First Kit? Anyone Remember... Could be a long time back for some ;)

My first was a Revell 1/570 DKM Bismarck from Walmart. I think I was 8, maybe 9. Dad helped me glue the hull. Other than that I think I did it all myself with nothing but a pocketknife and a tube of testors. That was about 1980

IIRC, mine was the Aurora (?) P-38.  My dad picked it up on a whim one day and while we built it together, he told me stories of the British airmen training at Falcon Field here in Mesa, AZ, and of seeing P-38's flying around the valley. (Possibly from Luke, Thunderbird,l Williams?)  Thats what started my interest in WWII aviation which has continued on to this day.  I believe I was about 10 yrs old at the time.  That was followed by, I think, the Aurora Tarzan and lion, some sort of Green Beret type model, and then a B-58 Hustler. My dad would pick up whatever was cheap at the local drugstore for us to build.  Great memories! Dads been gone for about 9 years now, but I'll always be thankful for those memories he left me with and getting me started on a life long hobby.

My first kit(s) were monogram's 55, 56, and 57 Chevy hot rods.  I found them in my stepdad's closet and build them all for him as a surprise.  All were build on the same day, 30 years ago.

He was not surprised nor was he happy.  

My Dad got me going around 1962 with a 1/48 Monogram Hellcat.  He was a great assembler and built a toy that I had a ton of fun with.  My friends all had 1/48 stuff from that era and we spent hours and days bombing Japs and Germans, making carrier landings on the ping pong table, Enterprise.  The Monograms were especially coveted because of the operating features.  Almost 50 years ago, where has the time gone?   Rick

 I remember watching my Dad and brother working together on a (1/350???) Enterprise carrier. Jealous for some "Dad time", this 5 year old was. I begged for a model to work on with Dad. I ended up with a TINY snap fit carrier, maybe 8" long. We put it together in one evening. I was so sad, my brothers took days, and had paint, decals and planes. My birthday wasn't far off, I was sure to get a few bucks. I took my couple bucks, risking grounding, and snuck off to the P.X. by myself. I wasn't old enough to have an I.D. card yet, so I couldn't make the purchase myself. I found an Army man, and he agreed to pass my money along to the cashier. I got Monograms 1/48 F-4(w/ playboy bunny on the tail) for a measly $3-ish. That one took days!!! My Dad even used pins, so the wheels would turn, how awesome!!!

My first was this gem:

<<note: not my kit>>

Built it in less than an hour, used nail clippers to trim the sprue after I twisted the part off. Got some silver paint to do the wheels(and tires ) then put oil on them to help the wheels spin faster.

Herc, that F4 was the first plane I built. That was a cool kit.

My first kit was the AMT 1970 Dodge Charger.

Gordon, there was a set of "world books" in our house. Kind of a non-sequential encyclo... Mom had inherited them from her grandparents, which made them truly Victorian. In each volume there was a set of plans for a building in something called Model Town.

Of course they had to be traced from the book. I think I made a couple or three. To this day I really like and occasionally (not often) make a model in paper.

My first major hobby push was model railroading. makes the plastic pale next to all the stuff I made for years in plaster, paper, wood, styro and whatever else.

I never made a model out of a bar of soap, but certainly have out of wax.

I think plaster is an underated material. I have made many a one piece railroad car in a mold out of plaster and the detail is as good, frankly better than resin.

It's too bad FSM forums ignore railroad modeling. I knew many great modelers, including John Allen, who could do things that the rest of us can only try for. But we are real modelers too.

Bought most of my childhood kits at local drug store or 5 & 10.

This question is really going to date me. I made by first model kit about 65 years ago.I was 8 years old at the time. It was a Strombeck-Becker solid wood kit of a Piper Cub. I painted it bright red. I can remember that because I still have the model. It's packed up with some of my early plastic model airplanes. I think the kit cost 69 or 79 cents back then. They sold them at the local  5 and 10 cent store. For you youngsters a 5 and 10 was a variety store. The one in my town was owned by William Bailey who I went  to work for when I was in high school.. It was open until about five years ago. 

TomZ2

Monogram T-28B circa 1956, the box looked like this:

I recall that the wheels were attached by (my mother) pressing a hot knife against the axles.

Ya know... I think that's the ONE Monogram kit I have NEVER built! 

Mine was a 1/144 F-4 Phantom, as a fairly young child about 25 years ago.  My mum helped (read pretty much did) all of it for me using some cheap form of super glue.

Can't remember the brand, but seem to recall it came in a plastic blister pack.

I can actually still remember that night and playing with it after it was built - obviously it wasn't painted and we didn't worry about landing gear.

Phantoms have a special place in my heart ever since.

Chris.

The first model my dad built for me was AHM's YF-12A, around 1969 or so.  He used some kind of stinky yelow glue (contact cement?), which oozed all around the joints of the black model.  I still thought it was the most awesome looking model that I had ever seen.  I was kind of sad that the ventral fin had to be glued in the folded position for the gear to be down.

My first model that I built without any supervision was Revell's USS Pittsburgh, back in 1970.  My mom bought it for me to keep me quiet for an afternoon.  I remember painting it with Testors Chrome Silver and Flat Black, because I didn't have any greys or red.  I built and painted the model on the dining room floor in one shot.  Of course mom made me conduct my mayhem on some old newspaper!  When I showed my dad the finished model that evening, he told me the story about the real ship losing its bow in a typhoon, but not sinking.  I thought that was really cool.  I kept the model for years and years until my folks let me play with firecrackers.

Ah the memories...

Great topic!

Neal

Monogram T-28B circa 1956, the box looked like this:

I recall that the wheels were attached by (my mother) pressing a hot knife against the axles.

Mine was the Aurora "Famous Fighters" F-107A when I was 5yo in 1969. My Dad had an entire case of Aurora aircraft kits in the garage, and would break them out for my brothers and I on rainy days. I can remember the F-104 and F9F also. Come to think of it, I think there may still be some of those kits left in his garage loft!

I do believe my first kit was one of the Monogram Iowas.I also recall watching my grandfather build a Huey Cobra nd an El Camino.Both by Monogram as well I believe.He used the Testors non-toxic glue that smelled like orange peels.

Let's see, I think that the first kit I did when I was a kid was the 1/48 Monogram P-40.  Coincidentally, I'm working on that kit for the Monogram Mafia GB.  When I got back into the hobby I came back with an Accurate Miniatures A-36.  

this was my first kit, 1:72 hobby-boss P-40M warhawk. i made this when i was 10.

im not sure why the bottom of the plane is green, and why there is no landing gear.

the paint is cracked in some spots underneath

action shot

Da Vinci's Catapult....although I never really built it....I assembled it....

Im pretty sure it was a Fokker DVII...not sure by who but it was around 1974....my dad and I built it ...

Well, I remember my first kit in that I helped my older brother build it. He was a Cousteau fanatic and of course, it was the Calypso. I was allowed to hold it on occasion during the construction process. I was 9 years of age.

Does Boy Scout pinewood derby count?

It was something I would have built with Dad. Possible subjects would be the TWA rocket from Tomorrowland which we picked up there, when I was about 5. Or the Aurora Viking Ship.

Close to 50 years ago....    I built a lot of cars first starting out. Danged if I can remember the very first one though.    I am sure it was some sort of sports car.......

i'm not sure but probably a mig-25 in 1/144 scale that come with a military files encyclopedia about 1987-88 (the brand was not specified by the editor), i just glued it with a strange gummy glue and not painted it.

before of it i had two snap kit from the died Atlantic italian brand, a b-17 full of rivets (probably 1/100 or less) and a hornet carrier probably 1/700. Very child at the time (about 9 yo) and the two kits was destroyed actually are really rare kits

Hans von Hammer

That 'un right thar... I remember it like it was yesterday..

1967, at eight years old...   had a choice between the Spitfire and another Hawk kit, a 1/72 Corsair...  Didn't pick the Corsair cuz the wings "looked funny"...

I had that Hawk Wildcat, Spitfire and Messerschmitt.

Very simple kits with 1960s era high detail  ( rivets ) and solid wings - liked the Wildcat and  purdy Spitfire lots more than the 109.for some reason

That 'un right thar... I remember it like it was yesterday..

1967, at eight years old...   had a choice between the Spitfire and another Hawk kit, a 1/72 Corsair...  Didn't pick the Corsair cuz the wings "looked funny"...  After I built it, I was hooked.. At .39 cents each, I could get all the 1/72 scale Hawk kits I wanted with my weekly allowance of .50 cents... Hade to save to get to the 1/48th scale stuff.. They cost .99 cents (plus tax), so it took me three weeks to get one..

The kits were either at the drug store (along with Testor's and Practa 'Namel paints @ .19 cents ea.) or the grocery store on a rack that spun around...

I got the above kit o Ebay.. When I saw it, I had to have it, lol.. Got it for 3 bucks and shipping, or something like that... Got the Corsair too, lol..

Ain't gonna build either one though... They're just for lookin' at...

It was the Lindberg USS Ruderow  DE.  Scale unknown . I was probably 6 years old.  Did it myself.  This was something like 1957.  I didn't know about putting decals in water,  so I glued the hull number on. 

Doug

I do remember the first kit I completed.  Relatives had given me kits that I couldn't build 'cause I was too young to read the instructions.  When I was about seven or eight I could read well enough that I completed a Guillows Aeronca.  This was a balsa stick and tissue model.  Plastic wasn't around yet.  There were non-flying scale models- they were called "solid" models.  And, during the war when balsa was a strategic material (used in life rafts) there were the cardboard solid scale models.  The fuselage was laminated from layers of about 3/16 thick cardboard cut to profile.  You varnished the stacked assembly and began to sand off the ridges.  When it got fuzzy you varnished it again and repeated.  Wings and empenage were pine.

It was 1965, and think it was a Revell or Monogram DC-3 in Eastern or TWA markings, can't remember. My second one was the Aurora U505 that my brother bought for me at the corner drug store for a couple of bucks. I do remember leaving out the interior of the DC-3 rushing it to finish the outside to put on the decals!