My 24-hour build experience

The 24-hour group build on Facebook is over, and I’m sorry to report that I didn’t finish my Monogram 1/72 A-1E Skyraider.Time got away from me, despite working on it until 2 am Saturday night. I spent about 14 hours in total, which was almost sufficient to build the model in its entirety. If I had allocated another two hours, I think the model would be complete.

Here’s my after-action report.

What worked in my favor

Despite not finishing the Skyraider, I still think it was a good choice. As I wrote earlier this week, it has very few colors, making painting relatively quick and easy. And luckily I didn’t have to do any touchups.

Pre-planning was very helpful, and I should do this more often. For example, I made sure that when I painted black, I painted the interior, wheels, and prop.

I followed some of my own advice for building models faster, which I’ve written about over the last few years. I painted the interior black, didn’t spend much time on the underside, and didn’t obsess over minor seams.

Finally, I didn’t add much detail. The cockpit is a massive black void of nothingness, but detailing it would’ve sent me down a wormhole of lost time. I thought about replacing the exhaust stubs with brass tubing, but that, too, would’ve cost precious time. I did, however, replace the pitot tube (?) on the vertical stabilizer with telescoping tubing.

What worked against me

The Monogram A-1E features raised panel lines, which I knew I wanted to rescribe. Even though there are minimal panel lines, the task was more time-consuming than I’d expected. And I skipped rescribing the lines on the underside!

Even though there weren’t many colors on the model, I’m fastidious when it comes to cleaning my airbrush. Each airbrushing session is followed by a cleaning, and that was a time suck. I probably spent the equivalent of an hour doing just that.

I underestimated the time required to mask the Skyraider’s canopy. Tedious to be sure! That said, I was very happy with the outcome, a reminder that canopy masking need not be as frightening as always anticipate.

I didn’t  finish the Skyraider, but I’m okay with that. As I told a friend on Saturday, despite the goal of finishing a model in 24 hours, I didn’t want to sacrifice quality. I’d rather stop where I did, take a breather, and wrap up the final tasks over the next week. As I said earlier today, the best part of the experience was simply spending an extended amount of time at the workbench doing what I enjoy most.

The same group of guys has already schedule next year’s 24-hour build, though it appears to be intended only for car modelers. If you’re interested, you can join their Facebook group.

Here are links to my earlier articles about building models more quickly.

5 ways to increase your output
Paint it black and close it up

A 24-hour build

I recently shared a Facebook post from a group of modelers who organize an annual 24-hour model build, this year planned for the weekend of January 25. Their objective is "to get together with friends or by oneself and completely build a model of your choice wholly within a 24 hour period. It is a challenging endeavor but highly satisfying to complete successfully.”

So — Gary, John, Chip, Jeff, Carver, and George — I’m in! I’ve joined the Facebook group to participate.

I’m nervous. I’m a notoriously slow modeler, usually completing only four or five models per year. I’ve often looked to the Christmas and New Years holiday as an opportunity to crank out a single model, but I’ve never been successful. Doing that in 24 hours seems incredibly daunting, but the enthusiasm of this group has inspired me.

Having joined the group, I had to select a model for the build. I really do want to finish the model in the required timeframe, so my choice is crucial to setting myself up for success. After thinking it through, I came up with a few criteria.

• The model has to be relatively small; the fewer the parts, the better.

• I like using pin washes, so to avoid having to spend too much time rescribing any raised panel lines, the model would ideally have engraved panel lines.

• The paint scheme should be relatively simple. Masking, painting, and touching up three or more colors would be very time consuming.

• The aircraft cannot feature much, if any, ordnance, which would be a big time suck.

• Most importantly, the model had to excite me. The prospects of spending this time on something less won’t keep me engaged.

I’ve selected the very old Monogram 1/72 A-1E. Yes, it has raised panel lines, but rescribing them shouldn’t be terribly time-consuming, particularly given that the remainder of the kit is very basic. I’ll use Caracal decals for an all-blue AD5, so painting and masking time will be minimized. I built the model back in high school, so there's a strong nostalgia factor for me as well.

I’m excited about this challenge! Anyone care to join the group? Click here to join the Facebook group.