Remember when...?

I remember when about the only thing in color in FSM magazines was the cover.

I Remember when ...
Mom gave you some $ (less then $5.00) and you hopped on your Schwin and went down to the local Hobby store and came back with a Kit, some paint and had enough $ left over to stop at the corner store and get some Candy on the way home.

I remember trying to assemble 1:700 battleship models in a single sitting, with great gobs of tube glue. The good news was that once you got halfway through adding parts to the deck you really didn't need the tube any more as there was enough loose glue on the ship already :-)

I second the notion of "Molded in authentic colors", as my painting skills were somewhere between Awful and Nonexistent.

QUOTE: Originally posted by ajlafleche I remember when Revell made box scale aircraft that came with a cool base that had a clear base with a raised map of the northern hemisphere with a smooth spot to put the identifying decal and the arm was topped with a two piece socket closed with a c-clamp and the ball was attached to the fuselage so you could pose the model in a bank, dive climb as well as level fllight.

Wow, I have not thought of those in....... decades{?}.

I remember after finishing my latest, I would hang it from the ceilling with thread. Stiil have a couple hanging in the back room. Old habits are hard to break.

hmmm i remember painting my first auto kit...................

...........then two weeks later painting it again...................

...........then two weeks later again.............

.........and again...............and again........................and again..............


still have that little sucker.


joe

Remember when obtaining a natural metal finish on your B-17 meant you sat down with four bottles of Testors silver and a 1/2" brush and just went at it? Also, remember how cool it looked when you were done?

Also, remember when your folks bought you a model and when you openned up the box you were saddened that it was all in pieces and you had to put it all together? I never realized that when my folks bought me my first kit!!!

QUOTE: Originally posted by trowlfazz I remember when a pot of paint cost 15 cents and a Revell 1/32 scale p-47 was $2.50. Waah!!! Dan

Sheeesh, and I thought I had it good paying 82 cents for paint at the dime store when I was a kid.

I remember the big kids building the Renwal kits with working suspension and pop up crewmen. Us little kids could only build the simpler, cheaper kits by Lindberg and Aurora (still my favorite).

I remember when I would hang all the external stores provided in the kit (rockets, bombs, torpedoes, drop tanks) not knowing that I need only to select one or two combinations for a particular version.

I remember when I was afraid to sand fearing that I might alter the kits dimensions or erase the oversized rivets and other off-scale details.

I remember when I would build a model straightforward in one sitting, no puttying, no painting.

I remember copying the box art paint scheme as close as possible not knowing its inaccuracies.

I remember that it used to almost take longer to get the celophane wrapper of the box, than to assemble the kit.

I remember when model kits came in a palstic bag or a white bag with clear silofian so you could see what you where buying.They cost about .95 cents each and paints were .05 cents a piece.Brushes about .03 cents.Digger

I remember when I was adding decals to my revell 1/48 p-47, and decided I liked them all, so I put every decal on. And only on one side, because the otherside had a horribble paint job.

Sorry,I suck when it comes to taking pics

I remember my first model....The TESTORS sbd dauntless...It took me about 45 minutes to build.:





I painted this with a tooth pick.
The back half is broken off because the tails wouldnt glue together,So I broke it and put it upright in my fishtank,unfrtunately,I have no pics of that..For some reason the fish died that week...

Some of the things I remember

Comet balsa kits - spending hours cutting the parts out of a 3" x 12" piece of balsa - with a double edged razor blade that had been snapped in two length wise

Peeling the dried balsa glue off my fingers with my teeth - and chewing it like gum

Some of the colors Aurora 1/4" kits came in - Bf109 was metallic red, Fw190 was black, Zero was yellow and Albatross D-lll was metallic green

Getting home from vacation in the middle of a 108 degree day in July, and jumping on my bicycle and riding 2 1/2 miles to the local hobby shop (aka Brown's Hardware) to buy the Revell 1/40 M4 Sherman that my mom wouldn't let me buy when we were in Califoria.

When nearly all plastic kits cost less than 98 cents - the cheapest I can remember was a Comet F3D in bright blue plastic for 29 cents. And lots of small balsa kits for 10 and 15 cents.

The "mixed media" kits by Strombecker, Monogram and Comet - wood and plastic (Strombecker used precarved pine, the others were built up from balsa)

When the only place you could buy models was either the dime store or the hardware store.

When the only paint available for styrene was gloss (either Pactra or Testors) - and none of us knew how to spell air brush - let alone knew what one looked like or how to it worked.

I remember twisting parts off the sprue too. That was walking home from the shop, that
way the aircraft was build, painted and dogfigthing with last week's plane within 30 mins.

Just getting the kit and putting it together was fun, then I discovered paint

QUOTE: Originally posted by TJ ace I remember when I didn't know enough to want to be "historically" accurate, and wasn't ashamed by it.

TJ: That's why the "What if?..." catagory was created. I use that a lot.

Hey Upnorth-what the heck is that plane in your sig?

Contra props, nachtmuzik, radome.

Dan

I remember twisting parts off the sprue because I'd never heard of using a knife in modeling.

I remember breaking grandma's good paring knife on her good table after I did hear about using a knife in modeling (#11 blade was still an alien term to me at this point)

I remember buying my first #11 hobby knife, though have forgotten how many times a #11 blade has bitten my fingers over the years.

OMG, yes the poseable stand, I'd forgotten about that, I could never get it to work, so it would sit there and slowly slide whichever way it wanted,lol

I remember when Revell made box scale aircraft that came with a cool base that had a clear base with a raised map of the northern hemisphere with a smooth spot to put the identifying decal and the arm was topped with a two piece socket closed with a c-clamp and the ball was attached to the fuselage so you could pose the model in a bank, dive climb as well as level fllight.

I remember when Monogram made 1/48 aircraft with folding, not poseable wings, an Avenger (?) which dropped its torpedo when you turned the prop.

I remember AMT annual 3 in 1 car kits (unassembled promos) that came with identical customizing and racing parts (i,e., extra antennas, mirrors, spotlights, moon caps and lake pipes in chrome and louvers, skirts, and roll bar in the basic white plastic. The hood was held in place with a c-clamp spring.) Eacj year, there would be a single decal sheet with either flames or an imitation airbrushed panel motif for all the makes Later custom options included a reel to reel tape player!

I remember making B-17 machine guns with pencil lead.
I remember painting combat helmets on MOnogram figures chrome silver while leaving the faces and unifor OD plastic!
I remember models of birds and wildlilfe that came with some sort of pellet for paint that was softened with a solvent (Probably toxic as all get out, too!)

QUOTE: Originally posted by Matthew Usher I remember when "molded in authentic color" on the box was a big selling point. Matt Usher @ FineScale

I think it still is

I remember when I thought I was a movie FX guy and built model airplanes to blow up and burn for the (imaginary) camera. That was cool!

I remember when "molded in authentic color" on the box was a big selling point.

Matt Usher @ FineScale

"I remember when I built models more to be toys and less to be display pieces"

Dave

I remember when...what was I talking about?

I remember when I built all my aircraft models wheels up so I could play with them.......
I remember when Monogram and Revell were "state of the art".........................
I remember when you could spend five bucks and get a kit, paint, glue and all the fixins..............
I remember when airbrushes were unheard of..............

I remember when I glued waterslide decals on with plastic cement.

I remember when a pot of paint cost 15 cents and a Revell 1/32 scale p-47 was $2.50.

Waah!!!
Dan