MODELS , our history building them ETC.

I've got modeling magazines that go back to the fall of 1987, when I first entered Active Duty. I wrote to a high school kid wanting a tanker in Germany to be his pen pal. I was the only response he received and was heading to Germany 10 days after Thanksgiving 1987 (Dec 7th). It was the old Challenge Publication's Military Modeling magazine.

I still have that magazine and just about every one of their magazines from that issue until they folded in the mid 90s. I'm missing a few from my deployments to the desert; many times magazines don't make it through the Army mail system because military mail handlers often believe they are entitled to publications not addressed to themselves.

I still keep in contact with that boy, now a man, after 24 years. He congratulated me on my recent retirement. I've known him virtually my entire active duty career.

I've also retrieved a lot of my old kits from my parents' house around 2004. These are kits I built in junior high school, high school and college. Most of them were built and stored in the original boxes with the turret removed.

Most of those kits were built straight out of box with minimal parts prep, no sanding or filing of seams, etc. All were hand painted using those little white Testors brushes with either Testors or Pactra paints.

One kit that was recently reissued, the old Monogram M48A2 Patton tank, I found in a box. It was originally olive green with the white star decals applied on the unpainted plastic. I remember repainting it around late 1984 in a pseudo MERDC camouflage scheme to replicate the M48A5 tank I trained on that summer. I didn't worry or know about variants back then and was proud of having a model of my tank to display. I bought the reissue at Michael's using a 50% off coupon. It's on my to do list.

Having just started reading FSM about a year ago (which is when I took the hobby up again after a 35 yr hiatus) it amazed me how much the hobby had progressed.  I was lucky to get the exterior of models painted when I built them then, now it's not only painting them "blue" but painting them the correct shade of blue. 

I occasionally go through my back issues; I'm reminded of techniques to try or new ways to go about something. I was reading Scale Modeler with the occasional Military Modeler in the early '80s when I stumbled across FineScale Modeler in September of 1984. That years' Sept/Oct. issue was my first (the one profiling a model of the tanker 18-wheeler from the movie Duel), and I started buying regularly in March of 1986.

A few issues have been 'landmark' for me. The Sept. 1996 issue which profiled the 1/72 Japanese Dinah with the scratchbuilt engines set the bar for me at the time (I've been a 1/72 aircraft guy since I started building). I remember an issue or two in the '88-'91 timeframe that featured an article about companies demandinging royalties from model manufacturers to use brand names. I built the AMT Pabst Blue Ribbon White Freightliner when I was 10 (birthday present), and several NASCAR models but after that article I realized the release of some of my favorite subjects was going to be altered or curtailed because lawyers were going to get involved. Now, I understand intellectual property rights and brand ownership (as well as revenue streams), but.....seriously.

The recent B-36 GB thread brought back a lot of great memories. I asked for and received the Monogram B-36 kit for Christmas in 1980, and was unbelievably excited when I opened it that Christmas morning. I think it took me until March of '81 to finish that kit. I still have the model and the box, and seeing that boxtop brings back thoughts of good times.

I have every single copy of FSM in their binders except the first few which were bigger.Yes I do page thru them every time I'm on the stationary bike .Its mostly looking at pictures and reading captions but it helps pass the time away.I also do pull them out for reference on techniques and certain models.

I have fond memories of kibitzing with Rich Townley the owner of a nice hobby shop in Cranford who recently passed away.He really helped me get started and offered lots of good advice.He also told my young wife at the time,it's better he doing this then hanging in bars.

I re-read them all the time...  I have almost every issue from as far back as 1983 or so, plus, I make use of the back-issues on this site that I'm missing...

One of the things I check is when I get an idea for a tip, is that I go through all the old issues Ihave to make sure I ain't ripping off someone else's idea, one that had been posted many years ago...  I do this mainly because I ain't sure if I thought of it, or was just remembering something I read way back...

(I HAVE seen "reader Tips" that have been submitted more than once too, although they might be twenty years apart.. I've also seen tips that were submitted and published in other mags besides FSM, like in Military Modeler and Scale Modeler)

How many of you when engaging in this activity find an article that really reminds you of the " OLD DAYS " .

I do... 'Course, I'm kinda wrapped up in "nostalgia" anyway, since I prefer the old kits to the new shake & bakes,  and being a Gizmologist, the old kits allow me much more "old school" modeling opportunities.. 

Question for you guys on this subject.. How many of you have read the old issues' reviews of kits that came out back then, and the reviewer sings the praises of the kit, saying that it's the best he ever built and such, and now, twenty years later, people call those "fantastic" kits "Dogs" and "Junk"?

Which one send your mind reeling back to the "simpler times " Let,s hear about them . I for one would enjoy what you would have to say .   

Read any of my build logs in here, TB... 99% of them are Revellogram kits, lol...

One comes to mind though...

When I first started building models I was abot 6 or 7 and one summer, while staying with my Aunt & Uncle, my cousin Danny was a modeler, and a couple years older than me.. Anyway, long story short, Mom and my Aunt went to the store one day, and they came back with two 1/72 scale HAWK kits, one anF4U-1 Corsair, and the other a Spitfire... I chose the Spitfire to build, and that was the start...

A couple years ago, I saw that same kit on Ebay and just HAD to buy it... I have it sitting, unbuilt, on a shelf in the living rom, my "connection", or even, "Time Machine" as you put it, that takes right back to a rainy day in Texas, ca 1966... (BTW, I found and bought the Corsair kit too... )

Whoever said, "you can't go home again" damned-sure doesn't build models..

To that , HANS ,I have to say DARNED TOOTIN !!    tankerbuilder

I think the "dogs & junk" come from different times. Back then, kits were pocket money. Today you can take the family out for a decent sit down meal for the price of many armor kits.

There are many, many kits from the 1970s and 1980s that hold up well today, 30 and 40 years later (Tamiya's Chi-Ha and Italeri's Leopard). There are also many kits from the 2000s that are considered "junk" less than 10 years later (Skif's T-55 and BMP-3 jump to mind).

What once were acceptable levels of details back then are often not up to today's expectations. Especially since they ask for comparable prices.