Does Future Go Bad?

Yes.

Yes it does.

Plastic model kit building is one of those activities where you are out there on your own. I’ve read about people who can make a “social activity” out of it and I’m intrigued the same way I’m intrigued with headhunters in New Guinea.

But for me, model building is me against the world. The Old Man and the Sea. I win some. I lose some.

Several weeks ago I began to “run into trouble” with my clear flat. It’s a mix of one part Tamiya Flat Base to two parts Future (by volume). It has always worked well for me but in this case there was clouding and then there was not a dead-flat finish.

Something was wrong.

I looked at my twenty-year old bottle of Future.

Can it be, my friend, that you and I are no longer on the same path?

There was about one ounce left in the bottle. It had served me well. But I threw it away because, you know, I had my suspicions.

So I opened up a fresh bottle.

Like so many other things we do every twenty years or so, this required a celebration. Unfortunately, when you’re the Old Man and you’re At Sea you just hold on to that line and keep praying.

The “new” bottle was about, uh, twenty years old.

But, hey, what’s age? It’s just a number, right?

I tried to use it and the result was so bad I had to use Windex to remove the Future and start over. It was horrible. So I had to face up to the painful truth.

My Future had gone sour. Apparently, the stuff won’t last, sitting on a shelf, for twenty years.

It was sad, but I put that bottle of Future away where it will (probably) never be used. I put it under the kitchen sink. I then brought out my very last bottle of Future. It’s only about ten years old.

It works fine.

But in ten years or so, I’ll be out and I’ll have to find some more.