OMG, there goes the glue....
During a build I at least knock over two bottles of paint, one bottle of glue, one cup of thinner etc.etc.etc.
I'm I the only one or is this quit common amongst us builders

Not as umcommon as you may think.
I've knocked over paint bottles before and that's really irritating. But the worst is the liquid glue. I knocked one of those over once and ruined a build. Since then, I glue the bottle down to a piece of plywood so that I can't knock it over.

Now there's a good tip !! I recently knocked over a bottle of thinner on a plastic model........and you know what thinner does to plastic.......

Hey,I don't know but for me there has been just some of those days where every single thing goes wrong and nothing goes right.Plus there are those other times I find what I was suppose to be doing is wrong because instructions,placing a part in the wrong place,etc.

I'll join the ranks:
-of each bottle of glue I spill at least 30%
-I've knocked over and spilled amoniac over working area and model
-I managed to knock over a single bottle of Gunze Sangyo's Maschinengrau FS twice while trying to dilute it for airbrushing.The result was- half empty bottle, the rest all over my legs,hands and working place, and dilution done with pipette...
-because I'm using AK Rust Streaks for exhaust pipes painting I frequently knock the bottle down.

I assume it is part of the hobby

I have yet to go through a whole bottle of testors liquid glue without spilling since they went to the round bottles. When it first came out it was in a nice hard to spill square bottle like the Tamiya.

And I have yet to spill the Tamiya.

Though I have been awfully lucky to spill only where there are no parts to ruin. Very lucky.

How about dropping the modelling knife, point down, into my foot, on more than one occasion?

Since you're from Japan this sounds to me like the ultimate Modellers-Harakiri

Well,I've had several "near misses" with Excel Heavy Duty knife and my feet.
But I've knocked over Tamiya's Extra Thin glue...
And yes-I've also had these days when everything goes wrong-tiny PE parts pinging,small plastic part dropped consecutive times till finaly lost for good,AB suddenly cloging, model hit accidentaly so half hour of work goes lost...Then I just do a rest,have a smoke and leave modelling for better hour.

Not on glue, but decal solution Micro sol.
PE parts never to be seen again, until you are not looking for it , and find it all mashed , and unusable.
Mineral spirits in a small cup.
Alcohol in the eye.
Air brush spitting all of a sudden, on the top coat.
Little white flakes in Dull coat, that become chips. LOL
Knife just missing foot , with a brand new sharp blade.
List can get pretty big.
But hey the final product, worth the oops.

Cheers

I count two mishaps with Tamiya Extra Thin. Never ever thought that a flat, square bottle can be tipped over...

I haven't skewered myself with and Xacto but don't ask me how I know that Wilder tweezers are sharp as a stiletto.

Otherwise, I have flooded the work area with liquid glue and paint and thinner. Even had a tube slue - skewered by an Xacto - squirt more glue into my palm than onto the model part!

Building gray model ships over gray shag carpet...

I painted my concrete floor white to better find dropped parts but they usually bounce until they find a dark corner...

Long string of epoxy across a canopy...

Long ago, tried to smooth the paint of a wing with Floquil Dio-Sol...dried rough as sandpaper.

Dropped a small machinist square and demolished the hull the square was intended to square up.

Most everything the rest of you gents have written, you can count me in the club.

Oh, my Tamiya Extra Thin? Once I made the mistake of setting it on my car while I put things away. Forgot it. It rode down the driveway but the curb jarred the jar...that nasty stuff dissolved and permanently discolored the asphalt!

Yup, all part of the fun.

My best was knocking over a bottle of Humbrol glue onto a brand-new cutting mat - that stuff "ate" all the lovely white markings off the mat! (And had to abandon the model-bench for a few hours until the air cleared enough to see straight...)

Since discovering files and sanding sticks I no longer have long fingernails - anyone else use their fingers as the sanding depth-gage?

On a few occasion, I have dumped bottles of Plasti-weld-ON KITS.

I used to have a 2x4 with holes in it that were the size of the paint and glue bottles I used. But It was destroyed when the house burned down and I haven't made a new one.

It's a well-known phenomenon called Resistentialism - google it but in short it's the innate malevolence of inanimate objects. I only just got the opportunity to refer to it in my GAZ AAA Quad build over on the Soviet/Russian forum

Thanks guys, you all saved me a lot of money since I just cancelled my appointment with the shrink

I've learned the hard way to set up my desk so that the glue, paint, whatever is off to the far right and toward the back of my work area. It makes it a bit more of a deliberate move to get to it, but that has saved many goofs.
I also keep the work area completely free of anything that is not being worked on directly. No extra tools or anything.
Sort of trigger discipline for the work area.

Funny. I've held onto one of those old square bottles. I refill it from the new round bottles. Saves me from disasters...

THe glue I spilled was the Tamiya Cement which comes in A SQUARE BOTTLE ( guess I'll call my shrink anyway...)

Here's a couple of tips to help prevent spills and accidents:

1) I keep my glues and solvent bottles in a small, flat bottomed aluminum high sided dish just a little larger than the bottle. I also have a rubber suction cup used for moving glass panes that has the bottom cut out of it. I place bottles of Micro-Weld and other tall cement bottles in it, and it keeps them from tipping.

2) I've had my share of pointy-end knife accidents. I can't help any of you with a lack of coordination, if you drop it from your hand. But I've had my share of accidents where the X-acto knife just rolls off the table and sticks into a leg or foot. To stop this, there are several methods you can use-- I prefer using the triangular shaped pencil grip tubes you can find at stationary and teacher supply stores, cut into small sections and slipped over the handle. However you can just as easily use a piece of tape wound around the handle with a small "flap" hanging out.

Now for my glue mishap story--My wife was recovering from foot surgery, and was immobile for several weeks. I was her caregiver, and couldn't spend any time building models as my workbench is out of earshot if she needed anything. But there were times during the day she'd be asleep for long periods. I was bored, so I moved a project to our heavily varnished parquet surface wood dinning table in our little used formal dinning room where I could still hear her if she needed me. I was working over a metal baking sheet, gluing the suspension for a Sherman tank together. Occasionally, I'd set the cap from a bottle of Tamiya extra thin cement down with the brush pointing up on the metal sheet. I didn't realize there was a small crack in the top of the cap. My wife called me just as I applied a large amount of glue to the brush. In my rush, I set the cap upside down directly on the table top and was gone for about a 1/2 hour. When I came back, the Tamiya cap had firmly "glued itself" to the varnish of the table top! The perfectly round image of the cap had melted into the finish, with the anti-slip ribs of the cap looking just like an official inspection stamp permanently "branded" into the table top. I was tempted to try to sand it out and touch it up with some clear gloss, but in the end I just covered it with a placemat to hide it. After several weeks, I'd forgotten about it. When my wife recovered some months later, she was changing the place mats and commented "look at that, I must have set something hot on the table the last time we ate in here and it melted into the finish-- oh no". I just kept my mouth shut. Now I'll need to refinish the table at some point I suppose.
VR, Russ

Been there done that. So now I have several small pieces of scrap 2x4 or 5/4 board on my workspace that I have predrilled different size holes with a spade drill bit. Don't drill all the way through the wood. Tipping and spill problem solved, put your bottle or bottles of paint and glue that you are currently using in one of the holes and never spill the contents of a bottle again. Drill several smaller holes in your board and you can have a place to temporarily place your paint brush, file or anything else that's round. If you're a woodworker you can make additional square or rectangular holes with your chisels.
Alternately, drill your holes all the way through your board and then nail/glue and trim to fit a second thin board as a suitable bottom.

I seem to recall the origins of "child-proofing." ... Now I must "Grandpa-proof" everything within my elbow's arc!

Out of paranoia, good habits arise. ... I never place my eyedrops anywhere near my very similar looking paint bottles. ... Wouldn't want to mess up a perfectly good model by painting it with eyedrops! 😜

—mike

When my kids were young...my son, probably about 3, decided to help himself to 3 or 4 kits by chewing up on them...and decided as well to share them with the dog. Luckily, no parts ingested by either, but ruined 3 of the 4 kits, and my pride! I thought I had put the kits well out of reach...and to this day can't figure out how they were accessed.

Well I just had my moment, again.
I had just airbrushed a couple of parts and went to pour the extra paint back into the pre-thinned bottle of XF-58 when my hand jerked and half a bottle of paint turned and portion of the work area olive green.
Fortunately it was setting on a work surface next to my spray booth set aside just for pouring and mixing paints, thus the only causality, other than my pride, was half of a totally replaceable bottle of thinned paint.
Hey it happens. All we can do is mitigate the harm done.