Hello fellow modelers,

I have been building models since I was 3 - the old Monogram P-40B Flying Tiger. I really only remember it from photographs viewed years later, but I do recall a lot of glue fingerprints all over it, no paint, and my dad helping guide me toward the finish line.

I built all through my childhood. I didn’t get to the point of painting models until I was maybe 8 years old. At that time it was strictly Testors paint with the little white plastic-handled brushes and not a very good job at that.

Up to then I built mostly airplanes, with Aurora monster figures and dinosaurs as well. Then along came a movie called Star Wars, and I actually turned my attention to science fiction subjects.

With the onset of the 1980s, my interest in modeling waned and died out, replaced by things like girls, baseball, and my 8mm movie camera. Then came high school, Texas A&M University, and a professional career as a software engineer.

But all through the years, I felt a tug to return to modeling. I did manage a grand total of 3 kits while I was at A&M - a big Revell F-14 right after Top Gun came out, and a Monogram F-18 and a Monogram A6E Intruder as I was reading the book Flight of the Intruder.

Then came the fateful day when I found myself in a store, K-Mart perhaps, where I happened upon a row filled with model kits. I may have resisted - until I spied the Revell 1/32 Beaufighter. I had always loved the look of that bird but had never before built it. Well, that Beaufighter found its way into my basket that day, as well as a bunch of other Monogram/Revell kits, and I have been hooked ever since.

I stumbled across Fine Scale Modeler in a library in Rosenberg, Texas soon after I got back into the hobby. Over the years, I have learned many modeling techniques that I doubt I ever would have learned on my own. I’ve had lots of support from fellow modelers on this forum for years, accolades and even a few not-so glowing reviews (but the old adage applies, there’s a critic on every corner).

I have been published three times in FSM with models that I have built - a Tamiya Swordfish torpedo bomber, a Tamiya P-47D Thunderbolt, and my memory is perhaps a bit fuzzy here, but I think the third was an F4F-4 Wildcat, probably the Tamiya but maybe the Hobby Boss.

I also have three models donated to the museum aboard the U.S.S. Lexington in Corpus Christi, Texas - a Trumpeter Vickers Wellington, a Trumpeter Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero torpedo bomber, and an Italeri Ar-196A seaplane.