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Figured this forum needed a thread for modeling/painting screwups. Just some of those moments where you later realized that you completely and totally ****ed up in a way that you can't really go back and fix it.

Mine comes with my very first Fire Warrior and Kroot squad (Taken from the Tau Battleforce). When I started, I used to get really snip-happy - after all, it's much quicker to clip everything out first, then pick out parts from one pile and model them on, right? I learned a day later (After my glue dried) that there's a very, very good reason that two different arms are placed next to each other on the sprue. Cue another two hours of me painstakingly picking through gun arms, trying to match them up with my already glued left arms. I know now that it's best to go in assembly line fashion when modeling...cut out a pair of legs, put 'em on a base. Lather, rinse repeat until you have a bunch of foot-soldiers. Continue with other parts.

So, what are your biggest modeling or painting screwups?

Well, just a few hours ago I was working on assembling my first SM Predator. Being a rather ambitious young man, I decided to magnetize damn near everything - turret, sponsons, the whole deal. Everything went surprisingly well. My design for the sponsons worked flawlessly. I double-checked the polarities a dozen times before I glued. That last magnet was oriented correctly the first 11 times... and now one of my heavy bolters doesn't have an ammo box.

Nothing too huge, provided the expansive knowledge base here on dakka can tell me how to dissolve super glue. So, uh... how best do you dissolve super glue? The magnet is recessed in a hole and stuck like crazy. I'd really like to avoid having to scratchbuild a replacement out of cardboard...

There is a reason it's called super glue.....


Only kidding.

From Wikipedia:

Acetone, which is commonly found in nail polish remover, is a widely available solvent capable of softening cured cyanoacrylate. Nitromethane is also an excellent solvent. Methylene chloride is the most effective solvent, but is toxic. Gamma-butyrolactone is also effective at removing cured cyanoacrylate, and has low toxicity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_glue

Nail varnish remover it seems, although I have no experience at using it.

It'll eat plastic though

long as you're careful about applying it precisely, getting the magnet out ASAP then washing the area with soapy water, you'll be ok

When applying transfers to my first squad of guardsmen, I checked the codex to see what arm each symbol is meant to go on... Anyway, I got into a bit of a kerfuffle applying the damn things and somehow mixed up the arms on the model... for the sake of uniformity I then did it wrong on all 9 other models; now it hits me, one man wrong out of fifty won't look as bad as 10 wrong out of fifty ¬_¬

I felt like a bit of a tool after pinning and gluing some of these spikes facing forwards on the left side and backwards on the right side of my hierophant.
The missus was talking to me at the time, that's my excuse!
Easily fixed but definately one of those, 'Aw, balls!' moments.
The photo shows them the correct way round but I had done them all pointing the same way!

Hah ! I have had pleanty in my time,

But the most recent would have to be on my recent work on my Counts as Iron priest. I had spent hours and hours fixing up all the metal peices, pinning them all fitting them all and went perfectly well, until it came to his hammer.

I got my wire and wrapped it around while i held the hammer in place (it was glueing at the time) I then covered it all in superglue to make sure the wire stuck in place. I came back an hour later to find that the hammer was stuck on... but facing the wrong way, backwards in fact. And it can't be changed as attempting to move anything will result in his whole right arm structure coming off and falling to pieces.

Epic fail I might add

A while back I was using super glue and kicker. While working at a weird angle on a model I managed to get my kicker, model and eye all lined up.

Kicker makes decent pepper spray...

I was painting an Anima Model and had the flesh done absolutely perfect around the face. The texture was creamy smooth, almost like satin. I then thought it would be cool to add a scar like the picture on the card. For whatever reason, my hand spazzes and I now have dark reddish-brown all over his lips and cheek. Sad panda :( This crap is common for me though.

LunaHound wrote:It'll eat plastic though

It won't.

When I glued the shoota arm pointing to the warboss's back, I mean his arm was pointing behind him shooting, LOL.

I don't even know how I did that.

Supergluing a 2nd ed. Blood Bowl 'Ooligan (basically a Snotling) to a slottabase and, because of too much glue and a slot in the base, to my thumb. I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital to have it removed. I finally... and painfully... removed it from my thumb. My wife (then GF) laughed her ass off at me. She still gives me crap about it 15 years later.


There was another time when my buddy had finished painting a character model after putting HOURS and HOURS into it. It was beautiful. He put it on my priming rig to flat-coat it and realized JUST as he sprayed it that he had accidentally grabbed the white primer...



Ghidorah

Putting a basilisk together I managed to glue the entire crew section together upside down. I dont have a friggin clue how I did that. It was a nice reminder that when things to fit right, you should just force it together lol

I used a hot glue gun a some FG world Hardened Vets and realized it there was wax and, after I glued it on my models started to melt like primer and Styrofoam.

jackvolerich wrote:I used a hot glue gun a some FG world Hardened Vets and realized it there was wax and, after I glued it on my models started to melt like primer and Styrofoam.

What?

One time when I was putting the stomachs of my stompa's together. I was using that PVC glue, I put them all upside down, outside. To air them out or something. I don't know what I was thinking at the time. But it started to rain. So Stompa=Vase. No real damage was done. Thankfully.

I used polystyrene cement on the battle wagon I've got, no real problem there... but then I used it on the gunner boyz on the sides with their guns, when I was certain l was gonna set those up to be easily removable...

now i'm waiting for the day they break in transit....

Mostly just stupid stuff that happens when trying to go too quickly:

Drilling through the back of an arm and all the way through the shoulder pad.

Using a dremel to smooth out/remove old super glue from a joint and finding out exactly how quickly a sanding drum eats through plastic.

Trying to break the superglue bond from a terminator's head with a dentist's pick and gouging the living heck out of it (That one I saved, the gouges turned into pretty good boils).

Dropping nearly finished arms/weapons/minis into an open pot of paint - Managed this several times :(

And my ever personal favorite ---

Being done with a miniature, looking at the face, and deciding to add "Just one little touch-up". Can't count the number of times I screwed it up so badly I had to strip and restart.

r3n3g8b0y wrote:

LunaHound wrote:It'll eat plastic though

It won't.

For the love of god don't listen to him. Acetone is a VERY potent dissolver of plastic. A cursory Google search turns up thousands of results telling you this.

I say use plastic-safe brake fluid. It will strip the paint, but it weakens the glue significantly. It's what I used to strip the paint off all the old models I received in trades and flea markets, and it really weakens superglue.

I had spent all day making a Warhammer Festus the Leechlord out of a ogre body, i made an apron, the skill necklace, the box op potions on the back and green stuffed a hand holding a potion pot. as it was drying i noticed the necklace came off at the top, so SUPERGLUE TIME!.......as i was squeezing a tiny hard piece shout of the end and half of the bottle decided to empty itself all over the newly greenstuffed arm, apron and backpack......sad panda =:(

LordBoJangles wrote:SUPERGLUE TIME!.......as i was squeezing a tiny hard piece shout of the end and half of the bottle decided to empty itself all over the newly greenstuffed arm, apron and backpack......sad panda =:(

Done that one a few times, too. I really don't seem to have much luck with superglue... Then again, I'm still assembling models 95% of the time instead of painting, so naturally I have more botched glue-jobs than paintjobs. Now, if there's even the slightest bit of resistance when I squeeze the bottle, I go straight for a pin to clear the clog.

Oh, and thanks for the advice on removing superglue. All I have is some simple green and nail polish remover (I'm avoiding the latter, thanks Luna & Bro.SRM). I had a test piece soaking for about 2 days, which I finally managed to break apart at the join, but it still took a decent bit of force. Hopefully the increased surface area of this join means I'll have better luck.