Hi all, i was having a discussion with a friend of mine and the subject of modelling time came up. He was saying that I built an awfull lot more planes than most. I put this down to the fact that I can get, If i want to, a good couple of hours an evening and depending on my shift im working, maybe more. This is mainly because I hate the wife…No…Joking Dear, its because i dont watch the rubbish that she does on TV, Infact i dont watcha lot of TV at all really, and if im in the room while shes watching said Sh1te, she disproves of my running commentary on whatever it is shes watching. Its very often her idea for me to go up to my modelling room. Hard lines eh.
Well, my question is this, How much time do you all get at the bench. Id like to know whats the average for normal people with normal lives, Kids, school, work etc.
Hard to say really Guy cause it varies a lot from week to week depending on whats on in terms of family commitments, home renovation projects, personal motivation, etc. etc. etc. On average though I would take a guess at 4-5 hours a week. Keep in mind I have 3 kids and no I don’t watch much of the crap either on TV other than the Hockey playoffs which just started and goes for two months… [:D]
I manage an apartment building so I’m “at work” as soon as I go out into the hallway…I get a 2 bedroom apartment and a small salary, plus my huge pension (I’m retired from the Army), so I only have to “work” when something’s broken and I can’t fix it with a phone-call to a contractor…
With a job that requires quite a bit of travel, not a whole lot sometimes. Weekdays when I’m home are pretty much shot too since I have to turn in pretty early for 0400 wake up call.
Well, I’m self employed and work out of my house and i’m single so I get pretty much all the time I want. It really depends more on my mood than time available… I won’t work on a model if I don’t feel like it so some weeks are very productive and some aren’t… I probably average around 10-15 hours a week though…
Since i went on Medical Leave on March 3rd, I get a lot of time in the shop, but unfortunately, It’s getting harder and harder to get down there. the good news is, I’m having surgery on Monday that should eliminate the pain, put me back to work, then I won’t have any time to build. Good and bad I guess.
I generally try to make time each week. I get to work early in the morning so that I can leave earlier than others and thereby extend the amount of time each evening I have with my family and to pursue my various interests. This week I probably got about 3 hours bench time, most of which came today when I got up early on a vacation day while the wife and daughter were still sleeping.
Other wise it depends on my mood. I took a month or so off from modeling to start this year because of my building spree from last year. My daughter is not old enough yet to have gotten into dance, gymnastics or athletics so I don’t have that to contend with. But that’s coming. College football games in the fall generally eat into my bench time, but I kinda fixed that problem by installing a TV with a satellite connection in my work room (it’s hard to model when I’m actually going to Aggieland …)
Well when the wife is at work .I usually get a couple hours a night.On weekends.sometimes an hour or two on Sundays.The rest of the time is occupied with family responsibilitys and I do like to watch certain shows like Lost,Fringe Supernatural and a few others!
Working retail, my schedule varies from week to week. I usually find 4-6 hours per week for modeling, but sometimes with the long days at work I don’t feel like modeling when I get home. Add to that the fact that I wear an opti-visor all day at work, sometimes coming home and putting one on again at the model bench doesn’t sound appealing. Eyes aren’t what they used to be, you know. [;)]
I work 9pm to 7am Tuesday through Friday so I sleep during the day and get up with a few hours to spare. If I’m in the mood I’ll build before I get ready for work. Weekends were very productive right after the ex moved out. It really helped but I found myself sinking deeper into depression.
I met a new someone 5 weeks ago and now I spend my time with her on a daytime schedule when I’m off. It has really helped as she is very supportive of my hobby and wants to learn herself. I’ve drug her to my clubs model shows which here lately are in conjunction with real car shows so we have a lot to look at.
I took to building in the house as opposed to my mancave (advantages to living alone w/a beagle), but that’s changing as I reorganize the place.
2 to 8 hours a day, but I don’t work very fast and spread my time between plastic and other airplane (mostly) hobbies. I work 8 to 15 hours a week if I feel like it, being retired has it’s advantages.
Since early January I have averaged 0 (ZERO) hours per week on my models. Though the hobby desk sits with a pair of 1/72 Mustangs and 1/35 LVTA5 awaiting attention, life sucks being a grown up. Pursuing a Bachelors Degree through condensed classes proves demanding, I am usually submitting 5+ page papers every other week. On top of the Bachelors, I am attending a separate college to attain my MS Office Certificates by the end of this year. The goal is to have my Bachelors before retiring from the Marine Corps.
I am anxiously waiting for May 15, at which point I am down to one class at a time until early August. Come May 16 I plan to be sitting at my hobby desk and start churning out some models.
Guy - I have all the time in the world to model but I dont always take advatage of it. I retired 5 years ago at 40 so time is all mine. We dont watch tv in our house - never have in 19 yrs of marriage. The Wife and kids read in their spare time away from their studies and activities. Most of my modeling is done while they are all off at school, but I still find plenty of time goofing off away from the bench. I try not to model much when they are home as they are the reason I retired early was I never got to spend any time with them. As soon as the weather gets nice I tend to spend more time outside. I need to get back cracking at the bench though as the "To Build " pile is getting pretty tall.
Well, I wanted to take over an empty spare bedroom and make it my shop. However, due to the fact the woman complains I don’t spend enough time with her because I work 3rd shift and my days off are during the week I have to build on the dining room table. However, due to the fact there is something on TV almost every night that the woman wants to watch but is absolute crap (dancing with the non-stars, americantsing idol, desperateandannoying housewives, etc) I end up getting either a few hours working on the models, or control of the remote. I win either way.
My days off are typically spent almost totally working on the models… It beats hanging out in bars.
OK, Sean, as you and I are the same age, tell me the secret of retiring at forty !![bow]
With shift work, I COULD do about 10 hours a week. I work an 8 day fortnight, so with 6 days off plus nights when I dont work, I could be doing a lot more than I actually am, which seems to be about an hour per night at the moment. Its not a good thing, because the longer a build stretches out, the less motivated I am to finish it.
I work 10 wks on with 5 wks off so when I’m home I try to get as much time in as I can get in between 2 and 4 hours a day if the weather is good. If the weather is bad and I’m stuck in the house all day I get all day
Wow, i have some great ideas sometimes. This thread is a goodun.
I think the main thing ive learnt from you all is Sean is the luckiest guy I know. Retired at 40. Geez. Im Forty in a couple of months and id give my right arm to be able to retire…err…right leg (Hard job modelling with 1 arm)
I changed shifts/job assigments recently and my model building time changed accordingly. Before I could frequently get some work time in before my shift when I was working evenings (4pm to 6am). Now that I am workng days (6am to 4pm) I occasionally get some work time in after work, but pretty rarely so far. On my days off the time to work seems to have increased now that my sleep cycle is getting me up earlier. But I will usually get at least a good 6 hours or so in on one of my three days off, plus probably 2-4 more on each of the other two. On the days I have the bug. Some weeknds I have to step away though…
I am retired and could work in my hobby room all day if I wanted to but I don’t. I usually spend a couple of hours a day there. It all depends on what I am working on at the time.
Like Summit, Hans von Hammer, and K-Dawg, I too have all the time of the day available to me, though I don’t take advantage of it. I always work on one kit at a time until it’s done so there is always lots of down time between steps or waiting for paint to dry. There is also time that I just don’t work on it at all.
I’ll bet I never put in more than 2 hours a week, tops. And that’s probably being generous with the estimate.