Model airplanes and cars...I'm getting old!

[cheese1566]

Anyone remember putting together model airplanes and hanging them from fishing line in your bedroom while growing up as a kid?

I used to put together WW2 and Vietnam era jet fighters and hang them from the ceiling on fishing line in my bedroom when I was a young lad. Many a dogfights occurred in the twilight hours!!!

Or putting together plastic model cars?


Seems like a lost thing in the recent generations...I recall every department store toy section had Testers or MonoGram plastic models to build. Now I have to go to Hobby Lobby or an expensive hobby store to recount my youth!

I was able to re-visit my youth and helped the 11 year old stepson build and shoot off some Estes model rockets. At least in this age I was able to modernize and fasten a cheap digital key fob video camera on the side of one and record the lift off! When I grew up (and still have it!), Estes Rockets made the AstroCam Rocket that housed a plastic camera <<that one assembled like a model car>> that used 110 film camera and took one shot at it's peak. Can't even find any 110 film anymore...

Good Times!!

[plmitch]

I have good memories spending time building cars, trucks and planes. Think I may have even done a boat of two. Miss those days.......never could get my sons to like building them.

[John Allen]

I built many a model as a kid. It seems like this is slipping away. It is a shame.

[smokeywolf]

Revell made the best kits. I had Corsairs, P-38s, Lockheed Constellations, Republic Thunderbolts (the Jug), Corvettes, Chevelles, El Caminos.

smokeywolf

[CastingFool]

I still have some model cars I put together. They are somewhere in our storage closet in the basement.

[richhodg66]

One of the reasons kids don't do it much anymore is the kits and stuff to build them are so expensive now. Have you gone in a hobby shop lately? A lot of the same kits I built are still in production and are a lot more expensive now even allowing for inflation.

My brother and I shared a room and had many, many WWII airplanes hanging from the ceiling. When Iw as about to outgrow the hobby, I started high school and took Air Force JROTC where I got extra credit and won some competitions for building model planes.

My brother and I used to spend our spare time looking for returnable soda bottles along the sides or the roads and would turn them in at the grocery store for the nickel deposit. We could usually scrape enough change up in a week or two for at least one of us to get a model kit from the drug store in town after a couple of weeks.

[MaLar]

I built balsa model air planes and flew them, and hung them in my room.
Flying went along with crashing and rebuilding them. still have some 45 years later.

[cheese1566]

No matter how I tried, I always got glue on the windshields and made them blurry with the glue on my fingertips.

I learned a lot from my older brothers watching old war movies and copying how they did their planes...Where Eagles Dare... Guns of Navarone...Tora, Tora, Tora... Midway...and not to mention the favorite- Kelly's Heroes!

[starmac]

I built several model cars, and a balsa wood airplane that lasted about 2 seconds into it's first flight, built one more that might have lasted 6 seconds, and that was the extent of my flying career. lol

[gspgundog]

My father and I would sit for hours building WWII aircraft, tanks and trucks. We would take over the kitchen table as our workshop, him with his pot of coffee and cigarettes. Sometimes we would modify the kit to make it look like one or another was destroyed. As I got old enough to do a good job by myself my father moved on to the big sailing ships, "Old Ironsides" and such.

Thanks Cheese it has been years since I thought about those quality hours we spent together.

[Bad Water Bill]

I built a balsa plain while on board the USS Independence floating in Gitmo bay.

Never having flown one I let a 1st class with lots of practice fly it off of the flight deck and do many different stunts.

Now it was my turn to be a pilot.

15 seconds later I was now part of the fire and rescue team.

The remains are STILL sitting in my basement and still bring back memories.

[devinp]

Before I got into reloading I received a Traxxas Rally as a gift. That thing was fast and fun. I got it close to 70km/h on the highway. Absolutely every part was changeable, which I definitely needed as it seems that I spent more time fixing and upgrading it (spending lots and lots of money I mean) than I did driving it. I'm trying to sell it right now so that I can afford another rifle. It seems that I can only afford one hobby right now.

[mnkyracer]

I built many models, but don't think I ever finished detailing any of them. A couple decals here and there, then it was off to be used for .22 practice. The same with my sisters' dolls, stuffed animals, etc. do that today, and someone would probably send me for a psyc eval.

[Springfield]

Now the kids put together LEGO stuff. It is all based on some dumb movie or cartoon, and you can't even play with them because they don't hold together. Most of my son's legos end up in a big bucket. I bought a Big Boy train model and we are gong to put it together this summer, teach him what REAL model building is about.

[abunaitoo]

I remember the kits used to be $2.00.
Used to ride my bike to the "Model shop" to buy a kit when I saved enough.
Started out with planes, went to tanks, then cars. Even did some monsters at one time.
Those were great times.
I went to a hobby store a little while ago to buy some bress tubing.
Same kit I paid $2.00 for is now $22.00!!!!!!!
Kind of feel sorry for kid these days.
Friends son is in the 7th grade. Has no idea how to use a electric screwdriver.
Kids don't know how to make anything these days.
All they know is TV, computers, and cell phones.
Lots of kids I talk to have never even been camping.
Sad

[dsbock]

Tamya and Italieri had the most accurate WW II armor kits. My dad and I would spend hours at the dining room table building and painting airplanes, tanks, and ships.

Francois Verlinden put out a series of books on accurately painting and weathering plastic models as well as planning and building dioramas.

Great memories.

David

[BruceB]

.... and then some of us never really lose the love of modeling.

We advance (if that's the term) to model railroading, or radio-control, or even (Heaven save me!) to the post-graduate level.

THAT is the building of scale historic sailing ships, beginning with building the hull from bulkheads and then sheathing both the hull and the decks with individual planks, and continuing right up to the incredible complexity of the rigging.

On some of these sailing ship models, the rigging actually works after a fashion.... pulling a certain line will trim one of the yards around.

It's not at all difficult to spend many hundreds of dollars for such a kit, and construction time can run to months (if not years).

"The difference between men and boys....."

When my folks were building-on a family room with fireplace and complete basement, the mason approached me one day (I was in my mid-teens) and asked why the fireplace drawings called for a 4"-wide by 6"-high hole right through the width of the foundation, a good fifteen feet long.

Answer: it was a TUNNEL for the model railroad!

By that time, Dad and I were laying track using individual ties and miniature railroad spikes to hold the rails in place. Using a track gauge, the spikes were "driven" with needle-nose pliers. The stretch of track through the fireplace tunnel was the most rigorously-inspected track we ever laid, because a derailment in there would be a dreadful problem.

We never had any difficulty with it.

[Ramar]

The AMT 3in1 car model kits were my favorite in the 50's; they led to my street rodding in the 60's. My sons worked on the "Visible V8" for their combustion engine knowledge. I still get out in my '32 sedan on Sundays.... Ever take apart a "Mr. Machine"?
Ramar

[theperfessor]

Used to love building model kits as a kid, everything from cars and planes to the "visible dog" and famous movie monsters. Maybe that's why I love to build things today. I have a couple of airplane kits stockpiled right now (a P47 Thunderbolt and an A10 Warthog), might get them out and work on them in the near future.

Fun stuff, good thread.

[Charley]

Was an IPMS/USA (International Plastic Modeling Society/USA branch) for many, many years. Local chapter is still going strong, and has many junior members. I built aircraft. my favorites being WWI, 20's, 30's and Battle of Britain aircraft. Also did a fair number of "movie aircraft" Produced masters for a small company in Dallas for a few years, we did short run epoxy based molds, good for about 1500 shots, but a LOT cheaper than steel molds. Still injection molding, more popular than vacuform kits. Last release we did was a Caproni CA-3, using the aircraft in the USAF museum as the primary reference. A friend of mine scratchbuilt one and won first place in the IPMS nationals that year for best WWI aircraft. I really don't build any more, too many other irons in the fire.

here's an example or two of my work, first is a Curtiss P-1, in the alleged colors of the IGAS, for the movie Wings.Attachment 107156

Second is a Morane-Saulnier 230, done as the mysterious "High Speed Monoplane" from the movie The Blue Max
Attachment 107158