When do you decide to refurbish an old built model?

[Armor_Buff]

Stripped the paint on someone else’s nearly completed project after picking the kit cheap from a vendor at a show.

The bones appear good as it’s a quality kit, built with quality basic construction skill. I think it will just need a repaint and finishing.

Started wondering how other modelers think about refurbishments.

When do you decide to refurbish model?

What criteria?

Any special factors you like to consider?

How well do refurbished builds turn out in your experience?

Please feel free to post refurbish projects and results etc.

[SSGToms]

Hi Wade. I’ve stripped paint off of many (dozens) a finished model during the painting or weathering phase because something didn’t turn out right. But once a kit is done, if it doesn’t look right or it doesn’t place at AMPS or Armorcon, I put it on a back shelf in the “dead models” section. I really should bin them, but I keep them to remind me what I did wrong that looked so right at the time. I have never refurbished an old model. I don’t have the time or inclination. I’d rather pull a totally unstarted, fresh kit from the stash and start from scratch then try to fix what I did wrong on a previous kit. This new kit I will build and paint better and I know it, keeping in mind all the things I did wrong on that “dead kit”. The little erroneous details that my peer judges pointed out will be remembered and not repeated. I’d rather let that “dead kit” gather dust and move on to fesh plastic, which always carries with it the prospect of gaining a perfect score and maybe making me an AMPS Master. I still have a Monogram M-21 halftrack that I built when I was 14, in perfect condition, that has a black poster paint wash on it. I look at it now and LOL, but I would never refurbish it. It tells me loud and clear where I came from. And I have way too many excellent, unstarted kits waiting for me to go back, because I know where I’m going.

[SableLiger]

You could always use it to practice painting/weathering techniques. Much better to use a “dead kit” than damaging a new kit.

[Damraska]

I suck at models so my entire collection is a junkyard by the standards here.

When I mess up a model really bad such that it is unrecoverable given my abilities, it goes straight to the recycle bin. If I kept every severe screw up, they would quickly outnumber the moderate screw ups. (I kept the first few monstrosities, then realized they would quickly outnumber the merely bad.)

There is one exception. I have some older, moderately sucky models with flexible tracks. One or two are very old. Some day, I want to replace the tracks on those vehicles.

In summary, I am now too old to muck around with screw ups. I need to complete models, not wrestle with monstrosities of my own creation.

[SableLiger]

@Damraska

I am now too old to muck around with screw ups. I need to complete models, not wrestle with monstrosities of my own (or others) creation.

Fixed it for ya.

That being said. The one hand-me-down that i ever picked up and finished to my delight, was a Meng T-90A that I finished not too long ago. I chronicled it here

Hand-Me-Down T-90A from Meng - Armor/AFV / Modern - KitMaker Network

I was lucky the kit was 99% present, and I was able to use some parts from the Amusing Hobby T-90A kit.

Really proud of myself after completing someone else’s mess.

[barkingdigger]

I’m in the “no” camp - I have too many new ones to build! Back when I was doing trains I often rebuilt rolling stock, mainly stripping to repaint in my local line’s colours. But with plastic tanks there just isn’t as much need.

[Johnnych01]

Never. Any old built kits once I get bored of them may be stripped for potential spare or useful parts, then it goes into file 13. I dont have any shelf queens as once a kit is started, it gets built.

[Damraska]

@SableLiger

Fixed it for ya.

No. I only build my own stuff. That is problem enough.

[Armor_Buff]

Thank you.

The consensus appears to be too many new excellent kits to spend time on reworking old projects in general.

Overall, have to agree with that view.

As for being willing to work on a kit that someone else started, I’ve done that three times since 1987. Two were nightmares and the jury’s still out on the Centaur.

Aside from the Centaur, I have four old 1970’s models, I’m tempted to refurbish or at least repair.

The two 1/400 ships, I’m certain would be a nightmare to rework. Reattaching broken parts is probably reasonable and anything more pure folly.

Reworking the old 1/25 Tamiya Tiger, might not be too bad. It’s a temptation but any replacement parts will be difficult to find or require scratch work. Looks extremely time intensive.

This original 1970’s Tamiya JagdPanther is a real temptation given how many spare parts & extra updates are available.

[HeavyArty]

@barkingdigger

I’m in the “no” camp - I have too many new ones to build!

@Johnnych01

Never.

^^Ditto^^ I don’t see the reason to revamp an old kit when I can build a newer, better one.

[Hohenstaufen]

Did it once, many years ago. Revisited the first Tamiya Pz IV I made and gave it a reworked paint job. Otherwise it’s a big no. My stash is going to more than see me out, so I’m looking forwards, not backwards.

[Pawel]

You’re right, re-doing an old model is a lot of work. But I do it from time to time (which is probably crazy). Here, let me show you what I’ve been through.
First, the king of reworks… Once I bought my first truck model. Out of the box it’s a very bad model and after a few years of displaying it it got damaged and looked like this:

I started to disassemble it and rework it big time. I corrected the chassis:

And the cab, too:

And that’s about where I was cought by a major move 10 years ago and since then this project is sitting in a box…

More on that here: Mack RW rebuild - FineScale Modeler - Essential magazine for scale model builders, model kit reviews, how-to scale modeling, and scale modeling products

Another one I called “Ol’ glue” is a 1:72 M48A2C by ESCI. I have built it in the early nineties and it was a total wreck back in 2011 when I decided to rebuild it, because I didn’t want to throw it away and I also couldn’t look at it:

After throwing in some new parts, Revell wheels and suspension and some aftermarket it turned out like this:

Here’s the whole story: 1:72 M48A3 Vietnam DONE! - FineScale Modeler - Essential magazine for scale model builders, model kit reviews, how-to scale modeling, and scale modeling products

I’ve also had a Soviet-issue Frog Beaufighter that I also didn’t want to throw away and couldn’t look at it because it was such a glue bomb. So I cleaned it up and here’s how it turned out:

Just thought of another one - a rebuild of a first model that I bought for my day’s earnings:

So again, doing it is quite crazy, but I’ll do it if I want to save a model that is somehow special from being thrown away. Usually it involves buying another kit or a lot of parts, so it doesn’t really make sense, but let’s face it - a hobby isn’t 100% rational, is it?

Thanks for looking and have a nice day

Paweł

[Taffy3]

I was given this Trumpeter E.100 by a fellow club member who had done the major assembly. He had given up on it because the tension of the tracks was too much for the plastic axles of the sprocket and idler wheels, causing them to bend and break under the pressure. I cut them free and used metal axles as replacements. The kit was also missing a lot of small parts such as tools and the IR gear. I scrounged up replacements from the spares box and purchased a set of IR equipment from Bronco.

I just wanted to see what, if anything, I could do with it, and am quite happy that I tried.

[Namabiiru]

I don’t. 1) It’s too much effort, 2) Not as much joy as digging into a new kit (the undiscovered country!), and 3) when I see the ones on the shelf that didn’t turn out the way I planned, they serve as inspiriation to do better the next time.

[Dioramartin]

I only did it once, and only because I got paid to do it. It was a book-seller who gave me cost-price on a heap of specialist modelling books like Achtung Panzers etc. for several years…um…before he went bust. He once gave me a 75% completed old Tamiya Tiger 1 and asked me to make it a Battle of the Bulge version. Hmmm…those of you who know about that would know I was in a quandary. But hey for fifty bucks back in 1999, whatever & he was delighted…and no there’s no photographic evidence…of the model either.

[Uncle-Heavy]

@Namabiiru

they serve as inspiriation to do better the next time.

That, or in my case, as a warning example …