Oh man. It’s been a bit of a journey. I really didn’t think that would take quite that long. I also thought I was better at this than I am. I’m pretty rusty. I also learned after the fact once finding this outstanding outline resource that can tell you some about the kits you’re building ahead of time ( ).
I remembered and used old skills, but with a bit less deftness than I did back then. My paint brush didn’t seem to do what I wanted it too, too soft or something, and paint just didn’t flow or move like I remembered. The decals that came with the kit seemed much flimsier and breakable than I remember. I also ordered a third party decal kit from eBay.
I need some retooling with better brushes, some extra paint thinner, and maybe some better tools for sprue removal. Thinking back, I don’t think I worried so much about these things, but having access to lots of modeling information and seeing what’s possible now, it makes one a lot more critical of one’s own work.
That said, the dry brushing technique I used to use is working pretty well, despite a brush that seems more flaccid than a 95 year old. I seem to remember using a camel brush back then and this is sable. I’m not even sure I can get something like that now. I need to give my painting game a little upgrade though. Maybe some better paints too. I know, I know, it’s a poor carpenter that blames his tools, but golly, it’s not like I remember when I thought I had very simple tools.
The kit didn’t turn out so bad, but parts of it were a trial. The canopy was too small and didn’t line up with the fuselage, so there was considerable filling to be done. Some of the wing to body connection had to be bent into place and held for a long time to avoid giant gaps. Since the real aircraft was a satin or gloss finish, I have had to be sure not to damage any of the surface or have glue marks.
That said, this was the plan of a teenager to try to make a model in the way an adult would. Not so good. Reading up now that it’s done, I realize:
- Many modelers before me have experienced frustration with the same short-comings this kit has with gaps and too-small canopy.
- There are many ways to finish this kit beyond the bare plastic it came with. Actual gloss finish applied, a satin finish made by using dullcote without shaking the can, or actually painting the exterior. I don’t usually like to paint something the color it already is, but it sure could have hid mistakes on the plastic.
- There’s another version of this model by Hobby Boss that’s much more accurate that modelers are much more happy with the fit and finish.
That said, I was proud of my dry brushing, my masking the canopy in sections to keep the lines straight as I paint them with a brush (I know lots of modelers seem to use airbrushes now; it was unusual back in the 80s), lots of careful detail, and especially making lemonade out of the broken pegs used for the radio antenna.
For my next kit, I’m excited about a F-104 I found on eBay!.
This is the kit that got away. The one I’ve thought about for years. It would stare at me from the store shelf, tempting me. But I couldn’t seem to pull the trigger on getting it and always regretted it. It won’t get away this time!
Again, lots of changes in my life made a bit of a delay getting here. My girlfriend lived an hour away from me and time was pretty short most of the time. Now that she’s moved in this summer, time is starting to mellow out as I catch up with things and I think I can make this modeling thing work! At least more regularly than I have in the past!
I always liked learning about the kits I put together from what info I could get at the top of the instructions, and I still do. But with the internet, I can really research and read up way beyond what I could have dreamed of in the past!
There are great pictures of all kinds of parts of the plane, training videos made during World War II, documentaries and documented theater use. The kind of resources available to me now as well as potentials for supplies and tools is kind of surprising and overwhelming right now. I think if I wanted, I could find everything I needed to build a specific aircraft number from a specific squadron. Not only the information, but the paint schemes, decals, everything.
I don’t know many people who do scale modeling, but there seem to be a lot online and this new world of interest coming from eastern Europe and Pacific rim countries that manufacture the latest kits and supplies. I’ve never even heard of some of these companies. I’ve been away from the hobby so long.
Well, no more, I’m back!
Got this fun kit along with the X-Wing from earlier. It’s 4th favorite ship from the Star Wars trilogy (1. Millennium Falcon, 2. B-Wing Fighter, 3. Y-Wing Fighter). I love the way they look, fly, and the way the old Kenner toy version was not only the coolest for it’s strobing laser, but also because it was the most closely in-scale to the figures compared to the movies.
Anyway, another fun build, almost too quick. I think it’s time I started back to some genuine fine scale modeling now. Hm.. what will be first. A beloved F-14 that I built three different times in the past, or the P-61 Black Widow – the one that almost got away?
This is my first kit in the new hobby room. A simple x-wing from a snap-tite. Just wanting to get warmed up again to building and this room and workstation have really made it enjoyable! The magnifying lamp is what truly makes it possible. Could my eyes actually be worse than when I built that Falcon last year?
It’s done! With the paint fully set, I moved in my work station, hung my guitars, and got my new magnifying lamp set. I’ve got some initial supplies to get things going, but i’m really excited and set to go!
I even have an initial stash of models that I picked up last week when I was thinking about getting going. There’s a couple of snap-tites to warm up on, a snowspeeder & x-wing, a couple tomcats that accidentally have doubles of from past purchases when I thought about starting, a B-17 I got last year when I first started, and a real treat for me: a P-61 Black Widow.
That original box I remember from back in the early 80s
Back in high school and junior high, I looked at that P-61 month after month where I bought model supplies and kits. I built mostly jets at the time and thought it might be too “old timey” next to my other models. But I could never stop thinking about it. It’s the model I have thought of most over the years when I’d think of coming back to modeling. Now I have it!
The new box now that Revell owns Monogram
Nice stash ready to go!
Guitars handy and ready to play
I’ll have to catch up on some other things I’ve been doing since starting this work so I can have some time to model!
A lot has happened since I finished my first model. I’ll keep it short in a way most of you will understand why it’s been so long since I posted, I’m now divorced. It was obviously a hard time, despite being amicable and much smoother than some folks I’ve talked to, so I’m thankful for that.
In the spirit of new beginnings, I’m turning one of the rooms in my house into a hobby room! I’ll be able to have a space for those hobbies that really need it the most! I’ve cleared it out, repainted most of it a neutral color, and one wall I’m making a color that sticks in my head from when I was young. It’s sort of a superman blue or maybe a batman blue (talking 70s here), but it’s also a blue that reminds me of kids’ rooms from the late 1970s – let’s say the cool kids or kids on TV. Very few of us really got to have cool rooms growing up in the 70s.
I’ll be moving my hobby workstation up here, making a space for my guitars, and I’m not sure what else. My brain imagines this room much huger that it is, but most importantly making an new start, I really want to make it mine and remember who I am. I started back to building models to remember what it was like to take time to do things I loved just for myself, so this is where it’s really going to start.
It’s both a great and a sad feeling to finish a model.
There’s obviously a feeling of accomplishment, but there’s missing the process when it’s done. It was nice to be back at it modeling, but these snap-tite kits go so darned fast, it’s hard to enjoy build for very long. And I seriously took my time to make the most of it.
That said, even for a quick simple one, it was so nice to be building again. Finishing, gluing, sanding. No decals or paints needed in this kit though, so some of the old feel was missing. I’ll tell you what’s really missing though, my eyes. Holy cats, I can’t see these tiny things anymore. I need a magnifying visor or something.
It’s fun to have a solid finished thing though, and I’m looking forward to the next one!
Just starting in again feels good. I’ve got a small set of supplies. I’m going to glue things in place as snap-tites are simple, but sometimes too loose to look decent. I’ll also be doing as nice as I can with cleanup work remove it from the sprue, etc.
This Revell Snap-Tite is a relatively new mold and looks really good.
I don’t want to make the mistakes I did modeling the last time i tried. Key mistakes?
- Overshooting my capabilities
- No space to actually do the work
I knew I’d tried too go too big, too complex, too soon. Probably more than I could handle, no matter how much practice I got. Gotta start small, have a real work space.
So, I purchased a workstation of sorts at a local coffee shop / gift shop that I instantly fell in love with. It looks like one piece, but it’s actually at least two pieces of furniture cobbled together. The bracing on the bottom is in place backwards and there’s a nameplate for a boiler brand on the front that looks old timey, but isn’t in any way connected with the table / workstation.
That said, it’s a decent sized surface that I can get some lights on and there are lots of drawers and cabinets to put things in. Seems just the thing to get started with!
I was a scale modeler back in jr. high and high school. Growing up on a farm, when it was a rainy day or often a winter day, one of the hobbies I went to most was scale modeling.
I’d loved all kinds of things that flew (birds, paper airplanes, frisbees, jarts, real airplanes, superman, batman in his various flying options) since I was very little. It was a natural progression to building model airplanes, but not a simple progression.
In the summer after 5th grade, I started to build a motorcycle model kit my brother had gotten as a gift in our damp cool basement on rainy days. It was a nice enough kit with flexible vinyl brake & clutch cables and shiny chrome engine. But between the chrome and thin vinyl tubes that were both mysteriously resistant to glue, and my complete lack of experience (my older brother’s had build car and rocket models around my age, surely I could too), going was slow.
Eventually, so slow it stopped.
None of this worked, there was no advice or anyone to guide me, everything was tedious or didn’t work at all how I expected; this clearly wasn’t for me.
Again, later in early jr. high someone gave me a model of stormtroopers on a speeder bike from Return of the Jedi. It was a much more complex model and far beyond my capabilities. I knew my limitations. I talked my brother into building it for me.
Then I helped a nephew put together a snap-tite kit. I can’t remember what it was, but that thing was pre-painted, all the sprue connections were hidden in the snap areas (I didn’t even know to call this “sprue” back then), it was pretty toy-like after being built, but by god, we built it. This small success tempted me onward.
The spring of my 7th grade year I bought my first model. A 1:48 scale F-15 Eagle by Monogram. I was determined to take my time, be patient, and simply do my best, but to finish. Between the ever more gloppy Testors gloss white to the Testors model glue, to the very challenging fit of the intakes, to the dozens of decals, it was a battle. I kept at it slow and steady, even free-hand painting the canopy lines (a serious achievement for me, and I didn’t think there was another way).
The end product looked a little sloppy by current standards, but I was not only pleased – I was hooked. Even then I had many hobbies, drawing, painting, guitar, writing, gardening, so there were plenty of creative avenues. Modeling was officially my new obsession, as all hobbies have been for me.
As I kept building (using whatever free funds I had from summer hay baling and eventually working at the local country club), I realized the joy that came from not only building, but by keeping to one scale (1:48 became my scale of choice), I could enjoy a level of understanding and detail about aircraft I couldn’t get in a book. I also loved reading about the aircraft in the small description at the start of every set of instructions. This usually led to more research where I could get it. Growing up rural, before the internet, that wasn’t always easy to come by, but local book stores helped.
When I went off to college, I thought I’d somehow keep adding to my collection of twenty or so finished models, each one a bit more polished than the last. But college was busy, far away, and too cramped in a dorm room to finish or safely store a model.
Maybe when I when back for Christmas or summer breaks? Those breaks went fast and involved lots of work to earn more money for college. Getting married my junior year, I moved into married student housing and eventually felt permanent enough with enough space to maybe try again. I’d saved a portion of my desk area to build a model – this time a pretty large version of the Cutty Sark with gorgeous detailed rigging and sails.
I’d never built anything like it, but I was super excited to get back to my old friend, scale modeling. Once the rigging started, I realized, this was way beyond me. My giant fingers, small, poorly-lit space, and nearly 4 year hiatus from modeling weren’t helping. Nothing worked the way I wanted, it all started to fail miserably from just starting the roped railings. It got boxed, shelved, moved houses twice, and finally tossed out. An expensive kit that had gone horribly wrong and haunted me for years.
Married life, work life, all started to take or bend my time in new and different ways. I still had many hobbies, but often they had become hobbies where I did something for someone else or made something for the express purpose of showing I could do it. These hobbies had become much more external and were less and less for my personal enjoyment.
Lots of changes in my life had happened over the years since that first F-15 model in 1983. I started to think more often about the group of airplanes that I’d enjoyed such quiet time building. I remembered what it was to take time to do something that was just for me, essentially thinking of how nice it was to take time just for me, no matter the thing. Scale modeling is slow, meditative, and at least has an output at the end to show for your time (something key to a growing-up-rural mindset). Maybe I could model something again, not the incredibly complex Cutty Sark, but something simple, and enjoy that joy of making something with my hands.
I knew what I wanted to build. A poorly executed Revell model of the Millennium Falcon had thwarted me in it’s frustrating inaccuracy (that got eventually given to another modeler who was more on the ball than me). I had recently seen a snap-tite version that looked really accurate. Snap-tite. That’s the type of kit that got me comfortable the first time. Yes.
And so it begins again. Will snap-tite help me get started again? We’ll see.
Scale Model Wings 