The Little World

Have you ever noticed that some model kits are never destined to stay together?

There are certain models that have been made to such fine – or such crude – standards that they can be assembled with however much care one can muster…but will fragment continuously ever after. They are destined to fall apart repeatedly. The saddest thing about this is the fact that they are likely to be the kits that we treasure the most – we would be proudest of them in the cabinet if they were not surrounded by broken inter-plane struts and dislodged wheels.

It is not the makers – these kits can come up as rogues in the sturdiest production line. It is not the designers – some of the spindliest models cling together the longest while their dumpy siblings part at the fuselage halves spontaneously. It is not the glue makers or the builders or the way they are jigged together…some models just break to spite you.

The worst of it is when they are models in someone else’s collection. I well remember an Aurora Curtiss Jenny mail plane – 1:48 scale – that erupted into parts when I touched it. It was 1958 and I was looking at it in a friend’s basement room. He chased me out and up the street with threats and imprecations ( hard to imprecate when you’re a Quaker, but he managed ) and the friendship was never the same. I mourn that and hate the yellow model for it.

I have a Special Hobby model that reminds me of it – I discovered the other day that it had shed the tail wheel with no influences whatsoever. It’ll be glued back with epoxy and PVA, but I will be watching it like a hawk thenceforth. I can tell a troublemaker when I see one.