Worst model you ever built?

[Tom]

McKean Models HO 62' Centerbeam flatcar kit. The one with the Opera type "windows" (oval holes in the center beam). What a turd that POS turned out to be. The weight was too large to the two halves of the flatcar body, they didn't fit together right as they were not the same size (FAIL!), the parts were warped, the brake rigging was bent and wrong porportioned so it didn't all fit together, it was grossly underweight even when you DID try to shoehorn the weight into the cavity that it didn't fit, the sill steps were tiny fragile and thin, yet other details were double sized, the hand brake wheel looked like it was made for S scale, the trucks looked HORRIBLE, were warped and 3 of the 4 the plastic wheel sets were out of gauge, one GROSSLY (I think it was gauged around 36-40") and the couplers sagged BIG TIME in that piece of plastic they called a coupler box. I got it finished, took one look at it, said something nasty about the amount of $$$ I paid for it (which IIRC in 1997 was around $13.50 or so), and as it sat there, warped, only a few of the 8 wheels actually touching the ground, I got so P.O.'d that I picked it up, dropped it on the floor of the crew room, and proceeded to stomp on it once with my steel toed work boots and carried the remains of it outside and tossed it in a passing scrap gon. The thing was so light weight, only half the pieces made it to the top of the gondola and inside of it. I then went back to work out in the yard and swore I'd never buy another McKean model ever again. A coworker told me he had problems assembling McKean Covered hoppers and told me he'd never buy another of their models either. It's no wonder they are now out of business and deservedly so.