Glossary: Modeling Slang demystified

If you are following modeling blogs or websites, you might come across unfamiliar terms or abbreviations.

This article highlights a few of them and explains what´s behind it. It makes no claim to completeness.

• Aftermarket (AM): Additional parts from usually 3rd party manufacturers, designed to upgrade or replace parts of the kit, i.e. cockpit parts. Typical AM consists of decals, resin or photo-etched parts and can very quickly get very costly.
  

• Carpet monster: Phenomenon that occurs during the build process. It consists of dropping tiny parts on the floor, usually the carpet (hence the name), which are never to be seen again. Carpet monsters live underneath modeler´s workbenches and are always hungry. Their personality is pure evil.
  

• Flash: Unwanted bits of very thin plastic on parts where it does not belong, generally due to mould wear. Usually easy to remove.
  

• Glue bomb: Poorly assembled kit covered in excess, messy glue. Parts are often melted or welded together crookedly, cement oozes out of the seams, and details are obscured or ruined by fingerprints and thick paint. Often the result of a first-time or youthful builder rushing a project. Can be used as rebuilding challenge for experienced modelers.
  

• IP: =Instrument panel. Often subject on modeling blogs, as these parts contribute a lot to a spectacular cockpit and are usually encountered with tender loving care.

  
  

• Limited Run: Also referred to as short run kits. These are full kits, often supplemented by resin and PE parts, but manufactured with low pressure moulds that can be crafted with lower investment. The downside is that these moulds can only reproduce a limited number of sprues before their quality declines, hence the name. Usually designed for experienced modelers, as parts require more cleaning, rework and fit adjustments.
  

• Kit bashing: Consists of putting together kits with parts from different kits and / or manufacturers. The goal is to create a unique model, either fictional or to correct accuracy issues. Usually requires advanced modeling skills.
  

• Manual: Document that comes with every kit by default in order to provide guidance throughout the building process. Reading and understanding its contents will contribute to a successful modeling experience, following it even more. Often ignored by kit bashers (see above).
  

• OOB: =Out of (the) box. Applies to models that are built using the provided kit parts only, with no addition of aftermarket parts. Aftermarket masks for clear parts are a grey zone, but tolerated for a kit to still qualify as OOB.
  

• Panel lines: Structural demarcations of panels and maintenance hatches. Their count, accuracy and crispness provide a good indication of a kits quality. Recessed panel lines are considered superior to raised lines. The latter usually appear on older kits, when techniques of crafting moulds was not as advanced yet.
  

• PE: =Photo-etched. Usually very small and delicate parts of thin metal that are used to upgrade the kit parts. Typical aftermarket item.
  

• Preshading: Painting technique that consists of applying a dark paint in narrow lines on light primer. Typically, they are applied over panel lines before applying the scheme paint. The idea is to remain just below full coverage with the base paint, so that the preshaded areas appear darker, with the goal to create a subtle light effect. Can be supplemented by post-shading, which - as opposite - will slightly lighten up exposed panel areas.
  

• Resin: Another typical aftermarket item. Liquid resin is poured into form moulds, often made of silicone. Allows finer details and thinner parts where plastic would break, but is trickier to handle. As material, resin is more and more being replaced by 3D-printed parts.
  

• Scratchbuilt: Replacing blobby or under-detailed kit parts with self-made replacement. Can be pushed to the limit to create full models from scratch. Requires advanced to outstanding modeling skills and experience.

  
  

• Shake & Bake: Qualifies kits with clever engineering and exceptional part fit, that are therefore a joy to assemble ("Throw the parts into the box, pour in glue, shake the box, put it into the oven, and out comes a finished model"). Usually labels high quality kits from premium manufacturers, i.e. Tamiya.
  

• Shelf of doom: Indicates the place where unfinished, poor-quality and often failed kits sadly end up, with the idea of finishing it "someday". However, the US band Creedence Clearwater Revival already knew in 1972 that someday never comes. How right they were.
  

• Short shot: Refers to a glitch of the sprue moulding process that appears when an unsufficient quantity of plastic is injected into the moulds. Single parts come out incomplete. Can be quite annoying to rectify.
  

• Spare box: Storage box or similar vessel where unused parts from finished kits are stored for potential future use. After a number of kits, the box will turn into boxes, i.e. to separate clear parts, decals, ordnance etc. Can be very useful. You do have a spare box, don´t you?
  

• Stash: Place where unbuilt kits pile up within decades. A typical modelers new-year intention is to build more kits "from stash", so that at least it doesn´t further grow. It´s the good intention that counts, isn´t it?
  

• Tailsitter: Aircraft featuring a nose wheel, where the area behind the main landing gear is heavier than the area in front of it. According to basic physics, such a bird will not stand on the nose wheel, but - you guessed it- will sit on its tail. The most effective way to adress this is to add weight into the front fuselage, often tiny balls of lead. However, it can be quite a frustrating experience to teach a glass-nosed B-24D how to stand on her three legs.
  

• Wash: Painting technique that consists of pouring a very liquid dark colour into recessed panel lines or other areas. Is often used in combination with shading techniques.

  
  

• Weathering: A combination of several techniques that aim to make a model look worn, chipped, aged, dirty or beaten up in some other way. Some modelers even mistreat their birds with hot needles to simulate bullet hits. Whatever you want to delight your model with, the basic rule here is "a little goes a long way".
  

• Wunderkit: The term alludes to the late-war German "Wunderwaffen" (=miracle weapons) that never came. In modeling context, a wunderkit describes an exceptionally advanced, highly detailed, and perfectly engineered model kit that sets the benchmark. However, the word can also include an ironical connotation for over-engineered kits, or kits with a wealth of detail parts in invisible areas.

Do you have any more modeling slang words in mind? Feel free to drop me a mail!