I'm finding that as my layout becomes more finished (it's never finished, right?), more and more of my time is spent doing repairs. I knock trees down while cleaning, break guard rails off of bridges cleaning the rails, today I broke the top of my 'In-n-Out Burger' sign off by accident....grrrr.... Nothing that can't be fixed, but I sure hate to do stuff 2 or more times! Am I just a clutz, or have other folks experienced the same thing ?
Gee - and I thought it was just me. I try and take good care of my rollingstock, only to consistently break off a wheel there, a railing there...
I'm a 'leaner'...that should pretty well answer the question. If it aint broke...you aint tryin !!:tb-wacky::tb-sad:
Dont forget the glues getting old & letting go, or sides of buildings that start getting that funny bow to them. Colors fade & old sets in(aint it fun)
Hey! No need to get personal laugh: Yep, All of the above. This weekend, I noticed a whole row of backdrop flats have started to come unglued. Or, I go to clean up a spider web that formed, and I knock three other items down. The worst, of course, is when you are working near something that is "finished", and the next thing you know, you've spilled some glue or paint or .....
Been there, done all of the above, including getting old. Had my share of ups and downs with plastic bldg walls wanting to warp, even with bracing months after the project was done. And it took awhile but finally figured out all by myself that I needed to paint or stain both sides of a wood wall with the wood structures..
Good thread, it helps to know there others out in layout land with the same problems as me. Except I seem to be making all the mistakes as I go, and don't even have the finished product up. And I have found that something easy for the majority of the planet can still be hard for me. I just feel sorry for the guys who have their layout almost totally finished but haven't done there backdrop yet....lol.
I think that as we 'get more finished', we have a lot more inventory / completed projects / square footage than in the beginning. That means we have more chances that one particular thing will get accidentally hit... or more chances that one of the many things we installed years ago will experience a failure. Basically, while "more is better", we could also say that "more = more things to maintain / break / fix". I think we are lucky to have that problem. Many people would like to have this problem, we should be thankful that is our situation, and do our best to share our experiences so that others can benefit and reach our level of 'this problem' sooner . And have fun doing it.
Yeah, Dave, as the others have stated, that is pretty much the way it goes. The more you add the easier it is to hit items. You have lots of nice things just waiting for attention.:laugh: After a year of having sand towers up I have gone for over two months with out hitting them with some thing. Oops, should not have said that. :confused7xq:
Soooo, basically from this thread I can say I'm doing very well by not even finishing my benchwork I don't have anything to break. Hmmm, Works for me.
but when you do finish the benchwork and lay track a couple summers later you may notice some kinks in the track that have magically appeared. There's always something, darn it. That's OK though as it helps you keep things fresh. I have seen some layouts that have not been dusted in, well forever, because the owner is afraid of damaging items that could use renewal anyway. I sure wish I had that problem.
As far as scenery goes, I have zero problems because, you guessed it, zero scenery. But rolling stock breaks in their jewel boxes overnight. And those fine Kato power units of which I'm so proud, one by one they've accumulated issues from dropping, overloaded running, and being forced into the wrong boxes. What's left, oh yeah! dropping the DigiZephyr and pulling out the bus. Supervising staff has called meetings for this. cute:
good to hear I'm not alone, misery loves company, I guess, right ? One thing I've learned when working on the layout -- wear short sleeves!! More than once I've knocked something over/busted something w/ the baggy sleeve of a sweatshirt...
My question is why? I gotta ask and I mean no disrespect. Are you in that big of a rush you can't be careful cleaning track? And yes I've seen that before at several clubs that I been a member of over the years. And yes a layout can be finish since finishing a layout only means the modeler took the layout as far as he wants it.
There are sometimes things on a finished layout that looked like such a good idea to begin with and several years later.... 1) The radio antenna on top of the Flagstaff freight depot. It's been snapped off at least six times. Finally put it back on with rubber cement, I give up. 2) The fuel tanks on the edge of the layout by Winslow, with all the GMM brass rails, steps, etc. They do not bounce. They are attracted to nylon jackets with strings hanging however. 3) The fence at La Posada, edge of layout. Usually fallen over from something. I blame N scale drunks. 4) The weathering on the gondola crane in Winslow is realistically enhanced with real dents from hitting real concrete floors. 5) Wood telephone pole crossarms with individual insulators. I'm working hard to develop a more damage-prone detail item concept, have not yet succeeded. Finally, while I don't have snow on my layout, I have been investigating using my operating rotary snowplow to be a high-speed track duster. When I ran it around the layout it seemed do a particularly good job of spiderweb detection in tunnels and hidden track.
