then move on: save the project or give it a good flight in the bin .. or shelve it (which is my preferred method).

just my 2 Euro-ct

all the best

Steffen

I guess there are ups and downs with all tasks, but what really annoys me is the fact that I seem to get only one of these "lessons", when the model teaching me something new, on every model. Never two on the same, and never one without.



Last lesson was "flatcoat everything before putting on wash". Do not even forget the landing gear, because the wash might have the same solvent as the paint.


But part from that I guess I like most of it. (But especially cockpit. Maybe we should team up, Steffen?)

Tony

Masking canopies. Even with mask kits it just gets to me near enough every time.

Being able to see whilst flying is for pansies anyway

Howard

You should gloss-coat before wash, and flat-coat before drybrushing!

Filling seams and fitting and masking canopies- *sigh*. I love PE, wiring and adding nice, white styrene!

There's not much I hate about the hobby itself, but I really hate how many online sellers now have a nine dollar minimum shipping and handling charge, even if you're just ordering a decal and some photoetch. What a ripoff. Sprue Brothers, Lucky Model, Hobbylinc and eBay aren't so bad, though.

Umm ... eBay doesn't have a shipping & handling charge. Sellers set their own. And they vary widely, since a lot of people set low sale prices to reduce their selling charges and make up the difference in postage (on which eBay levies no charge, reasonably enough). Whether this is honest or moral is a question for another day, but it's why you should only ever consider the total price.

You're right, some sellers try to make a profit on the shipping charge, but you can see how much others are asking for the same item, so it's hard to see how some of these people manage to compete. Others don't even tell you how much they charge to ship, you have to email them to ask about it. I don't know how they're able to stay in business either. I always figured, if you have to ask how much something costs, you probably can't afford it. Or, to put it another way, if a seller is charging a reasonable fee for shipping, there is no reason for him not to be up front about it.
But in any case, my days of paying nine dollars for shipping are done. I can't afford that. Even when there are half off sales, this puts the price above what I can spend. I've even seen some kits selling for less at my LHS than you can get them for from one of the big mail order companies, once you add the shipping charge. That's just crazy.

What do I hate. One thing above all else. Bad decals. When you do all the work filling and sanding, and priming and painting your model. Then the decals, through no fault of your own, won't cooperate that is aweful. In the extreme it is terrible when it happens. I love Academy model kits but they need to improve their decals. Russell

Hi all,




Steffen, you forgot to add that you hate doing Avia B-534s!!!

I don't like painting the figures when doing a diorama...

Jean-Luc

Hi Jean-Luc

That was below the belt my friend! But yeah .. one o my shelved projects. I would not say I hate it, it is just that I totally lost motivation ...

all the best

Steffen

Bad instructions. I've been doing this long enough now not to get caught out and am able to figure out a better way ,or order, of doing things (most of the time).
How many people have been put off by erroneous instruction sheets,possibly never to try again?
I'm not even going to mention the ludicrous colours some of them call for!
I remember building a kit (possibly Hobbycraft) whose instructions gave no indication of decal positions. I know many of us can figure this out but why should we have to? Again this is going to pi** off and put off modelers with less experience or enthusiasm for a bit of research.
Cheers
Steve (rant over)

Well, I can't say anything about aircraft, I do armour. But, sa far as armour goes, I recently got Alanger;s T-35. It has: 8 sets of road wheels per side made up of 3 parts each. (Total: 48 wheels) Then6 sets of two part return rollers per side (72 wheels) Then idlers, drive sprockets, and these other wheels I dont know the name of add another 12! 84 wheels total to cut off, clean up (and this is a russian brand remember) and glue together!

So that's my rant for today

SCOTT

Just found something else I'm not overly keen on - cleaning up sprue attachment points,particularly the ones that are positioned with no thought of how they will effect the model.
On the other hand isn't Tamiya putty great stuff!
Steve

Hi Steve.

I agree with you, on many occasions I have had sprue attachment points in very prominent positions, makes removal and clean up very difficult, especially when fine detail is obliterated.
I don't know anything about the manufacturing process so I can't comment on why they have to have the attachment points in particular positions

Cheers

Des

Painting cockpit window frames.

Bad decals (again), Doing a Roden 1 1/2 strutter and "lost" 50% of the decals, kit is great, decals totally spoil it. And to add insult to injury, No-one does after market ones for British WW1 aircraft.

I would have to agree with Chuck! Masking canopies!

I just started building airplanes but the main thing that hate with both armor planes would have to be filling and sanding gaps and seams! Masking will follow close behind

Rib tapping !!! nuff said ..............