However, the first time through (no prior experience with it) and following directions, you discover the instructions were wrong, I have the factory to blame. The old “fool me once” thing. I’m talking about you Dragon. The second time through you can expect incorrect instructions. Now if you on the first time through expect the directions to be wrong then the “I never read the instructions” becomes the clear path.
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My whole apartment (and a former girlfriend’s) in Berlin was all Ikea. I love it. I still have two of their chairs I shipped home.
These are “on sale” now for $2312 online (not mine - I’m never selling mine)
Mine look as good as the day I bought them in 1984. If we want to talk about quality…
Plenty of time for musings today. I’m recovering from my “vacation.” My wife’s definition is four hours of winter mountain horseback riding every day for three days straight. At least there was a private hot tub.
Mike, I like what you wrote so much I have to quote it again.
So true.
So way back near the beginning of this thread:
The factory offered a solution. Use the horrid kit part. The guy who designed the sprue layout accomplished his mission. 100% complete. All parts present and accounted for, SIR! But he may not have been a modeler. I propose he was not. Either that or his sense of serenity differs from mine.
So then the modeler has a choice. Use the piece, filing the sprue gate off as well as he humanly can on such a small part. Or, if he no longer cares, twist it off the sprue, glue it on with tube glue complete with the glaring sprue gate stub, all the while complaining about how poor the kit is. His sense of serenity allows for that.
Or-
Maybe he busts out the #78 drill bit, some needle nosed pliers, and some piano wire and fashions his own. He has neither “settled” nor become a victim of “stuckness.” He has grown as a modeler. And it may have taken him an extra hour to complete the task. But he doesn’t care. It’s not a race. Every part brings its own sense of serenity.
I look at model building sometimes the way I look at bike building. If you set out to build the best build possible, announcing it on a Friday, and then posting photos of the finished build on a Monday, you will fail. But if you take every piece of a 900 part kit, carefully removing every sprue gate, every mold seam, every sink hole and ejector pin mark, if you check and recheck every joint, check to see every handle that is supposed to 90 degrees is in fact at 90 degrees, every decal for silvering or a hard edge, if you check the quality of every single thing you do, you don’t have to set out to build the best build possible. It will build itself. It could be the old Lindberg T-55. No need to blame the kit for its shortcomings - you will have a quality build. Maybe not the most accurate, but the quality will speak for itself.
To me, that sums up the Zen experience - it’s not the destination that’s important, It’s the journey.
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I think there’s a fine distinction between what posters appear to be asking for and what they actually want, between those people seeking complementary comments and observations (who doesn’t like being liked?) and those who explicitly solicit critical feedback (and who are then unhappy when they get criticisms).
You post up your work to show it off to a group of your peers, and you gotta learn to take the good with the bad.
If you’re happy with the work, then you can filter those comments to take from them what you want and find good and useful. You might not agree with some of them, yet there might be some critical observations that make you reconsider some technical aspect of the work. Still, in the main, if you’re happy with the work, then those observations that are mostly matters of opinion will have little impact on your future work.
(You engage in that internal conversation with yourself: “Yes, I could darken up my figure pallet, but I really like lighter the style that I paint in right now.” OR…
“Wow, I totally missed that misaligned part… Next time I’m going to pay more attention to alignment.”)
However, if you’re not happy with your work, you probably already know most of the criticisms that you’re going to get about it. I don’t quite understand the psychology behind someone getting angry when they’re told something they already know (but it must be a real thing).
The ones that I really find puzzling are the ones who explicitly solicit observations on “correctness” or “accuracy” concerning some aspect or detail, and then they want to argue with the responders who point out that it (whatever it might be) is technically or historically or situationally inaccurate.
They do something they know or strongly suspect is “dodgy,” and then ask the whole modeling world if it’s correct. They then argue about “exceptions” or “deviations” or throw out justifications about how such and thus “could have been done” or about “undocumented” crew or field modifications. Or they counter the replies with, “Well, I’ve already done it this way, so I’m not going to change it.”
I just don’t get it. If you weren’t ready and willing to change or correct whatever it is based on comments and observations that point out that it’s wrong, why bother to ask? If you had already committed and finalized the detail or characteristic and had no intention of changing it, why did you ask?
What’s aggravating about those posters is their ingratitude. They ask questions or solicit others to take the time and effort to provide them with information, and then they get angry or defensive or dismissive of the replies. This is the reason why I hardly ever say anything anymore about someone else’s work unless it’s something “nice.”
(It’s taken me a long time to appreciate what my ol’ granny used to tell me, “Son, if you ain’t got something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I used to think that advice was mostly about not gratuitously hurting someone else’s feelings, but now I think it’s mostly about preserving your own sanity…)
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Exactly!
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Just a thought which may be incorrect:
A small thin part.
Hot plastic flows in from the sprue/gate and fills the cavity,
hopefully before it cools too much (thin part with a sh!tload
of metal around it).
Where do I put the injection gate? At one end of the cavity,
in the middle or one at each end?
At one end doubles the distance the hot plastic needs to
go before the cavity has been filled.
Gate in the middle reduces the distance to less than half.
Gates at both ends runs the risk of the plastic not fusing
where the two “fronts” meet.
The modeler has the option of using metal wire instead.
I would dare to suggest that using a wire might be faster
than to faff about with cleaning that part.
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But the modeler has to have gained enough experience to have developed the creativity and associated skills to see that as a viable option. This is where the modeler also has to value and seek varied experiences on his own part for their own sake.
Are there creative options to the single “factory” method shown in the instructions? Yes, but the modeler can only recognize and employ those creative options and avenues after he’s taken the experiential journey to discover them.
Sure, the “factory” does have some obligation to quality of both its products and the instructions, but it will always be the modeler who has to possess the skills, knowledge, and ability developed from experience and which lead to his creative results.
As Rob said, it’s the journey and not the destination, and the modeler has to be willing to take that journey which encompasses many, many different paths. And all of those paths need to be taken (even the dead-end ones).
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This is what happens when two old, grizzled Green Berets get to philosophizing. All that’s missing is a Ranger Television and a case of beer.
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I feel some 
are needed after all this waxing.
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I know that that’s a book that was very influential among certain parts of the American population ca. the 1960s, and that’s about it. TBH, your quotes from it do not want to make me go find a copy — the bits of those quotes I read, I kind of find what in Dutch is called geneuzel (which I don’t think has a 1:1 English translation, but Wiktionary gives it a go).
Heh, I did something similar some years ago to get two bookcases to fit: buy two flatpack ones (not blue-and-yellow, but similar in design) and cut down all of the horizontal parts to fit, then drilled them so they could be installed with the screws provided.
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This has certainly become an interesting discussion. To start, I’ve built a few AFV Club kits, and they seemed to work out ok, or I can’t remember anything egregiously wrong.
Unlike, say Panda MATV kits, which I have built several of. The Panda experience, tying back to the construct of Zen and the art of model building, well these kits require an ample amount of patience and creativity because sections of the instructions are incorrect, both in sequence and part numbers called out, and in many cases, the fit/locating points/quality of parts etc is not good - and I’ve built (struggled through) them none the less.
As for Zen, and the book - it is “Zen and the art of motorcycle Maintenance” and not, “Zen and the art of motorcycle Assembly”. I read it a long time ago, in a class addressing philosophy, engineering, and the environment - yep, and still remember it from 30+ years ago.
I imagine “Assembly” instructions are supposed to be suited for anyone, as in the furniture assembly task above - anyone might choose to do it, so the instructions should help people achieve the goal - and for general convenience, with fewer options - as in, options in the hands of those with less experience might not yield great results.
“Maintenance” on the other hand by it’s nature might include elements of trouble shooting, as good service manuals usually have “if, then” comments - be it, if the part sticks, or if code xyz is shown then test, or do the following… And, this work might be done by experienced or inexperienced individuals, but for both, diagnosis is relevant/required, and as such, alternative scenarios/solutions are provided.
In our context the distinction lays between model builders. If you are fairly new to model building you need to rely on the instructions to get you through it. As noted above, experience goes a long way in opening your eyes to alt solutions, as if you break enough small handles, well, maybe it’s time to try something else etc, and with time/experience, you can often predict problems, and will establish a deeper well of alternative solutions to draw from, allowing the instructions to provide fundamental guidance, while you, the model maker/assembler provides nuance, for better or worse 
Back to instructions, as I recall most (that is for bigger companies, not cottage industry resin kits etc) have some text in the beginning telling you to read the whole set before getting started haha - I never did this - until I began doing heavily modified/ kit bash and scratch building - where you can discover that your guess about what is needed next is wrong - lol - good times, clearly a time to appreciate the Zen of it all. The whole Zen thing becomes particularly useful when you are busy redoing the part/parts/assembly that you have been pretending to not notice is wrong, and have finally conceded, “yes, it is wrong - and I can’t stand looking at it!”
Cheers
Nick
:
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The frustrating part of this journey is when you know enough to see the problem but not having experienced enough to know how to correct it.
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That’s when it goes back in the box , for the shelf of doom, till the light bulb moment.
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Well, you’re not far off. First published in 1974. I’m not sure which certain part of the American population I belonged to when I read it in 1980. Curious? Open minded? Horny young man wanting to bond with the flower children girls of the 60’s who were looking for a young man to educate? So many possibilities.
Hmmm… Maybe not a direct English translation, but German perhaps?
Blödsinn comes to mind. A lot of it going on in some of the other forums. Not quoted, but actually generated by our own members. 
I don’t read them any more. I haven’t actually blocked them, on the off chance they might say something worthwhile in the actual modeling sections of the modeling website, But year to date? Nothing.
I sense your reading of the above quotes did not bring you any serenity. I might suggest you follow my lead and stop reading my posts. After all, we want everyone’s experience on the forums to be a quality one. 
I am however, glad it’s not for everyone. I think it would lose its appeal for me. However, I have found it a useful guide for many things in life, model building, relationships, bike building. Shooting. Now there’s a good one.
In reading the Reloading and Shooting thread I sense that Mike Roof and Arch-Stanton have a somewhat Zen approach to shooting, If every step of the process of building the gun, polishing the sear, measuring the cartirdge case, polishing it, setting the primer, weighing the powder, is a quality experience, one in which they care, their result will be a quality one. One which brings them serentiy. Just a guess.
But back to modeling - for it certainly applies and is relevent to this thread - at least for me.
That’s funny Nick. I as I wrote some of the above comments and pasted some of the quotes, I could not help thinking of your builds. While you seem to build faster than most of us (me certainly) I don’t see you sitting at your workbench frantically trying to beat some internal stopwatch or schedule, to be the first to do X, or the first to combine this kit with that kit. The quality shows through in your work. In reading your posts, you don’t seem to be one who “settles” or is thrown off by problems that result in “stuckness.” Indeed, there can be no wrong instructions for your builds, as there are none. Your builds are not simply a process of attaching parts, but of creating a model to your image, crafting each part so that it works in harmony with the others. A Zen experience for sure, with the resultant quality build as its outcome.
Panda kits do require much more effort than AFV Club kits to get that quality result. As do their sister kits from Kitty Hawk, The Panda Cougar had a well known problem with mating the upper and lower hull halves. That experience you speak of came in handy, and the solution was elegant in its simplcity.
Now their M109A7 kit - my disdain for it is well known to anyone who has read certain reviews of it. It seems every single online reveiwer before me stopped caring, accepting a mediocre kit and even one proclaiming it as “a very good kit,” and ironically finding “discrepancies in the instructions” to be the most egregious shortfall of the kit.
But who else stopped caring? Why , the “factory” to use Pirsig’s language. RFM, who have had their own missteps lately with bad instructions, elected to redo the awful Panda release, and still, after being warned they were not bringing the quality product expected by their fanboys, sorry - fan base - hurried it to market to be first, rather than best. They simply stopped caring.
Several modelers have experienced this with both offerings. What they do to remedy it is up to their own sense of quality.
Seeing the problem is the first step. It means you cared enough to notice the problem. If you care that much, you’ll probably work it out through trial and error. Not correcting it because you didn’t see it may leave you in blissful ignorance though. That is the conundrum.
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Nah, Blödsinn is more “nonsense”. Geneuzel is more things that may appear philosophical or “deep” at first, but on closer look make you go, “Yeah, whatever …”
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10 
Likes Rob. If there could be a single, base concept of our hobby, this is it.
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That frustration can be a positive if it motivates someone to learn and master the required skill or technique to resolve the problem. That is, one shouldn’t, IMO, let the frustration “have the final say.”
A second component in this equation, again IMO, is that the model artist has to be willing to finish and compete the project even with the knowledge that some aspect of it is not going to be “perfect.” That is, one shouldn’t allow the build to stall and become a “shelf queen” at the stage where the problem or less than prefect result has manifested itself.
We all know that this is really a very hard thing to do. I’m almost positive that every modeler who’s built more than just a couple of kits has at least one shelf queen that stalled out because of some frustrating problem or issue. The risks from this are twofold: one is that the experience and practice that would have been gained from completing the build is never gained, and two, when you do finally have the requisite skills or knowledge or ability to resolve the problem, you will have lost interest and motivation for the project. Artist have been struggling with the Muses for as long as art has been made, and modelers are certainly some of the worst when it comes to shelving or boxing projects in mid-stream while promising themselves that they’ll finish it once they have “mastered the solution” to the problem.
(Not that this is not the only reason why modelers stall out on their shelf queens but stopping a build because of a reluctance - fear? - of excepting less than a perfect outcome is one of those reasons…)
It can be a bitter pill to swallow, putting up a model on your display shelf that you know is not quite right, but I really do believe that growth and development are limited, if not impossible, if there’s no acceptance or acknowledgement of failure. You have to reach a point when you understand that there is no such thing as a “perfect” build. No matter how skilled or masterful you become, you will always find flaws in your work (even if others never see them). You cannot be afraid of failure because you can never complete a build without some mistake or room for improvement. Perfection is an unobtainable goal for anyone.
Acceptance and acknowledgement of this “truth” is critical and essential. However, once you have passed this point, you will have liberated yourself from many of your own self-imposed limits. Stopping a build in mid progress because it’s not coming out “perfect” is an obstacle that you put in your own path along the journey that we have been discussing.
Stopping work is one of the worst mistakes of all - again IMO. Now, in this regard, I’m not talking about a truly temporary pause while you research the answers and solutions and maybe even conduct some tests and experiments to practice those solutions before returning to the build at hand. In fact, speaking for myself, this is one of the joys of modeling, learning new techniques, methods and materials. But to reiterate, stopping the build and shelving or boxing it up for some future return is, IMO, almost always a “fatal error” in growth.
So, my advice FWIW, is to use your frustration as a positive incentive to seek out and learn and gain the experience needed to resolve the problem.
One thing that has helped me personally in the past is looking at other work that has successfully (and often masterfully) accomplished the task that I’m having issues with. Simply KNOWING that something CAN be done is very motivating for me. I suppose my ego comes to the fore and I see the problem (and someone else’s masterful solution of execution) as a personal challenge to be met. Like finding a mental mountain to be climbed or puzzle to be solved, simply having the problem and an example of the solution in front of me can be highly motivating. So, I do go through a frustration phase, but that frustration leads me to a challenge (to myself) to meet and master the problem (knowing that someone else could do it, I know that I can do it myself if only…).
As an example, I’ve always struggled with figure painting. For a very long time, I had to be content to paint figures that, while they were not totally embarrassing, were simply not as “good” as those of the modelers and figure artists that I admired and whose works I respected and wanted to emulate. Eventually, my frustration led me to the conclusion that I would have to make a concerted and concentrated effort to improve my knowledge, skills, and abilities. My work was not improving on an “organic, evolutionary” acceptable (to me) rate over the years. What I concluded was that I would have to sit down at my work bench and LEARN to paint better figures.
(Note that it took me almost 30 years to reach this conclusion and finally take some positive action to achieve this goal. As we used to say “in the business,” I may be slow, but I AM trainable…)
Nowadays, I am actually motivated by and find my Muse (such as she is, the ol’ battered b*tch) in projects that I deliberately choose because I know they’re going to present some particular challenging problem(s). Somewhere here on Kit Maker I have a thread for a rigged WWI biplane build that I did just because I’ve never built a rigged biplane (excepting the old Monogram Wright Flyer kit that I built when I was about 10 which had wonderful instructions and molded provisions on weaving the rigging out of sewing thread in almost a single piece). That entire build was rich with new and challenging model making tasks (in addition to the rigging, there were a number of airbrushing and finishing jobs which were new to me along with research into subjects I’d never really dug into) which is what made it so fun and engaging.
So…
The problem leads to frustration; which leads to challenge; which leads to motivation to learn new solutions; which leads to the satisfaction of meeting and resolving that problem; which results in the acquisition of a new skill, a new ability, or some new knowledge; which all makes you a better modeler. That is, if you will accept it, the frustration leads you to take some new path on the journey which ends in you becoming more experienced and creative.
Finally, I would leave you with an observation (that I’m sure you already know) and that is there is no shortage of modelers here who are perfectly happy and willing to share their own techniques and methods for just about any problem that comes up in model making. So, the “how to” information is out there even if the modeler still needs to sit down at the bench and walk the path himself.
In the end, you just have to be willing to take a chance on screwing something up before you can actually accomplish the task. There is always inherent risk of failure in the execution of every task, so you can’t do anything without taking that risk. Perfection may be the goal, but it’s as unobtainable as risk-free execution.
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It took me 20 seconds with the first kit, probably a Tamiya kit, that contained figures to decide that I couldn’t be bothered with the figures. Never looked back …
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I’m the complete opposite. The figures have always intrigued me, and I always try to incorporate them in any build, no matter what it is.
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For me, When I reach a point of need that is beyond what I know, I set the offending item aside. Because I care about what I am working on (or I would have not started on it) I don’t want to screw it up. Like Matt, if I know there is a problem I just ignored and kept moving I will forever be unhappy with the build. I try to figure out how to solve the problem whether that is asking advice of those that I think have had the problem before, or like you sit down and learn how to do it. Figure painting is a great example you used. I have discovered that my hands are not as steady as they once were, so fine detail is a challenge. Something I work on but may never master. I have been learning on my own to play the guitar. There are a few chords I haven’t been able to play yet because My fingers do not bent as well and I end up contacting extra strings. I don’t know if I ever will gain the dexterity, I want but I keep trying. My guitar sits about 8 feet from me as I sit here. I haven’t given up, just haven’t worked through the problem yet.
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