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Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Apr 10, 2018 18:30:55 GMT -8
I moved late last month. Still have many things in a pile, but working on getting things better organized than what I had before moving. As I was going through my stuff and transferring photos from my Photobucket account to my new computer, it dawned on me that I will never finish most if not all my numerous projects. The thread Ed, started about old HO stuff, made me take stock of my mess. Yes, it is a mess.
I was downloading photos of such projects as the Union Pacific DD35's, UP Fast Forty, various GP30's, E-units, SD's and the list goes on....Many have been under "construction" for years! I date my photos in their file description and the dates ranged back into 2013, 14, and so on. I look at drawers which hold the projects and they have been dead to me for years. I am trying very hard to get some organization to my living space. But it is difficult when a person has a couple hundred bottles of paint, hundreds of detail parts, models in various forms of work and tools. For myself, it feels more like clutter than a hobby. I don't see myself ever getting the desire to even pick at them.
I also have some models which are just not worth the effort. Model Power BLW sharks in A and B, Rail Power SD9 shell which my friend was going to make into an ex-DM&IR SD-M on the EJ&E, RPP SD38's for the J, Proto 2000 SD9 ex-DM&IR in J patch and a few others. I'm at a point where I want less. Most everything I've sawed an hacked on like the Athearn RTR SD40-2(Fast Forty) isn't worth pocket change. The Athearn DD35/40's are now scrap. The Kato and Proto units which have been stripped and worked on are nothing more than parts now. The BLI E9 is in pieces. I learned decades ago, that once something is in the unfinished model category, no one wants to take up your vision. And no I have no desire to deal with selling, shipping and Paypal. It just isn't going happen.
So how many of you have hit the wall on something? Do you eventually chuck it to free up space? Do you try to sell it? Or maybe hope for inspiration to happen someday in the distant future?
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Post by fr8kar on Apr 10, 2018 21:24:34 GMT -8
PM me if you're willing to sell any of these projects. I, for one, have seen them and know they have value.
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Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Apr 11, 2018 3:32:53 GMT -8
Another appropriate title to this thread......."Biting Off More Than You Can Chew". Having an idea of what you want the model to be and what your ability and resources can accomplish can be a divide wider than the Pacific Ocean. I'd love to have a milling machine, know how to design and 3d print parts among other things. Reality it is something I'll never be able to do. I'm lucky to turn on the computer, let alone do CAD drawings. I've done some basic CAM(computer aided machining) at the local community college in the late 1980's. Yeah, the stone age.
When I see what modeler like Brian Banna can accomplish it makes me think of the movie line - Clint Eastwood as Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan in the movie Magnum Force - "A man's GOT to know his limitations"
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Post by roadkill on Apr 11, 2018 4:51:29 GMT -8
I think we've all "hit the wall" on a project or two (or 100  ), it's normal. Take my Highliners/BLI E8 for example, I started it a good EIGHT years ago and it's still not done! A few things weren't turning out like I wanted so instead of launching it against the wall I put it away for a while. About 6 months ago I brought it back out of storage and looked it over with renewed interest and I've got it almost to the point of paint. I actually think it's a good thing to do put a project away now and then as it allows one to develop a new perspective about it. |
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Post by cf7 on Apr 11, 2018 6:52:53 GMT -8
Yep...I've been down this road. I eventually trashed, sold, whatever, just to get rid of stuff. I now have very little in the way of train stuff. My SV GP15 is finished, just needs a bit of paint. It resides in a display case, along with several other projects that will be there when I'm ready to finish them. Since my layout is in the garage, the HO came down and a small N scale layout is being built. I had to make room for my motorcycle projects! Speaking of, here is one of the basketcases that I finished last summer...  It is way to easy to have too many hobbies and things going on. To me, having too many unfinished projects keeps me from finishing anything. Getting rid of stuff helps. |
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Post by pokemonprime on Apr 11, 2018 7:04:11 GMT -8
I would agree with fr8kar, some of those projects sound like they'd be interesting to finish, the GP30s especially.
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Post by Paul Cutler III on Apr 11, 2018 8:00:54 GMT -8
Sure, I have a few. An MBTA GP40MC I started over a decade ago using an RPP GP40X and a Canadian wide cab from Detail Associates. The Wall I hit was that I'm debating whether to extend the chassis and lengthen the body to add the 4th 48" roof fan (for the HEP gen-set) or just go with it as-is (basically a GP40X with a shortened & modified Canadian wide cab).
Another is a Bachmann Spectrum USRA Light Mountain being converted to a NH R-1b. The major difference is that the R-1b's had an Elesco feedwater heater and pilot mounted air pumps (plus I added a big Vandy tender because some R-1b's did get them). I got the air pumps on, modified the running board, cut in the Elesco, changed the headlight and bracket. So far, so good. Then I went to pipe it. Yee cats, the fun (ha, ha). Every time I went to put a piece of pipe on getting it to bend around the smokebox and other pipes, not only did it not want to bend the way I wanted it to, it snapped off a previously applied piece of pipe or the airpumps or all of the above. Arrrgh! I put the whole thing away before I launched it into the nearest wall.
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Post by petehuse on Apr 11, 2018 8:23:00 GMT -8
I have one to add. About a year ago (or is it two now?), I started to build one of those wooden trestle kits from JV, to make a better curved trestle to replace the straight plastic one I had for years. So I stained all the wood parts, removed the old plastic trestle... and never got around to building it. Its a pile of nicely stained wood parts on my workbench. I was actually even considering buying a pre-assembled wood one!
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Post by tankcarsrule on Apr 11, 2018 10:17:30 GMT -8
I've always finished the one I'm working on, before I start another. It might be several months, some of that time may be sitting and thinking. Or just plain ole goofing off.
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Post by roadkill on Apr 11, 2018 13:01:45 GMT -8
I've always finished the one I'm working on, before I start another. It might be several months, some of that time may be sitting and thinking. Or just plain ole goofing off. I admire your discipline, I'm too much of a scatterbrain to do that . |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2018 13:54:04 GMT -8
Well, you may not prefer my answer.
I have damaged some "projects" to the point where I did not believe I had the requisite skills, time, patience, money, and/or equipment needed to finish them to my liking. It can be as simple as an engine damaged in shipping to me, that I tried to repair, but in the end I actually made it worse. I throw those projects away rather than keep them around to remind me of my mistakes. Where possible, I have had a few brass "projects" stripped and repainted by others, or repaired and touched up by a professional.
Often I am able to make some minor repairs, like the beautiful Intermountain Rio Grande first run autorack I just bought off ebay for $90 plus $12 shipping that arrived with a couple loose items and a loose end door. I had to figure out how to attach the end door, which involves carefully opening the adjacent door part way just to have room to snap it back into place. It worked! Repaired car is beautiful and tastes like "more". Should it have cost me $102 for a damaged car in a horrible, messed up box--absolutely not--but I ended up with a great model that only required a little very careful TLC. They are indeed delicate!
Sometimes my damaged goods are somebody else's bargain model. I price and sell them that way on Ebay. Somebody better than myself can weather or otherwise improve them, lol. |
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Post by grahamline on Apr 11, 2018 15:10:59 GMT -8
My mistake buys and never-to-built projects end up on a swap meet table every other year or so. I can generally get 50 cents on the dollar and my feelings aren't hurt if someone gets an especially good deal. As long as it leaves the house, I'm happy.
Surplus shells, stripped engines, etc. go into gallon freezer bags at giveaway prices. Usually they sell. Plastic wheelsets sell. For a $30 table, I get to sit down, visit with friends, and enjoy overcooked hot dogs.
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Post by TBird1958 on Apr 11, 2018 15:16:19 GMT -8
I'm really at a wall on this one, it needs to be masked for a black center band, that's not too bad. It needs to be lettered with Helvetica lower case (one letter at a time) and I can't find any as waterslide decals.  |
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Post by kentuckysouthernrwy on Apr 11, 2018 16:22:43 GMT -8
I’ve a half a basement full of 95% stuff, oh so close, but...the other half is full of the layout that is closer to 45% done
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Post by el3672 on Apr 11, 2018 16:34:00 GMT -8
Yep...I've been down this road. I eventually trashed, sold, whatever, just to get rid of stuff. I now have very little in the way of train stuff. My SV GP15 is finished, just needs a bit of paint. It resides in a display case, along with several other projects that will be there when I'm ready to finish them. Since my layout is in the garage, the HO came down and a small N scale layout is being built. I had to make room for my motorcycle projects! Speaking of, here is one of the basketcases that I finished last summer... It is way to easy to have too many hobbies and things going on. To me, having too many unfinished projects keeps me from finishing anything. Getting rid of stuff helps. Garages are the man caves in Florida, my two car garage resides my recently started ( probably my sixth major layout in my lifetime) layout, which now has become the 10x20 A/C storage unit relocation. Getting close to retirement so the woman has started cutting extraneous Expenses. So half my garage is now full to the ceiling with train boxes. Damm I've got over 150 boxes with stuff once glanced at but never opened dating back to the early 80's, can't even imagine the time placing just ACI labels on half the stuff, fagettaboughtit. My work bench and adjacent craftsman storage cabinets hold all my current projects and cream of the crop models. So the layout expansion is on hold until I can inventory all the boxes and then sell 2/3 off. The years fly by and we collect and collect, as the great Steely Dan song goes "Reeling in the Years", glad the woman is helping me make some sense of all this. Rails most be laid! |
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Post by el3672 on Apr 11, 2018 16:40:34 GMT -8
I've always finished the one I'm working on, before I start another. It might be several months, some of that time may be sitting and thinking. Or just plain ole goofing off. Headend........Thanks for the advise !! I'm now taking your point of view & focus on what's on the work bench and completing it. When I Have 20 plus projects going on with lifes distractions seems like nothing ever gets done. BTW....I appreciate every ones story and recommendations on this thread. |
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Post by drolsen on Apr 11, 2018 16:57:18 GMT -8
I am absolutely terrible about having dozens of unfinished projects lying around on the workbench or in the Tupperware containers that I store them in. I probably have two dozen projects that are 10-15 years old in various stages of (in)completion. Work and family have taken precedence over the hobby in the past few years.
I almost never completely abandon a project, at least in terms of the concept. Sometimes, based on the slow pace of my projects, I will abandon a version of a model and replace it with a better one that came along. The GP30 is a good example - I started years ago trying to build a CSX slug from a Bachmann Spectrum model but switched to working on a Proto2000 GP30 when those arrived. However, the vast majority of my projects are ones that I still plan to complete. Unfortunately, I really enjoy the research part of starting a project and tend to get distracted by something else when another new idea comes up. A lot of times this happens because I run into a difficult part of a kitbash or detailing project and take time off to try to figure that one out. That’s when I end up starting another project...
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Post by bdhicks on Apr 11, 2018 18:01:00 GMT -8
I think I do benefit from having more than one project going at once, so that I can switch off if I'm waiting for something on one project. My problem is that ideally I'd have maybe 2-4 projects going on at once, and I have far more than that lying around in some state between started and finished. I think having a consistent modeling theme helps, although I have been known to bend or break it on occasion.
The few projects that I've completely scrapped weren't really that far along, so I didn't feel too bad about it. I've got a few things where I've decided the way I was doing it wasn't going to work out and while I plan to redo them I haven't restarted on. For the most part right now I am trying to clear out old projects I've started rather than starting new ones, which is difficult but I am making progress.
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Post by lvrr325 on Apr 11, 2018 21:42:41 GMT -8
When I was working on my Chevy I would do it in spurts, gather a pile of parts, work on it some, then maybe ignore it for months. Then a guy offered me stupid money for it so I sold it.
My layout is the same way, I'll work on it for a while, then stop and let it sit.
I have boxes with old projects in them, sometimes one I know I won't get back to I sell. Thinking about doing a quick and dirty paint on the old Bachmann GP30s and give them to my dad decorated for his railroad. It's one color, it wouldn't be hard.
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Post by talltim on Apr 13, 2018 0:16:28 GMT -8
I have to say I'm pretty good at not losing interest in a model build, although I do take ages to build stuff and do have many half done prjects that are not getting done for lack of time, rather than motivation (I do actually have quite a lot of time, I just work really slowly, I've been building my current project, an 18" long trestle bridge for over a year)
In fact the only thing I've started that I definatly won't do any more on was a GP40-2W conversion from a blue box Athearn. In the time I was doing not one but two RTR models of it appeared!
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Post by jbilbrey on Apr 13, 2018 8:34:26 GMT -8
The decision to forge ahead with a project or to bail on it can be difficult to make. I am going through it with another hobby [1/35 armor models] where some have been on my bench for a decade or more. At this point, the only motivation I have to finish them is that I will toss them otherwise.
The other issue is the rapidly changing face of the hobby. Look at what was considered highly detailed 20 years ago to what is available now. Why put all that work in an old flat kit of a B&O wagon-top boxcar when much better models are available now?
The other problem is what to do with the half-completed projects. Living in TN, I have several storage drawers full of PRR, PC, NYC, Canadian, etc. projects that are not finished by a friend that exited the hobby. The friend and I cannot figure out how to liquidate it. There is no way he is going get his money back on a P2K PRR geep torn down to the frame and is in a dozen or parts.
Sorry I am not much help, but you are not alone.
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Post by pokemonprime on Apr 13, 2018 19:53:46 GMT -8
I'm telling you, there are probably people who'd buy just lots of parts. Certainly have to be people around who have their own half finished projects that need just a couple of pieces of something else.
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Post by slowfreight on Apr 15, 2018 13:40:40 GMT -8
Some years ago, when I had the layout up and running, I forced myself to finish whatever was on the bench because the bench wasn't big enough to store projects in progress. I certainly had a stack of unstarted/unbuilt projects. As time goes on, some of the things in my backlog get so old that something better comes out and I replace them before I even start them.
Anymore, I add so many bits/parts, I can't just work one project to completion. I have to keep about 4-5 going to keep from being stopped while I wait for the mail. Periodically, I get stuck while I try to figure out how I'm going to build something. But the old stuff is slowly coming to the top of the stack. When I finished the GO Transit APU cars, the first one had been in the stack about 14 years waiting for decals, and the second sat in inventory for 7 waiting to be built.
Sometimes, all I need is bits/pieces, and I've bought stuff to scavenge parts and then reassembled those enough to sell them. I hate to sit on a project for ages just waiting to find the bits to get started.
It's about time to finally pull the layout out of storage, but I have 3 or 4 rolling stock projects that get their turn in the shop first. And it's a weird mix of stuff I just bought in the last few months, another GO Transit unit that's been waiting its turn in the shop for 14 years, and a salvaged DW kit I bought in the mid-90s and never thought would have a future.
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Post by Mark R. on Apr 15, 2018 13:56:18 GMT -8
I'm really at a wall on this one, it needs to be masked for a black center band, that's not too bad. It needs to be lettered with Helvetica lower case (one letter at a time) and I can't find any as waterslide decals. When I ran into cases like that, I got the decals I needed custom made (I always went to Highball Graphics, but there are others). Give them a very accurate list of what you need and turn that nightmare into a one evening project, and done. Mark. |
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Post by jbilbrey on Apr 15, 2018 18:36:41 GMT -8
I'm really at a wall on this one, it needs to be masked for a black center band, that's not too bad. It needs to be lettered with Helvetica lower case (one letter at a time) and I can't find any as waterslide decals. I think that nearly every model railroader has one of those Walthers tank cars where he has tried to add the Plano P-E to it before stalling on the project. Mine is "white box era" kit of an ADMX tank car in which I almost got as far as you did before losing interest after realizing that the kit didn't match the prototype all that closely. I need to give up saving the factory lettering and just finish the tank car as a generic UTLX or similar tank car. |
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Post by roadkill on Apr 16, 2018 6:56:09 GMT -8
I'm telling you, there are probably people who'd buy just lots of parts. Certainly have to be people around who have their own half finished projects that need just a couple of pieces of something else. P2K Geep parts??? I'm always in the market for them! |
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Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Apr 17, 2018 12:18:37 GMT -8
I gathered some of the least fortunate projects and made a lot in an attempt to peddle them on e-Bay. We'll see how it goes. If that fails this first lot can then help hold down the steel dumpster until garbage dude takes them to their rightful place.
I have to get a hold on my two banana boxes of parts too. Haven't cracked the lid on them in a long long time. Also have some partially started buildings which need to leave the premise.
I moved much too much train crap in this last move.
I have paint that may longer be any good which needs to leave too.
I think it is the feeling of being overwhelmed and the realization that I won't complete anything in the even in the future. I'm old(turn 58 tomorrow) and as Steven Tyler sang in the Aerosmith song "Sweet Emotion" - "my get up and go, must have got up and went".
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Post by fr8kar on Apr 17, 2018 13:20:37 GMT -8
Can you provide a link to your ebay auctions? I don't know what to use for search criteria since I don't know the items you're selling or your username.
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Post by jbilbrey on Apr 17, 2018 14:27:24 GMT -8
I gathered some of the least fortunate projects and made a lot in an attempt to peddle them on e-Bay. We'll see how it goes. If that fails this first lot can then help hold down the steel dumpster until garbage dude takes them to be buried in the land fill. I have to get a hold of my two banana boxes of parts too. Haven't cracked the lid on them in a long long time. Also have some partially started buildings which need to leave the premise. I moved much too much train crap in this last move. I think it is the feeling of being overwhelmed and the realization that I won't complete anything in the even in the future. I'm old(turn 58 tomorrow) and as Steven Tyler sang in the Aerosmith song "Sweet Emotion" - "my get up and go, must have got up and went". The lyrics to Led Zeppelin's song "I Can't Quit You Baby" - "I can't quit you baby - So I'm gonna put you down for awhile" is the song that usually comes to my mind when I have those phases in life. I usually feel better after the purge as it clears my head and allows me to focus more on the projects that I want to keep. I certainly understand the "too much train crap"; that's why I periodically rent a table at a show. There is no way I can ever get my money back on the stuff I am trying to sell, but it keeps me from getting overwhelmed in my train room. My problem is that I now have two people [my son and me] who are actively trying to put stuff in that room. Despite being six [or maybe because he is six], he can come back from shows with more purchases than me. That, and he sometimes get mad at me for selling something he really wants me to keep. The problem, as I told him, is that we can't keep everything and I have a finite amount of time to work on projects. |
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Post by Great-Northern-Willmar Div on Apr 17, 2018 18:28:34 GMT -8
Can you provide a link to your ebay auctions? I don't know what to use for search criteria since I don't know the items you're selling or your username. Just a pile of junk. Nothing anyone here would be interested in. www.ebay.com/itm/222928345985 |
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), it's normal. Take my Highliners/BLI E8 for example, I started it a good EIGHT years ago and it's still not done! A few things weren't turning out like I wanted so instead of launching it against the wall I put it away for a while. About 6 months ago I brought it back out of storage and looked it over with renewed interest and I've got it almost to the point of paint. I actually think it's a good thing to do put a project away now and then as it allows one to develop a new perspective about it.
