Your first kit

Reasoned

Don't remember the specific kit but I can be confident it's fate was either melted with an accelerant, thrown off the second story with explosives or wound up on the wrong end of my BB gun. Yeah, not much going on in my hometown.

 

Years later the folks were putting in a vegetable garden. Dug up a lot of props and landing gear.

I can't remember the very first one, but I do remember building a 1/32 Revell Corsair with my dad. We (meaning, probably, he) sprayed it Testors sea blue all over from a rattle can. 

-J

My first plastic kits were from a Revell "Gift Pack" that included an F-89, a F-94, and An F9F8 Cougar. The pack also had glue and bottles of paint. The decal placement spots were etched in the plastic. The gift was from my uncle who was on leave. He was in the USAF and had just returned from over seas and was transitioning from the F-86 to the "NEW" F-100. I put the wings of the Cougar on backwards, that is I swept them forward. DUH!!

Given the rapid development of aircraft in the 50s 60s and even into the 70s my uncle flew several aircraft in his 35 year career, but his favorite jet was the F-86. He said that was a fighter pilots airplane. The only time after doing those first models that I did not do much modeling was during my three year all expense paid vaction with my Uncle SAM. When I stop modeling it's time to shovel dirt over me!!!

My first kit was the old Aurora Boeing 737. My Dad worked at Boeing at the time and I remember putting it together and putting on the decals. Notice I didn't mention paint. I had the toxic Testors tube glue but no paints. Aurora Monster models, Revell space models, Monogram tank models, all built without paint. Still had fun. Lost them all when we moved back to Ohio from Seattle. I think my Mom "forgot" to pack them. I had already given away all Matchbox cars.

Mine was the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes Allosuarus when I was 5 or 6. Then came the Tar pit, Sabertooth Tiger and Neanderthal man. back then, I didn't paint the models, just assembled them to play with them. But, I do remember painting the tar gloss black in the tra pit. 

jeaton01

Is that a Constellation?

 

A Spitfire.  I can't remember the company, scale or mark number (I, V, IX, XIV, etc) but it was 1969 and dad bought it for me after he took me to see Battle of Britain at the movie theater.

I built this kit ( my first "glue together" kit ) Way back in 1971 - 72.

I made a horrible mess of it. Just recently got the kit again..... This time will be much better !

Before this kit I made a few Snap - together kit's ..... I seem to recall building the Tiajuana Taxi around the same time, but back then the glue fume's were more "toxic" so I may be remembering that all wrong.

1/72 Monogram Snap Together P-40 when I was 5. My dad took me fishing and I got bored pretty quickly. He must have expected it, because he pulled it for me to work on.

modelcrazy

 

Bish

We had a GB a few years back, where people re-built there first kit, or the first they could remember. This time i did it in the proper NMF, thoguh the decals were probably worse this time round.

 

 

Sounds like a fun GB.

Mine was the Cessna Skymaster from Hawk I think at age 5. I put so much testers tube glue on the wings that they melted.

 

It was, the My First Time GB back in 2013. Can't recall who ran it now.

Is that a Constellation?

Tinker Toys.

The only model I rememer as a young kid around 10 yrs old my parents bought me a visible v-8 engine model kit you put togther and it had a little electric motor where the starter would be you could see the piston and valves working my dad help me put it togeher other than that all I remember is my parents bought me a erector set for chirstmas one year and my dad and i mostly dad built a ferris wheel that actually worked with electric motor.

Bish

We had a GB a few years back, where people re-built there first kit, or the first they could remember. This time i did it in the proper NMF, thoguh the decals were probably worse this time round.

Sounds like a fun GB.

Mine was the Cessna Skymaster from Hawk I think at age 5. I put so much testers tube glue on the wings that they melted.

I built cropdusters out of tinkertoys first, then I graduated to stick and tissue which never flew except in my hand as I ran around the yard. This was my first plastic model, in 1955.  I still remember being sad because I cracked the plastic frame that fit over the canopy.  I have a replacement kit in this photo, and I built another more recently, pictured below.  This time the canopy frame survived.

Mopar Madness

When I was seven, my parents bought me the Monogram Tyrannosaurus Rex snap kit. I believe the kit was later repackaged as a Revell offering. 

 

Hi,

I can't really remeber my first model kit, but there was a chain of 5 & Dime stores when I was growing up called "Motts" and they stocked some old car models, so it may have been one of them.  I don't recall the manufacturer (it may have been AMT or Lindberg, or someone else) but I seem to recall the cars didn't usually come with chrome parts, the plastic sometimes seemed kind of grainy, and the tires were typically hard plastic (like the rest of the kit, instead of rubber, and came in two pieces that you had to glue together.  

Most of the subjects were fairly old (even in the 1970s) and the two that I specifically recall having built were a 1936? ish convertible of sime sort and, I think, a 1940 Ford sedan. 

Pat

My dad bought me my first kits. The first one, if I remember right, was a B-25. Might have been a Doolittle raider kit. This was in the 1950s. Another kit he bought me was a Boeing 707 kit. The model had a button on the top that when pushed, the landing gear extended.

When I was seven, my parents bought me the Monogram Tyrannosaurus Rex snap kit. I believe the kit was later repackaged as a Revell offering. 

Mine was the old Airfix 1/72nd F-86. It was bought by a neighbour as a welcome gift when my dad moved into his flat after seperating from my mum. He got me the kit and helped me build it. For some reason it got painted all black.

We had a GB a few years back, where people re-built there first kit, or the first they could remember. This time i did it in the proper NMF, thoguh the decals were probably worse this time round.

I cannot remember what I did as a kid,it was probably Aurora's Godzilla and King Kong

When I started up as an adult,it was Tamiya's T-34 and Pzkw IV

The oldest builds I have on my shelf are from 2000,Hasegawa F-15C Satellite Killer and Jolly Rogers Phantom

Even at age 77, I can fairly well recall my first model build. I know I was age 8, that was my age when my Grandma died, a relative who came to the funeral brought it to me, I guess trying to help me feel a bit less sad.

I think it was an Aurora kit, a swept wing fighter, maybe called an F-90. No paint or decals at that age, but it looked wonderful to me. I also recall, I was actually able to get some of the tube glue on the model. Mom not impressed. ):>(

That was my start, still at it all these years later, love the hobby just as much now, plus my cement application has improved greatly.

Patrick

One of the first kits I remember is AHM's YF-12A.  My dad built it for me out in the front yard because mom didn't want that stinky yellow contact cement(!!!) being used in the house.  She bought the model for me at the gift shop in Tokyo Tower in the late 1960s.

Mine was this. The U.S.S. Growler.  I built it with the help of my brother-in-law when I was 5.  As you can see it's had a lot of battle damage in 50 years.  I pretty much have all of my models I've built back then save one...a tiger tank. Don't remeber what happened to that one. As you can see I was of a mind that more glue makes them stronger.  I'm still battling that urge. My dad was in the war so he had no interest in building WW 2 stuff.  That's his memorial box in the background

IMG_1760 by Robert Pederson, on Flickr