First Models

General Discussion General Modeling Discussion
1

So I’ve been working on 3 1/48 F/A-18Cs (revell) for a little while now. As she would see me pull them out to work on them, my 3 year old daughter kept asking me if (informing me that) she could help. So today while I was out I grabbed her a 1/72 snaptite F-14 at my LHS. So we put it together (I worked the sprue clippers and she “sanded” before I’d line up the pieces for her to click them together. She definitely took a little artistic license with the decals (stickers) but hey, she’s three. She then proceeded to fly it all over the living room.

This got me thinking, what was the first model you ever built and where did it come from/who did you build it with?

Also, have you given/worked on someone else’s first kit?

My first kit was working on a 1/350 USS Missouri with my dad (might have been the Tamiya one). I remember he painted the red part of the hull and the deck and did all of the small AA guns in gunmetal. After some minor progress over a couple years, I finally took over and finished the thing (with lots of bare grey plastic). From there I was off on my own building just about every Navy jet I could get my hands on (mostly 1/48 F/A-18s which is what dad flew). I also ended up throwing in an apache, an A-10, and an F-4 (all with some interesting camouflage paint schemes). I’ve been building ever since. I sure hope it sticks with my daughter, it would be a great way to bond, and hey she’s into superheros and legos, so who knows?

Groot

2

Well for me this would be about fifty years ago,so I can’t say for sure,but it probably was an Aurura monster kit,like Godzilla,King Kong,Frankenstein,or The Creature.I had them all at onetime or another.

3

Back in the early 70’s, my first kit was a 1/24th scale Mongoose dragster and I asked my dad to help. What’d I do? I literally took every single part off those plastic trees by hand. Thinking back on it - no wonder my dad couldn’t put it together. Some of the more delicate pieces, I broke and rendered it useless. LOL!

Fast forward when I made another attempt only this time with a snap kit of a dragster. then I bought another and from then on I was hooked and before you know it, I moved up to using tube glue and paint.

4

My first model was an Aurora Zero that was molded in yellow. I guess I built it myself but I was only around 6 or 7 so it couldn’t have had many parts. I do remember that my grandmother sat on it while it reposed on a chair!

Gary

5

My first model was a Revell 1/72 Corsair. My Aunt bought it for me for my 8th birthday in 1965. I built by myself, with “detail painting” only, and sticking the decals on the bare plastic. Around 1973 or so, when the MPC Profile series came out, I painted it in Testors square bottle Flat Sea Blue paint, and a Reserve’s band in Testors Square bottle Orange.

A couple of years ago, Jeffrey Harrison was talking about “retro modeling”, his idea was to build yesterday’s kits with today’s technology and paints, but, without any aftermarket parts.

So, I dug this out of an old storage box, my first model.

The prop was still okay, but, some of the landing gear parts were pretty broken up, so, I took some spare parts from the “Corsair spare parts box” and found a couple of bottles of Testors Square Flat Sea Blue. I cleaned it, sanded it, filled the fuselage seam better, and painted it with a brush, decaled it for the last time, and handbrushed Future over it.

The model is out in front of some of the more expensive models in my display case,after all, it is a tribute to Jeffrey, now, as well as my Aunt.

I still have my first model ship from a few years later on in life, I plan to refurbish that old Revell flat bottom Carrier to honor Uncle Fritz, he gave that to me even as my Dad protested that the kit was “too expensive for a ten year old to ruin”

Rex

6

My first kit was a 1/72nd Hasegawa RA-5C Vigilante kit back around 1970/1971 (I was either 6 or 7 years old at the time). My dad bought it for me, and helped me build it. I still remember that it had the removable engines, the vertical stabilizer swiveled, and it showed the weapons release cone on the tail. Don’t remember painting it, and I kept breaking the nose gear strut on it almost constantly.

7

My first model was an F101 voodoo that my mother got me, probably about 7 years old (this was in the early 60s)

8

MPC Pacer Wagon. Dad helped be glue it together. I painted the body testors square bottle silver. About 1977-78

9

Hard for me narrow it down to the first, but, I’m thinking in the mid to late 70s, it would have been a Revell van model. It was back when customized vans were all the rage. I remember it was a beach themed van with surfboards on the roof and a full interior. My brother and I both got the same one. I think he tried to paint his just ‘welded’ mine together with, I’m sure, an entire tube of Testors glue.

I do remember my first military model. It was a MPC 1/72 P-47 I bought at a local variety store. I do remember that it was built in 1980 and I painted it by hand with Testors brown on top and Testors Flat light blue underneath. It was my first painted model.

10

Rex,

Great to see you still have your first model kit.

This is my first model, a 1/700 Matchbox HMS Exeter. She turned 30 last August (Mom got me the kit in 1983). I completely restored her in 1998 (15 years after I first built it), and here’s how she looks now.

11

Have no idea what my first kit was but I know my dad bought it when I was just a kid 40+ years ago. I can be safe in saying it was either shot up with my BB gun or blown up with firecrackers…probably both.

12

I think my first kit was a snap-tite F-14 Tomcat. I did that one when I was in 4th or 5th grade. My first paint/glue kit, I believe, was the Jupiter 2 from the crappy '90s Lost in Space movie (well, I liked it). I was probably about 11 or 12 at the time. I still have it somewhere, and for my being 11-12 years old, it wasn’t that bad. I did a couple kits after that, but completely dropped the hobby shortly thereafter. I didn’t get back into it until just a couple years ago, when I picked up a Revell F-14 Tomcat. That one is still on my shelf. Compared to more recent efforts, it looks like hell, but I was (and am) proud of it for my first effort back into the hobby.

13

I build my first model when I was 5, together with my late grandfather. It was a 1/144 F-15.

Here is another very early model that we build. Notice how my grandfather cut out all the decals and glued them on with the backing paper!

But he did taught me the basics like test fit, observe the instructions, clean up before glueing etc etc. I also remember building a 1/144 B-17 and 1/72 P26 together. My first solo build was an 1/144 F-14.

14

There is the first model I ever tried to build, and the first I actually finished. Don’t remember the former, but do remember the later. I started getting kits when I was about five years old, as presents. These were the stick and tissue flying models. I couldn’t read well enough to build them. I was about seven when I finished the first one. It was a Guillows Aeronca Champion. That would have been 1945. Continued to build both flying models and shelf scale (first balsa “solid models” and then plastic). After moving to an area of bad weather and notoriously long winters, I gave up on the flying models and build mostly static scale models now. Every few years I do build a rubber flying model, though.

15

I remember my first kit like it was yesterday, Was 1965 when my mother bought me an Eastern Airlines DC3. And remember my brother buying for me the Aurora U505 for a couple of bucks. Nice memories!

16

This was my first model…

and this was my second…

and both painted with this color… (I think)

Both are long gone…

17

Haha! Stik, do they even produce Testors paint nowadays?

I remember having Pactra bottles in my desk back in the 80s (I even had some Pactra-Tamiya bottles). I still remember distinctly how they smelled. Haha

18

hmm, Dinosaur models made of plastic is almost like some sort of time loop. It must be very close to feeding a chicken some eggs for breakfast.

(the Dino/Oil line was the second thing I thought of, Stik, the first had to do with “being so old we modeled Dinosaurs, tanks came along a longgggg time later”)

I remember the Revell 1/720’s well, my favorite part was fitting that lower hull to the upper hull ridge, lol, I had to build two of each one I tried, just to learn how to get one built right.

Rex

19

Wow,I can’t remember my first one.i honestly can’t remember not building models.must have started at age 6 or 7.I’m currently 57. I do remember doing a lot of battleships.no need to paint as they were molded in gray…and when your 6 or 7 that’s good enough.

20

Darn Stik, that cruiser brought back a lot of memories. I built that eons ago.