The Little World

However you acquire a half-built – stash sale, donation, or legacy – you buy more than a box. You buy a dilemma.

A fresh kit, with a sealed box or bagged sprue trees, is a clean field to play on. It may be old, with tatty decals and useless instructions, but at least when you start to make mistakes, they will be your own.

A half-built kit contains evidence of someone else’s skill…or lack of it…and will tie you forever to decisions that you may not have ever wanted to make. They may be good ones or bad ones, but I know which way the smart money is betting.

What to do?

a. Don’t get involved. If the parts of the kit have been slop-cemented or roughly treated you are going to have a nearly impossible task in recovering them. You will never end up with a result that will remotely please you.

b. If you decide to risk it, prise gently at the parts to see if they can be detached from each other. Some old cements let go and you can be almost back to the start.

c. Likewise, try rubbing off chatty paint with some isopropyl alcohol or methylated spirit. You may get a reasonably fresh slate to do your own painting on.

d. Regard the decals with the same critical eye that you reserve for new kits. Eastern European ones will be suspect even fresh out of the factory in Slobovia, and will not improve with maturity. Plan ahead.

e. Assign a priority to the build and set your expectations realistically. It may never be an A kit, but it might be a B or C.

f. Pay a realistic price for it. You do not want to be kicking yourself later when the inevitable flaws just keep boring themselves into your consciousness.

It is also good to remember that the choice of the kit was not yours initially, and apart from a lower price, may not be yours now. It is no good taking on a project in which you have no interest, just because it is there and cheap.

Your building time has a value…do not underrate it.