On Saturday we drove over to see my family. It's birthday season again, so we had the usual get-together for these things. It was fun getting together again, even if I was reminded at times of why I left the small town in which I grew up (the dinner table conversations tended heavily towards other people's business, which reminded me all the more why I play my own doings so close to the vest, to the point of being a cipher, to a certain extent, to my own family). Still, it was fun and the food was good, and it was worth it all, as these things tend to be.
While I was there, I went through some of my old stuff and found a model I built about 12 years ago. It was a spectacular project based on an imported vacuform kit. At the time it was probably the most ambitious project I'd ever done. But my finishing skills weren't up to the challenge, and you can tell. Making matters worse, I put the rush on it so it would be ready for a contest (where the model finished third in its category, I recall). It ain't bad, but it ain't good. And the custom decals I had made for it don't match the typeface on the real machine, and that's long bothered me too. There are other things that make me cringe: there's a dried, brown glob where a Future overcoat got too thick and ran, and I gave the bare-metal surfaces what can be charitably described as an amateurish aluminum foil treatment that has since bubbled and wrinkled and torn. (It's also sustained slight paint damage, with a small but noticeable scrape to one section.)
I figured it was too neat to sit -- it's been sitting on that shelf gathering dust for 11 years, so I brought it home. And since Saturday evening, I've been of two minds about what to do. Should I just clean it up and leave it as it is as an artifact of a different time, or do I strip it, fix its flaws and work the magic of which I'm now capable? I do have to say, fixing it up and making it look rite is seriously tempting. When I originally built this beast, I got it about 80% there before things started to get weird on it.
Fixed up, it could be a marvel. I believe I may do that. But, first, I have to get other things done.
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