Remember when...?

I remember when Monogram made the best kits, Revell kits were garbage and everyone else were hopeless wannabes. Obviously I was pretty unenlightened back then.

QUOTE: Originally posted by dogleg86 I remember when I fought with one of my best friends because he took the pilot figure out of a little box-scale (Revell?) P-51 my Mom had just bought me at the store. I just remembered this because I am about to build my son's first P-51 model, and I almost left the pilot out, until I remembered just how important it was to me back then. I remember spending a week in the hospital for food poisoning, at probably age 5, and my Dad coming every day after work and building and painting a new model for me. I don't remember them all, but I remember an Aurora C-119 Flying Box Car, and a small F-4, that he painted in Vietnam camoflage colors for me, right there on my hospital bed. I played with those models for years. I wonder how he got away with all the fumes without getting in trouble with the nursing staff... Probably because the nurses' noses were shot from years of breathing in medicine fumes, cleaning solution fumes, anesthesia fumes, and fumes from stuff I can't elaborate on without grossing everybody out. Brian B.

If I get going on this topic I may not be able to stop - but...

I remember heating up a kitchen knife on a stove burner and using it to flare over the ends of axles, so wheels would turn.

I remember Revell "Whip Flying" aircraft kits. Each came with a hole in one wingtip and a plastic bag containing a blob of modeling clay, a metal ring, and a piece of string. The clay was to weight the nose; the ring snapped into the wingtip hole, and the modeler tied the string to the ring, took the model out in the back yard, and swung the airplane around his head. (The instructions recommended building the landing gear in the retracted position. If one ignored the instructions, the first landing was guaranteed to produce a similar effect.) My friends and I quickly figured out that Revell kits weren't the only ones that could be "whip-flown." My ultimate achievement in that realm was an Aurora B-29, which was on about 1/64 scale. Whip-flying that big B-29 turned into a fascinating exercise in elementary physics. We had an old-fashioned rain water cistern in the back yard; the lid was held down by a granite boulder that nobody could lift. On its maiden flight that B-29, with about half a pound of clay in its nose, demonstrated that the diameter of the string needed to be proportional to the size of the aircraft. When the string broke, and the B-29 made a beeline for the boulder, the results were pretty spectacular.

I remember when I was building a Renwall Patton tank, and the hobby shop was out of Testor's "Flesh," but "Aircraft Cream" dope looked like pretty much the same thing, so I painted the faces of the crew members with dope, and...eeeeeeeewwwwwww....

I remember geting the Verlinden Way volume II a few years ago and thinking I could not be that good but now I am.

I remember building armor and sticking the decals on with no paint since the plastic was already in the right color.

Also I remember before I found Dragon figers that the old 70s Tamiya figures were the best.

These are so funny!!

I remember.......hmmmmmmm
yeah throwing all my ships off the second story deck because my cousins knocked a few guns off.

painting all my aircraft carriers university colors and all the planes to them body one color wings another.

dad asking me which model I wanted for christmas the P-61 or the black bunny F-4, I chose the F-4

I remember my Mom yelling at me because her nail polish remover was now olive drab.

QUOTE: Originally posted by dkmacin I remember wishing I could do as good a job as the guys in the magazines. Don

I remember yesterday, too!

I remember when a model cost .69 cents, Testor's paint cost .10 and a decent brush cost .05.
I remember swipping my dads lighter fluid to clean my brushes because the cleaner would cost me an extra dime!
I remember being grounded for a weekend because I spilled same lighter fluid on the dinning room table. (The mark is still there.)
I remember wishing I could do as good a job as the guys in the magazines.
I remember going to Squadron Shop in Hazel Park MI and just looking for hours.

Don

using magic markers and finger paint to paint the models
also the car models were better too(the subjects that is)

I remember my first kit n it was a matchbox 1/72 lancaster, but then i played around with it too much, including literally trying to make it fly, n it pretty much got disintegrated.

I remember when I couldn't pass English or Math but built beautiful balsa wood airplanes. Semper Fi, Mike

I remember gluing the canopy onto a Revell 1/48th Couger with tube glue. Several times, as it kept coming off. You could have used the inside for sand paper, it was so rough.

I remember standing in front of the hobby shop window on the way home from school, looking at the Revell Missouri in its little plastic case. The 40 mm gun gallery was slowly melting from the sun, and sliding towards the main deck.

I remember going to the hardware section of the 5 and 10 and buying half pint cans of paint for my AMT cars.

I remember when the only scale modeling magazine around was "Scale Modeler". Then, a couple of years later, I discovered "1001 New Model Airplane Ideas". I don't believe it lasted more than two or three years, though.

I remember when I just started building at age ten geting about six model tanks and building them in a two days now it takes me a year!

I remember when I did not have to dig out ten books to plan my next build and read reviews.

I can remember at 8 or 9 years of age collecting discarded pop bottles in the neighborhood, returning them to the drug store for the 2 cent deposit and walking out the proud owner of a 29 cent Frog or Revell 1/72nd scale aircraft. I'd build it that evening (with tube cement of course) brush paint it with 10 cent a bottle Testor's enamel and head out the next day to repeat the cycle. Now I have advanced modeler's syndrome, build maybe 6 or 7 kits a year, have a stash of 800+ unbuilt kits and probably enjoy the process a lot less than I did as a kid 45 years ago...

I remember when I fought with one of my best friends because he took the pilot figure out of a little box-scale (Revell?) P-51 my Mom had just bought me at the store. I just remembered this because I am about to build my son's first P-51 model, and I almost left the pilot out, until I remembered just how important it was to me back then.

I remember spending a week in the hospital for food poisoning, at probably age 5, and my Dad coming every day after work and building and painting a new model for me. I don't remember them all, but I remember an Aurora C-119 Flying Box Car, and a small F-4, that he painted in Vietnam camoflage colors for me, right there on my hospital bed. I played with those models for years. I wonder how he got away with all the fumes without getting in trouble with the nursing staff...

Brian B.

I remember one of dads razors to cut parts of the sprue and embedding it halfway into my thumb talk about a mess,

Or building a plane without painting it ,glue everywhere and thinking it was the best or even trying anything and not worrying how it would turn out

Great topic! Brought back a lot of memories and made me laugh out loud a couple of times. (Careful, I am at work!)

I can remember using my dad's propane torch to heat up a metal wire to put bullet holes in a Dauntless dive bomber. Then learning that I could put real exhaust marks with the same flame. It was my first atempt at weathering and my last with the propane torch when pop saw the handy work.

Also remember dad installing a vent in the air conditioning duct in our basement so that I would not get too high on the glue fumes.

I remember when I was a kid building aircraft models, and it was important for the prop and wheels to spin.

Dave

Jeff
No amount of money could ever but your memories

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jeff Herne I remember my grandfather bringing me my first ship kit for my birthday, a Revell Fletcher, as the USS Radford I think. He served aboard the USS Cushing (DD-797) in WW2, and we spent days building it. I was coming unglued (no pun intended) because I wanted to play with it, but he had other intentions. It ended up on a bookshelf in his study. Cancer took him 5 months later. I never found out what happened to that model. I have one in the collection but just can't bring myself to build it. I remember only building the Monogram kits that were equipped to work with the 'Flightstick', only to find that I couldn't get the Flightstick itself. I still have the SBD and F4F in their original shrinkwrap, had them since about 1975. I remember my Dad coming home from Vietnam in 1973 after his 3rd tour and taking my picture with my younger brother on the living room with all our models lined up in front of us. We were in our PJs (footie sleepers, blanket sleepers, Doctor Dentons, etc.) and I remember he was still in his Class As, since he'd just come home and brought a new Polaroid with him. Maybe someday I'll post that up and share. Then again...maybe not...I think I'll save that one for me (to quote Capt. Miller in S.P.R.). I remember as a kid, just how big a 1/32 F-4 Phantom was... Jeff

What's a "Flightstick?" I don't remember those.

I do remember the first model I ever built; summer of 1972, when I was ten. It was a car (I forget what kind) and it was the typical first model. Glue smears all over. Fingerprints in the paint, which appeared as if it had been poured on from the bottle, it was so thick. Misaligned wheels. Oh, and GLOSS black tires! I don't remember what ever happened to that model. The cats we had when I was a kid probably got it.

I remember when battle damage came after the model was finished, not before.

I love trying to build nice models now, but there was something really great about just putting them together so I could play with them. What seam lines? Paint, what's that? And I still have most of the full decal sheets from when I was a kid - never used 'em. But I try to find a use for them now (20 years later), and sometimes they're even still good.

Okay! I remember glueing rocks together to make bigger rocks!

Dan

Ok, enough mushy stuff...

I remember trading a Reggie Jackson rookie card for a partially-built 1/32 Monogram Stug. (boy, was that a dumb move)

I remember stuffing a C6-5 rocket motor into a 1/32 scale F-104 and launching it off a makeshift ramp. (It didn't fly)

I remember cutting my brother's hair and gluing it to a pencil to make a paint brush (I got whupped for that one)

Jeff

I guess that's why I never stopped building...I've had a lot of hobbies, and still do...1:1 planes for awhile, WW2 reenacting, 1:1 military vehicles (M35 and M43 halftrack), skiing, music, hockey, shooting...although I still dabble in all but 1:1 planes and vehicles, model building is the one thing that's never slowed or waned.

Jeff

That is such an incredible set of memories Jeff. I am speechless.

I remember my grandfather bringing me my first ship kit for my birthday, a Revell Fletcher, as the USS Radford I think. He served aboard the USS Cushing (DD-797) in WW2, and we spent days building it. I was coming unglued (no pun intended) because I wanted to play with it, but he had other intentions. It ended up on a bookshelf in his study. Cancer took him 5 months later. I never found out what happened to that model. I have one in the collection but just can't bring myself to build it.

I remember only building the Monogram kits that were equipped to work with the 'Flightstick', only to find that I couldn't get the Flightstick itself. I still have the SBD and F4F in their original shrinkwrap, had them since about 1975.

I remember my Dad coming home from Vietnam in 1973 after his 3rd tour and taking my picture with my younger brother on the living room with all our models lined up in front of us. We were in our PJs (footie sleepers, blanket sleepers, Doctor Dentons, etc.) and I remember he was still in his Class As, since he'd just come home and brought a new Polaroid with him. Maybe someday I'll post that up and share. Then again...maybe not...I think I'll save that one for me (to quote Capt. Miller in S.P.R.).

I remember as a kid, just how big a 1/32 F-4 Phantom was...

Jeff

I also remember painting coat after coat after coat of spraypaint.

I remember sitting in the open garage next to a table with all the kit's sprues scattered all over the table, numerous paint spills and drops all over the table....

I remember my Mom complaining because every paring knife in the house was dull and missing the tip from working on my models....

I remember mowing lawns for $5.00 then coming right home, getting on my bike and riding down to the local convenience store, buying a model, some glue, some 15-cent bottles of Testors paint, a Slurpee and some candy and coming home again to start building.....

I remember asking my mom for extra money when she asked me to ride my bike down to the store to buy her cigarettes so I could buy a model when I was down there....

I remember sitting side-by-side next to my friend Emmanuel in his room building and painted our two most recent acquisitions and talking about how we were gonna kick butt in the next War Game with our newest additions to our forces....

I remember the thrill of our fifth (war game) campaign, seeing Jason's shock as my Army that I'd been secretly building totally 'destroyed' his Army before he knew what had happened...

I think I've remembered enough for now.....