Actually, I don’t really have a shelf of doom per se.  Because of my former career (USN) I moved around quite a bit and over the years I’d have to pause my model making to pack, move, then unpack. Invariably many were broken in the move and I’d spend the first few weeks making repairs to models, not new models.  Sometimes that even meant putting half done kits on hold until I’d caught up.

After not moving for over 10 years and starting my second career, I’m able to finally truly get caught up.  Just prior to my current assignment I found a box I’d thought was simply full of styrofoam peanuts; turned out to have nearly a dozen models inside and none were completed!  They’d been in there for at least 17 years…

Okay, so why so long?  Well, the only time I used styrofoam peanuts for a move was from Virginia to San Diego and that was 17 years ago.  It turns out glossy enamel paint doesn’t interact well with styrofoam; where the paint wasn’t fully, and I mean fully, cured AND the styrofoam touched the paint (actually a small percentage of the models) bits of styrofoam would adhere to the paint and sort of fuse with it.  Some sort of chemistry was going on and effectively it ruined the kits I’d pull out.  Probably why I decided not to open that last box.

Most of those kits went into the trash while I was in San Diego.  They were hopelessly damaged, the decals coming off, paint coming off and lots of sanding required to clean them up.  After one attempt on a Hasegawa F9F-6 Cougar, I just started chucking them.

Back to the present: These kits were all USN Glossy Sea Blue; Tigercat, Corsairs (x4), Banshee, Bearcat plus two Corsairs in earlier paint schemes.  Interestingly, only the GSB was affected by the styrofoam.  Hmm, maybe it’s that formulation?  If memory serves me, the GSB I used was Aeromaster’s.  I’d opened the box and put them on the shelf somewhere around 2 years ago, intending to do something with them.

At any rate, while on home leave from the UK I decided to do a bit of modeling and instead of starting a new kit (or 3) I looked at the shelf and remembered these models.  My skills are much better than they were two decades ago, so did what I could to clean them up and get them completed. None were “done” before they went into the box, some had some decals, most had nothing.

I’ll blog each one; seven in total!

Thanks for looking…