Ribbons of Shame

Here are some of my worst failings as a modeler, writ down so the world can cluck its tongue at me.

1. I rush when I'm close to finishing something. I lower my standards and accept unsatisfactory work because I'm almost done and I'm anticipating being done. I get a certain amount of satisfaction from finishing things, but that satisfaction is always tinged with a certain amount of shame because I know I didn't really finish, I just said I was finished. Some of you may know what I mean by that.

2. I etch at least one fingerprint into every model I build because I use too large a brush when I apply cement. I've gotten pretty good at sanding and polishing those fingerprints out, but it would be ever so much easier if I didn't do that in the first place.

3. Rather than definitively cleaning my airbrush, I will fight with and curse the thing all night because it's easier to snarl than to break the thing down and clean out the tiny flake of dried paint that's clogging the device. My Aztek works pretty well when it's clean, but when it isn't working well, I keep flogging it instead of stopping and cleaning it.

4. I lose on average one part per model. I've gotten pretty good at making replacements out of pieces of wire, plastic or putty, but it would be easier if I didn't do that.

5. I have some kind of problem, perhaps genetic, that makes me incapable of keeping a white model really white. It seems that no matter how often I wash my hands, white models develop a kind of grubby appearance. I estimate that at least 20% of the time I spend on the average Saturn V model is wasted polishing grubbiness out of the white paint. It's like my fingers exude a dark substance that no amount of washing will eliminate, and it's very frustrating.

6. I have trouble folding photoetched parts, perhaps because I don't have the right tools, perhaps because my technique sucks, or perhaps because I never learned to fold paper footballs in Junior High.

7. Some streak of Yankee thrift compells me to pour thinned paint back into the jar from whence it came. This is an evil habit because within a week or two the lacquer thinner turns the paint into a small olive drab hockey puck. Every time I do it I know I shouldn't, but the idea of throwing away a teaspoon or two of thinned paint gives me the jitters.

8. I cut myself a lot. I keep using knife blades beyond their "discard-by" date and get used to how they work dull, and then when I put a new blade in the knife, it goes through the part and a sizeable portion of my thumb.

9. I use my benchtop as a palette. I routinely dispense little dots of super glue onto my workbench and use pieces of wire or bitten-off sprue to transfer the glue to the model, but this leaves little puddles of sticky disaster on my workbench. I once glued by iPod to my bench by accidentally putting it right atop such a dot of super glue.

10. I always tell myself I should move my stash of decals to a cool, dark place for safe storage, but no. I leave them in a clear plastic bin out in my garage, where they are exposed to terrible temperature cycling and peak temperatures approaching 120 degrees during the day. I know that's not good for them, and I know that's why I spend so much quality time smearing decal film on cracked decals, but do I ever do anything about it? Pfft.