I Just recall the excitement of Dad bringing home a new model for me to build. I think my first kit was a frog but cant recall the plane. I do remember one Christmas getting a new Winchester 30-30 rifle and the Monogram Gift pack! I still want the same things now!! Life really is still as simple IF we let it be!
I’ll need to post some pics later , but this winter I dug out old 1/72 kits and built them with my grandson. We didnt add anything, OOB only with new decals mostly. They turned out great and we had a blast. Built 14 of them. Airfix, Revell, KP, just simple kits. Nice break from a new detailed kit, remembered what modelling was about and BIG BONUS --spent time with my lil wanna be Marine!!
Sorry - no reaction here about the glue, except I hope I can keep from getting it on my clothes this time, Mom was pretty upset again last time.
But on opening the kit? “Oh boy, what can i make this into?” Even in the 60s, when I was 8 to 16, on a car I wanted to use the cool AMT customizing parts, and on a ship I wanted to call it a different member of the class from the books I kept checking out from the 949 section of the library and on an airplane, were there some different markings that I could make, using the decals that I had?
Still all of those same responses, 50+ years later. I stil don’t want to make it exactly what was in the boxart.
It was all good,I was just a kid,everything was cool, only disappointment was when I couldn’t get it done to my satisfaction.Cut my teeth on Aurora Monster kits,but they were just to play with.
In the 80’s when I started up as an early 20’s person,that’s when I began to realize the different qualities of kits of course those Tamiya kits were enjoyable,even back then.
I was too young and broke to know a good kit from a bad kit or what scale was or that glue and paint fumes were fun or even that models were meant to be painted, even the canopy frames and not always black frames, parts weren’t supposed to be twisted off the sprue (what’s a sprue?), more glue didn’t mean a stonger model.
I remember some of the fighter kits I had back before high school. The wings were solid, the pilot was molded in with no cockpit, and the markings were also molded on the surfaces.
Solid wood aircraft models were still being made. They came with a metal weight that had to be inserted and a wooden plug used to seal it in. Any windows needed were provided by decals, just like the rest of the markings.There were no molded in panels and I think the rudders and flaps were marked by decals too, although I’m not sure abouit that part, it’s been so long.
Models like the Komet and Baka/Oaka came with clear orange flame parts.
While the mfgrs of wood kits are gone, there is enough old -stock available that you can still pick up wood kits. I have also found them at garage sales and antique stores.
I find the most on ebay, but there are a few online dealers who specialize in old stuff.
Also, if you want the old balsa stick and tissue flying models, they are still being made. Brands are Dumas, Easy Bilt and several smaller companies. Best place to find them is a dealer called Penn Valley Hobby Center. They do have some old-stock kits too.
Ah, banana oil! You are definetly from my era. I used lots of bottles of the oil. I always used it for the covering first coat after shrinking the tissue.
That was my local hobby shop, when I was a kid. I used to ride my bike over there, about 8 miles, and sit there looking at kits.
I was pleasantly surprised years later, in the early 2000’s, that the shop was still open. They successfully adapted to the Internet, with the website and an eBay store. They still kept the physical location going, too, but with reduced hours. A few years ago, they finally closed down the shop. I think the husband and wife who ran the business were still alive, but couldn’t keep up with the daily work. I think some of their children now manage it.
It was a great store, probably much like the hobby shops so many others remember. It was in a row home, at the end of a row. The front porch had been enclosed, and that’s where most of the model railroad stock was on display. They added an extension out the back for more display space. Down the cellar was more kit stock. Crowded but comfortable for the modeler, whether it was an old-timer building stick-and-tissue airplanes or a model railroad display, or some kid coming in every Saturday to spend his paper-route money on the latest Monogram kit.
I was born with a model in my hands and glue or paint on my fingers (ok, not really). Honestly, I think I got the modeling bug from my older brother. Looking back, one of his first models which impressed me was an old early 30’s Ford Vicky or Lincoln Gangster car. It came with a hidden compartment in the back of the front seat which held a couple pistols and a thompson machin gun. It also had two windshields, one regular and another with bullet holes molded through it. The decals also had bullet holes that could be place on the car. Yep, definately started as a car guy.
That was the period when you didn’t worry about paint, seams, flash, or even glue marks; it was all about the build itself (as fast as you can). My how times have changed.
Being raised on a 200 acre farm in the 50’s in the middle of nowhere was ok. That’s because my parents would give me an allowance for completing many of my assigned chores. I relied on my mom to bring me with her into town and while she shopped I took a bee line to the model stores. I remember two places in particular; the first was a Gray Drugs store. It always carried a full isle stocked with all the Monogram, Revell, MPC, AMT, JoHann, and more. Along with the kits was a full rack of Testors and Pactra paints. That was also the time when the modeling cements were with the paints, available to anyone. If they didn’t have what I wanted there, the Woolworth’s store just three stores down would have it. Along with the models at Woolworth’s they also had all the latest 45rpm records and a soda fountian shop for sweets. I remember sometimes trying to stretch my earnings so I could get a couple 45 records a model and something at the ice cream / soda fountain. Usually, if I had $6.00 or more I was good to go! When Mom was done shopping, she knew I would be at the soda fountain having a sundae or bannana split.
The second place was in a small villiage where we brought our crops to the grainery for processing. Beside the grainery was the Dawson’s 5-10 store. Of course they had Airfix and American manufacturers along with countless choices of penny candy.
Then there was the 40 minute drive home. During that time I would be so excited I would have to open the box and spread it out all over the back seat. Though Mom really didn’t like that and there was only a copuple times the back seat ate a part from the kit.
Since then I’ve never looked back and never stopped. I remember building through High School, during my military tenure, college, through employment and retirement. Now one of my concerns is living long enough to build what is in my stash. Course it would help if I would stop adding to it (smile).
How do you do that? My Present stash goes back 44 years and there doesn’t seem to be any slowdown. Mine now is"Hey DOC, I got an old kit someone gave me,I don’t build ships or cars,You want it?" Who can truly say No?
I was never disappointed with a Tamiya kit. One cool kit I remember assembling many times was someone’s P-51 kit (Revell?) that had a knob you could turn to raise and lower the gears, and I think a button on it allowing you to drop the bombs.
That sounds like the old Monogram Phantom P-51 Mustang molded in clear plastic on a red base. It raised and lowered the landing gear and dropped the bombs (or was it wing tanks?). You painted the interior details like cockpit, fuel tanks, interior framework, etc.
I bought one in the late 1990s when they reissued the old 1970s kit.
As far as Tamiya kits, I have been disappointed on occasion. When someone like Academy released a new kit, Tamiya would quickly reissue one of their similar ancient kits. You’d grab the Tamiya kit thinking it would be better, because it’s Tamiya, then you’d see an old kit inside.
Not that the kit was a bad model, but it’d be an old former motorized kit and not a more modern kit wihtout the holes.
Yeah, I’m like that. When I stroll through Hobby Lobby while my wife looks for some holiday related decor, I’ll see a model kit in the clearance aisle at a huge markdown. Of course, I’ll grab it because it’s a steal, even if I have zero interest in the subject.
Who knows? Perhaps some other modeler is looking for that particular kit and I can trade it for something else.
I remember when HL was clearancing out the Tamiya Gama Goats for $7.50. I grabbed three of them. They were originally neary $50 a piece.
I think they did have a ‘visible’ version, but the P-51 I remember was molded in silver plastic. Yeah, it may have been wing tanks… It’s been a while. [:D]
I just recently gave a home to a slew of Tamiya and Hasegawa ships, Again.
When I kick the bucket, the survivors will be able to open a hobby shop for gosh sakes. I mean c’mon Four Cases of assorted cars, Three of planes and Nine of ships, not to mention Three Corvettes from W.W.2 and so on! Oh! and so far one box that I believe has parts for twelve of Lindbergs “Blue Devil” U.S.S.Melvin Kit!!
I hated the stink of those Testor enamel paints from day one. And I still do.
