To the modelers of the '60s

Do you mean, when we were kids?

None. Absolutely none. Back then, from the time I was six, and was given a Model T by a maker I no longer recall (maybe Lindberg, but I can’t confirm it), through elementary school and Pyro dinosaurs, and Revell box-scale ships, and Monogram’s 1/32 armor, and Monogram’s early 1/48 aircraft, to junior high and high school, and Monogram’s golden-age large bomber kits, and my first forays into casting and painting figures, I enjoyed every build. The box art sparked my imagination, and on opening the box, the instructions and sprues promised an afternoon, and later, several evenings, of building and painting the model, all the while thinking about the subject. I built exclusively historical subjects, and mostly WWII, and I thought of the stories I read, and the stories my great-uncles all told, about where they served, and the guys they served with. It was a great part of my childhood and my teen years. I don’t recall a single kit that I opened and started building, that disappointed me.

And since I returned to scale modeling in 1999, I’ve tried to recapture that youthful enthusiasm, with some degree of success. I stay out of rivet-counting arguments, for one thing. Build what you want, the way you want it, as the late Al Superczynski used to say.

And in those early days, I used Duco Household Cement, because it’s what we had on hand. It wasn’t till I was older and learned that there was glue made specifically for building plastic model kits. Duco, in the green and yellow tubes.

I remember Duco brand cement! Until recently could get it at white trash mart (wally world). It’s what I used to glue the wings together on my four foot X-wing! I loved the way it smelled. It reminds me of Ambroid brand glue. The Weld-On cement that they make now smells just like it. Ambroid smells good, but it takes too long to dry! I also remember when Testors started to offer the stuff in the blue tube that was water based - it SUCKED!! It never dried enough to glue anything together!

~ Cobra Chris

Gosh, I hated that stuff. Wouldn’t hold worth a darn.

I didn’t like it when a kit came in a huge box but built into a small model. Lindberg and Aurora were the primary culprits. I also hated the tiny bits all sliding around inside - I was proficient at damaging the parts myself, so the help was unwelcome. Of course, now small kits can still be found in large boxes, but most of the time it is because there are something like 1,200 pieces!

I also never liked the markings molded as raised lines on the plastic. You had to get the decals on perfect for them to match, but that was not a realistic expectation from an elementary school kid.

But I think I liked more stuff than hated with the old models. I looked for kits with operating features - retractable landing gear, no matter how badly engineered, would guarantee a purchase. Glow in the dark parts, spring operated gimmicks, it was a lot of fun. Raised panel lines and rivets were still fashionable, and nobody cared about color accuracy.

But like childhood, you can never go back, until senility hits.

Paint? Didn’t cross my mind cuz I was too busy slapping the model together in one day. The decals was my favorite part. I remember doing a Monogram DC3 about 1965 or so and forgetting to add the interior parts. I just wanted the darn thing together.

Every time they come out with a ‘snif-proof’ glue, along came a new and improved sniffer.

My earliest recollection of building a model was of a 1/700 WWII battleship. Glue everywhere. B turret glued where the A turret should have been - AA battery of B turret now under the main guns of the upper turret. No paint or decals to deal with. Now in some landfill somewhere ever so slowly decaying.

My first models were in the late '50s. I remember the Revell “box-scale” models, especially their B-36 and B-47, and how cool I thought they were. Sometime in that era I built the small USS Forrestal kit, but left the planes loose so I could play with them, doing launches and landings.

Nothing much has changed since then.

That triggered more of a memory about Duco–wasn’t it lemon-scented?

It was usually on weekends when my father took me to the hardware store for home projects. Even though there were other stores around, somehow we always ended up at the only one that sold model kits and I couldn’t wait to go. Its been a long time but I think the begging started as soon as we got in the car and then came the usual response of “we’ll see”! I spent the entire time looking at the kits while my dad got what he needed. Seems like he would come over and say he was ready to go, thats when the second round of begging started. Usually it was a small scale plane, dragster or on special occasions a ship, and the biggest prize of all, an AIRCRAFT CARRIER that included all those little planes and cost about $2 more. I dont remember ever building any armor until a few years later and hardly anything ever got painted because I only a couple square bottles of Testors in my “kit”, so that usually ended up with a hand painted race car.

Those are very fond memories at a time where the imagination ran wild and really not that long coming out of two bad wars. I hope we as a community share our hobby with our kids and give them an opportunity to spend a little less time away from a keyboard and end up with something to be proud of instead of the “delete” key.

Terry

Always waited for one of our uncles to come over to see what they brought us. Mom and dad ok’d the glue but didn’t allow any paint so we just put them together and applied the decals. When we reached High School, we made a little spending money on our own and saved some more by walking to school instead of taking the public tansportation. It gave us an extra 75 cents a week by not having to buy tokens. Then we started buying our own kits. Kits never seemed to dissapoint us.

A friend who used to build years ago was giving away some of his collection last year. He gave me a box with a couple of kits and a small box containing 20 tubes of Revell cement. Opened one up and found it is still good. The smell was all over the house in a matter of minutes. Don’t know if I’ll ever use it but I think I’ll hang on to it for a while longer.

Jim [cptn]

Yes, Sir. I remember it like it happened yesterday, or even today! It never smelled like chemicals which was strange since it WAS made from them. However it may be - I never painted my models at first, but built them in about the space of two hours. The earliest memory that I had of painting was the engine of the '63 Corvette that was moulded in black - I wanted to wait until the paint was dry before gluing the rest of it together.

~ Cobra Chris

After returning from a couple to tours in viet nam flying F-100’s and F-4’s;I picked up the hobby and opens up an Airfix 1.72 scale F-4E Phantom only to find out the cockpits were balled.Thats where I trained myself in the art of scratch building in the early days of modeling.It was fun.Monogram was the Hasegawa in t early days In detail.Raise panel lines were the state of the art.

You know the glue from those days had to cause at least some minor brain disfuction, otherwise why are we still doing this 50 years later…must have affected the sensors for memory of what we thought were good builds, and forgetting what kinds of trouble and issues we had with kits back then.

Would be kind of nice to go back there once in awhile though.

Bought the Testors little quicky of the Corsair and no pit, just a bust of the pilot to glue on the “shelf” under the canopy. That kind of took me back and laughed about it.

The real bad news is that the modeling products of today will cause cancer and other related sicknesses .Airbrush = airborne cancer causing effects to the lungs.Acetone effects the brain , and the powerful liquid cements is odorless but dangerous.Thats just the first round.Not to scare Any one.But;The plastic of model kits of today is very chemically treated hardeners that are toxic .I am very lucky it did not effect me.

None. Expectations were non existent. [:|]

I remember falling in love at first sight with the artwork on the Weird-Ohs Digger kit, but when I opened it up, the character didn’t look much like the box. Got over it pretty quickly, because it was still cool. Years later when I was writing a book about the Weird-Ohs, I asked Bill Campbell why the art didn’t match the model, and he said that model producer John Andrews had used artistic license in translating the artwork into plastic, and a lot was lost in translation. Had nothing but praise for Andrews otherwise, though.

The glue taking too long to set. I remember a dragster that I tried building in one sitting. The frame sagged, and the wheels bent in. It was a disaster. I had no patience to wait hours between steps. It was the worst modeling job that I ever did. I think that I even shocked my Mom in how bad it looked. Laughing.

More to the point of the question though. You open the kit up expecting to see clear headlight pieces but the lights end up being molded in the body the same color of the car. I hated that. You just never knew what you were going to get. If you opened a car kit and they gave clear lenses for the lights, man… it was a good day. Then if they gave red tail lights too… woa. You really scored.