How did it all start

Seeing the model train sets (HO) at the Planetarium as a young kid. It was all about the trains on till interests shifted to models. At a early age I was interested in tanks, as fate had it the LHS never carried them. My father sat through my first few builds and once I had the basics of tube glue bombs and brush painting straight out of the Testor's jar down I built alone. I recall my aunt giving me money to purchase kits and liked how I could entertain myself for hours building models. It was a cheap baby sitter in that regard for the family.

I got help from my dad and one of my uncles.  When my dad was in college in the 70s he started collecting Athearn HO trains and I wa salways creating new layouts with him and we enjoyed many a night and many a christmas watching the trains for hours on end. 

In our family we have a gift exchange for christmas.  When I was 10 I received a 1/48 Memphis Belle Deluxe kit from my uncle and theni t started.  For the next few following years, my uncle always got my name and I received model kits each year.  Eventually a fascination with WWII aviation caught up with me and I am where I am today with the hobby

After two heart attacks I had to give up sex and models were the next best thing.

Tony Lee

Pvt Mutt

After two heart attacks I had to give up sex and models were the next best thing.

Tony Lee

LMAO nice answer 

First I was too young for sex!

Took a break for 22 years to have sex. and then kids (somebody could have warned me!)  and now I'm back. I wonder what that says about my sex life?

My earliest memory is of every F-86 in the world taking off right over my head at 2:00am. This had been happening since I came home from the hospital. I sort of got imprinted…

My first apartment after college was under the flight path to Miami International. Hadn't slept that well since I was a baby…

i have always liked building things: i played legos and k'nex with my brothers all the time. I come from an Air Force family, and have listened to  the sounds of the Offutt planes my entire life (until i came to college, and now I have Army Blackhawks zipping about!) and have always loved planes.

in High School, the AFJROTC program offered a Model Rocket/Airplane Club. There, my love of building things was combined with my love of airplanes, and there was no looking back!

I have no idea what got me started as a kid. Maybe my fascination with WWII fighters. When I returned as an adult it was to have something that I could do with my own kids. And to play with the airbrushes I couldn't afford when I was a kid. Sadly, my kids didn't stay fascinated with it for long but on the bright side, I still get to play with my airbrushes...

Tony

 I was 6 and saw my dad and brother working on a model of the U.S.S. Enterprize every night for days. I wanted some attention too. So, I begged and begged to get a model. A few weeks later my dad came home with Monograms 1/48 F-4(with the P/B bunny on the tail)...I was only 6, but I knew about playboy!!!! This was gonna be awesome!!!!! We spent about a week on it and it was a good time. It didn't seem as though it was going to happen again, so I snuck off to the shopette(Ft. Ord Cali) and got a 1/72 F-16. I got in a lot of trouble for sneaking off!!! But, I was hooked, mostly snaptites to start with, then moved on to gluebombs, mostly jets and helos. After my long break, I was just getting back into it, when I went to my first airshow. When that P-51 whizzed by and sent chills up my spine, I was about done with jets. WW2 dominates my stash.

uhhhh it's always been model trains for 40 years then I also got back into plastic models blame that on my little bro. He got me interested again, well i'm retired now model trains got to expensive, a hobby for S.S. payments. So I sold the trains and chose plastic models.                                                                                                         Retirement: NO MONEY NO SEX NO KIDS NO FUN  But I got lots of model kits wife does't mind keeps me out of her hair.hahahahahah!!!

it all started with a airfix fock wolf plane than it all started. cant stop! than i joined finescale.

I was about 5 and my dad would work on a remote controlled airplane for nights on end. 

 I remember sitting there watching him glue the balsa wood on a pattern, ironing the skin on, and assembling the mechanicals while I bombed him with stupid questions.

My fascination with modeling grew from there.  No doubt.

I guess mine is a 2 part story. I remember being young, 5 or 6, and whenever I'd go with my parents to a store that sold models I'd just stand & stare at the all the fantastic boxart and dream. 
Hotrods, Tanks, and Planes!  Oh My!!

The next few years for every birthday, X-mas, or whatever I'd ask for, and get, a modelkit of one kind or another.  Then I hit 14 and suddenly Real cars & Girls seemed so much, MuCh more interesting than a box of plastic bits.

Now fast forword to 1995 and I'm in a Barnes & Nobel looking for something to read.  I was at the mgazine rack and thats when I found my first copy of FSM. It was incredible!!  I read and reread the mag so much the cover came off. I just could NOT put it down.  To this day I still have that May '95 issue.
Soon the temptation was to great so I gave in and went someplace I hadn't been in years, a hobby store. And that, as they say, was that.

I eventually bought a subscription to FSM and joined my local IPMS club.  The Salt Lake City chapter to be exact.  Now-a-days I even have my own little kit-stash and 2 different types of airbrushs.

Pathetic huh.

Hi.  My name is Ray and I'm a...  Modelaholic. and the best part??  I don't want to be cured!!

Anyway, Keep your stick on the ice,
-Ray

Nice. Hi im Mike and im a modelaholic too. to the detriment of my girlfriend. even though she enjoys it too. Shes started claiming some of my stash for her own lol.

I loved Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars as a kid, and model-building was kind of an outgrowth of that. In my teens, I built models because I didn't have a project car. Now, at 31, I build models of vehicles that I can't afford or legally operate (aircraft), simply can't afford (armor and some cars), or would have a hard time finding (cars, such as the Minis that are my current favorites).

My neighbor pals, who were a couple of years older had an armada of Monogram, Aurora, and Revell aircraft.  They were built and then used as toys. I needed to have something to join in.  My Dad built a beautiful Monogram Hellcat for me, and the rest was history.  Allowances were saved and more and more models were bought.  I began to do the building myself.  It had become an important par of my life that never really left.  Rick.

i started in the early 60's  i was 6-7  don't remember why but......then i took  a 5-6 yr break in h/s and college

started up again after that till recently  took a yr and a half off   started up again 

i take a break for sex 2 days a yr

only 2 days a year?

I'm what is commonly called a  B-52 (born in 1952). So back in my younger days plastic  models were a "goto" birthday  gift when you didnt know what to get that classmate, nephew, cousin, neighbor, etc kid. Today you might buy that same kid a gift card to Gamestop or a card to dowload mp3 songs.

My model building has waxed and wanned over the years but I still do it.

Over the years my interests have changed from cars-----> WWII aircraft------->  Scifi/space.

DURR,

i take a break for sex 2 days a yr

It takes a lot of rest to do that for two days! Most spread it out over many 20 minute sessions through out the course of a year, that would break down to 72 times. Good job!

I built a few with my dad when I was 6 or 7. It immediately became my favorite thing to do and was for quite a while. I worked for modeling funds.

My dad was into radio controlled aircraft, and being to young to participate I could only build the static kind.  Always had a keen interest in WWII aircraft, even before I knew they where WWII aircraft.  Eventually my dad gave up on the radio controlled kind and switched to the dark side.

Dad was a fighter pilot and I was an AF Brat, so airplanes were all around me.. Had lots of toy planes, but my first model was when I was 8 or so (A 1/72 HAWK Spitfire) that mom bought me when I was staying with my cousin for a week.. He  was a couple years older, built models, and mom thought it would be fun for me to work with him... Been hooked ever since '67...

As a kid I was into plastic models and model rockets. Built a lot until after college and then stopped for....the military, marriage, job, life ....

OK now fast forward 30+ years and I was looking for something to get back into to help unwind.....after spending my military career as an artillery officer, getting in to armor was a natural.

Now as far as the other comments....no heart attacks but at the age where the cardiologist is a friend.....sex is as often as required not to interfere with my bench time .....cost is minimal as I have accumulated a stash that should take me another 30 years to build....tools, can never have enough.....my friend on the forums are a great source of inspiration!

Rounds Complete!!

My Dad used to build them, and built some for me.

When I joined the Military Book Club, they sent you a free Huey Hog model by Revell as a sign-up bonus. One of the books that I ordered was "Chickenhawk" abour Hueys in 'Nam, and having the model there to look at and learn about while I read the book got me hooked. I built about a half-dozen helo's before I found a book on a tank crew in Viet Nam...I went bonkers after that!!

Been modeling ever since about 1984?

My very very first kit was a gift exchange from a classmate in the 3rd grade. It was a Lindberg Tow Boat. Would venture to say that it was probably 144 scale or there abouts. The person that gave it to me sadly drowned a few years later. I still have that model at mom and dads place in the original splash of metallic blue I started with and then the major color of flat red all over lol. That's not what got me started though. My brother built model cars and I used to set by him everytime he got one and was putting it together. Then when I watched Baa Baa Blacksheep for the first time and saw the 1/32 Blacksheep Corsair I had to have it!!! My brother helped me with the engine, but for the most part I built it myself, and the rest was history as they say. After that they came out with the Zero and.... lol. Built until I was about 21, joined the USAF and managed to build a couple while I was in. Then when I Found my first gf I had other things on my mind, however i still bought them, that was the beginning I discovered of the word STASH!!!! Tried to build a few cars whilst with her but for a myriad of reasons never got very far. Then my ex-wife understood the collecting part and did not stop me from buying. Met a guy at work and he builds 1/72!!!! Kept talking to him and sharing tips and techniques and after 20+ years I finally completed another one!!!! Still buying and now building again too and 43.

Like a lot of us, I'm going through my second stage of modeling. The first model I built was in 1972, I was 10 years old and at the time, we were on a family vacation up in the mountains east of Los Angeles. My older brother had brought a model he was building and I wanted to build a kit, too, so we went to a local hobby shop and bought a car; I couldn't even tell you what it was now. From there on, I was hooked--until about 1977, when I discovered another hobby--collecting the old glass insulators from telephone poles. (You thought I was going to say girls, I'll bet.[:)) By 1979, when my folks and I moved to Hawaii, I had lost interest in modeling and sold all my kits at our garage sale.

I got back into modeling in the 1990s and even though I've completed only a handful of models (I've been building my 1/24 scale tornado chaser for more than seven years!), I'm still going strong.

Jim Barton

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I got back into modeling in the 1990s and even though I've completed only a handful of models (I've been building my 1/24 scale tornado chaser for more than seven years!), I'm still going strong.

Tornado chaser??? What might that be????

An uncle gave me a model kit of a Model T when I was 5.  I think it was a Lindberg kit.  It had metal rod for the axles, and you could mount the wheels so they'd rotate.  He lived with my grandmother, and every time I visited, he took me to Kiddie City and let me pick out a model.  My parents also started buying me kits, some snap-togethers, others requiring glue, until I was old enough to do chores around the house, and they started giving me an allowance.  Then I bought the models myself, though Christmas and birthdays were times when I'd get the higher-ticket kits (like Monogram's bombers).  By the time I was in junior high and had a real job outside the house, I really paid for them myself.  That lasted till I turned 18 and went off to college.

Many subjects, including dinosaurs and sci-fi, though I eventually focused on military, but all types-armor, aircraft and ships.