I build for Fun, I build for myself.

[wayne swayze]

To me, each model project has a "life". There's the initial excitement of a new "idea", then the planning stage, followed by the gathering of the parts needed, then the build begins. This is where I either have planned an "easy" build, or a more detailed one. Oddly, sometimes the "easy" builds are so much fun, that they demand more detail, and to me, that's where the real fun begins. I believe the more you learn how to achieve, the more you're compelled to do on most builds after. And sometimes the models that you have big plans for, end up in a drawer, because you've over-thought it. But being creative and having fun is at the root of all great hobbies.

[Modelmartin]

There are a lot of ways to enjoy model cars, but there's no "right" way.

What do you mean? That sounds like moral relativism! Where are the values? The world is going to ruin.

[Tom Geiger]

To me, each model project has a "life". There's the initial excitement of a new "idea", then the planning stage, followed by the gathering of the parts needed, then the build begins. This is where I either have planned an "easy" build, or a more detailed one. Oddly, sometimes the "easy" builds are so much fun, that they demand more detail, and to me, that's where the real fun begins. I believe the more you learn how to achieve, the more you're compelled to do on most builds after. And sometimes the models that you have big plans for, end up in a drawer, because you've over-thought it. But being creative and having fun is at the root of all great hobbies.

There is no such thing as an easy build. Those always get complicated as they go on and we add 'just one more little detail'. And down the merry path we go!

You are right, there are stages of the build. First we have the mental vision of what we want to do. Then we do the kit and parts gathering phase. We are sooo excited when we are able to assemble what we need. Then we get to the fabrication phase. This is where the model image in your head takes shape in 3D. And once I can squint and see how that model will look finished? Bam! I've lost interest. Finishing the model is an inconvenience since I've already seen it in my head. And that's where you want to run off to the next great idea.

I think I need understudies who will finish my models once I get to that stage!

[Modelmartin]

There is no such thing as an easy build. Those always get complicated as they go on and we add 'just one more little detail'. And down the merry path we go!

You are right, there are stages of the build. First we have the mental vision of what we want to do. Then we do the kit and parts gathering phase. We are sooo excited when we are able to assemble what we need. Then we get to the fabrication phase. This is where the model image in your head takes shape in 3D. And once I can squint and see how that model will look finished? Bam! I've lost interest. Finishing the model is an inconvenience since I've already seen it in my head. And that's where you want to run off to the next great idea.

I think I need understudies who will finish my models once I get to that stage!

Any old fool can start a model. It takes a real builder to finish one!

[Harry P.]

What do you mean? That sounds like moral relativism! Where are the values? The world is going to ruin.

Ball of confusion.... that's what the world is today. Hey hey...

[cobraman]

Can you dig it, can you dig it ?

[Toast]

Plain and simple, if it wasn't fun nobody would do it.

WHERE you get the fun out of it, depends on the builder.

[Dirt Demon]

I too build for myself. I have been building for roughly 40 years now on and off. I have gotten into super detailing my builds....weather it be Semi trucks...Dirt cars...Pavement... and even Military. I just started going to local model shows within the last three years, and not bragging, but I have done very well. I use to go with a friend.....and I use the word "use" to loosely. It got to the point that he was rude and disrespectful about others models at these shows. He thought that his stuff was top notch, I will say he is a good builder, but to walk around and look at competitors models, and degrade them.......well that got a bit old and disgusting with me.He just acted like he had this chip on his shoulder, like his stuff was better than everyone elses.When awards time rolled around......and he got beat by some of these models that he had put down......he was totally miserable on the trip home. complaining the whole way home......it was aweful! Needless to say, I dont have to deal with him or his attitude anymore. He is a member on here, and Im quite sure he will read this, but I dont care. Modeling is suppose to be a fun hobby and guys like him ruin it!

[Ace-Garageguy]

There is no such thing as an easy build. Those always get complicated as they go on and... down the merry path we go!

And once I can squint and see how that model will look finished? Bam! I've lost interest. Finishing the model is an inconvenience since I've already seen it in my head. And that's where you want to run off to the next great idea.

This is as close to my feelings about this hobby as anyone has ever come. I don't actually "lose interest", but it almost becomes a chore to go through the mundane motions of actually doing the "grunt work" to get the things done, once the new of doing the conceptualizing and mockups and initial fitting and verifying-it-will-work are all over.

I KNOW I can do primo paint, I've done it, and it's work, so i put off doing it. I KNOW I can do primo bodywork, I've done it, and it's work. Same with detailing, etc. 'Bout the only thing I DON'T know I can do is BMF, and I've put off trying it (possibly to avoid failing at it??) for years.

This is a character flaw I have to constantly battle in EVERY facet of my life. I'd probably end up enjoying this hobby a lot MORE if I knuckled down and started finishing models.

Of course, the flip side of that is that I can work as much or as little as I want on the models and they NEVER HAVE TO BE FINISHED. I still HAVE FUN doing the mockups and rough-ins, the purely creative parts.

WORK, on the other hand, involves actually FINISHING CARS FOR OTHER PEOPLE.

[High octane]

Bill, give BMF an "honest" try as it's not rocket science. And if you're not happy with a piece of foil on the body, just take the tip of the Xacto knife blade and lift one end up and use your tweezers to pull it off. Then redo it to your liking. You CAN do it.

[Monty]

Bill, give BMF an "honest" try as it's not rocket science. And if you're not happy with a piece of foil on the body, just take the tip of the Xacto knife blade and lift one end up and use your tweezers to pull it off. Then redo it to your liking. You CAN do it.

Gotta agree with Nick on this. Considering how well you do everything else, BMF shouldn't even be a concern.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I really appreciate the encouragement, guys. Frankly, I'm apprehensive about buggering a nice paint job during the learning curve. I had set aside an AMT '57 Ford to practice on, thinking if I really screwed it up, I could just remove the chrome trim, drill holes where it would have been, and make a ratty gasser out of it.

Guess it's time to forge ahead.

[High octane]

ALL my models are just "practice" for my next build. I don't use practice bodies to try paint, nor spoons either. I "shoot from the hip" and hope for the best. Guess I'm pretty lucky as my models do come out to my liking.

[sjordan2]

" And once I can squint and see how that model will look finished? Bam! I've lost interest. Finishing the model is an inconvenience since I've already seen it in my head. And that's where you want to run off to the next great idea."

Tom's quote reminds me of how Alfred Hitchcock said he made movies. He planned every tiny detail well in advance and made storyboards of every shot, plus lighting diagrams. He said the movie was already done before they even rolled the camera.

[Tom Geiger]

I really appreciate the encouragement, guys. Frankly, I'm apprehensive about buggering a nice paint job during the learning curve. I had set aside an AMT '57 Ford to practice on, thinking if I really screwed it up, I could just remove the chrome trim, drill holes where it would have been, and make a ratty gasser out of it.

Guess it's time to forge ahead.

Bare Metal Foil is actually pretty simple. Everyone just over thinks it. I have no idea where you live, but if I spent a half your with you, you would be foiling with the best of them.

Here's a few tips... and where people go wrong... and the last time I posted something like this certain people went nutz to contradict me.

1. Don't be stingy with the foil. You know how you order 120-150% of carpet or flooring to do a job and there's a ton of waste afterwards? BMF is like that. You will need to cut a piece about 3 times as wide as the part you are covering.

2. Place the foil down so the foil is centered over the part you are covering. Never try to line it up with an edge. You are better off cutting the foil off your edges. It will be cleaner in the end.

3. Place the foil down ONCE. Don't lift and reposition a bunch of times. That weakens the glue and puts wrinkles in your foil.

4. Never touch the glue side of the foil! Cut your piece longer than the item you are going to foil so that you cut off the edges you have touched.

5. Burnish it down with your fingers first. Then maybe with a square of old t-shirt. You can get into crevices with a de-sharpened tooth pick. Be careful not to punch through.

6. Use a new number 11 blade. Some folks paint the sides of the blade flat black so they can see the edge of it against the foil. This is a good idea because under bright lights, everything is shiny glare.

7. If you don't like the result, pull the foil off and try again. You get an infinite amount of do overs!

Now here's the biggie. It takes ZERO force to cut through BMF. None at all. So when you go to cut the piece, just trace along the edge... as if you are sketching lightly with a pencil. Practice going as light as you can. There is no reason to press hard enough to scar your paint. It may not look like the foil is cut, but believe me it is. Think more like you want to score it than cut through. Now just take a dull toothpick and pull the excess away from the cut. Once you get a bit up, grab the edge with a tweezer and slowly, carefully pull it off.

I've down demos at club meetings and had adults afraid to try, but 10 year old kids foiling in minutes.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Tom Geiger

[D. Battista]

Bare Metal Foil is actually pretty simple. Everyone just over thinks it. I have no idea where you live, but if I spent a half your with you, you would be foiling with the best of them.

Here's a few tips... and where people go wrong... and the last time I posted something like this certain people went nutz to contradict me.

1. Don't be stingy with the foil. You know how you order 120-150% of carpet or flooring to do a job and there's a ton of waste afterwards? BMF is like that. You will need to cut a piece about 3 times as wide as the part you are covering.

2. Place the foil down so the foil is centered over the part you are covering. Never try to line it up with an edge. You are better off cutting the foil off your edges. It will be cleaner in the end.

3. Place the foil down ONCE. Don't lift and reposition a bunch of times. That weakens the glue and puts wrinkles in your foil.

4. Never touch the glue side of the foil! Cut your piece longer than the item you are going to foil so that you cut off the edges you have touched.

5. Burnish it down with your fingers first. Then maybe with a square of old t-shirt. You can get into crevices with a de-sharpened tooth pick. Be careful not to punch through.

6. Use a new number 11 blade. Some folks paint the sides of the blade flat black so they can see the edge of it against the foil. This is a good idea because under bright lights, everything is shiny glare.

7. If you don't like the result, pull the foil off and try again. You get an infinite amount of do overs!

Now here's the biggie. It takes ZERO force to cut through BMF. None at all. So when you go to cut the piece, just trace along the edge... as if you are sketching lightly with a pencil. Practice going as light as you can. There is no reason to press hard enough to scar your paint. It may not look like the foil is cut, but believe me it is. Think more like you want to score it than cut through. Now just take a dull toothpick and pull the excess away from the cut. Once you get a bit up, grab the edge with a tweezer and slowly, carefully pull it off.

I've down demos at club meetings and had adults afraid to try, but 10 year old kids foiling in minutes.

I agree 100% great advice...!

[Ace-Garageguy]

Thanks Tom, for taking the time to post the advice. I've watched a couple of videos and wasn't particularly impressed with the results shown, but your recommendation to use pieces well larger than the intended coverage area makes perfect sense. I was also completely unaware that the stuff took almost zero force to cut. That was the part that had me concerned most...marring the paint permanently if my lines wavered during the cuts and required correction, as I'm SURE they will until I get a real feel for it.

[Monty]

Bill, once you start playing with this stuff, you'll start looking for things that could use foiling. I remember the feeling of accomplishment I got years ago when I got this stuff to stick to things as small as the little horn buttons AMT molded on its '67 Impala's steering wheel. I couldn't imagine participating in this hobby without BMF.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Monty

[Ace-Garageguy]

Bill, once you start playing with this stuff, you'll start looking for things that could use foiling.

That will certainly be a change, because up til now, I've been looking for ways to build to AVOID having to foil. This technique, and Cruz's panel-line darkening method, will add to my satisfaction with my own models immeasurably.

[southpier]

but are we overlooking the reason people build models - or in a broader sense - develop their hobbies?

does every part need to be the quintessential icon it is meant to represent?

can't a hobby just be a couple of hours away from the headaches of daily life without phones and people butting into your "me" time?

sometimes I just want to have a steak, but that doesn't mean I need to know all the parts of the cow.

[Ace-Garageguy]

but are we overlooking the reason people build models - or in a broader sense - develop their hobbies?

does every part need to be the quintessential icon it is meant to represent? The point has been made that everyone's "comfort level" is different and that EACH modeler expects something different from the hobby, I believe.

can't a hobby just be a couple of hours away from the headaches of daily life without phones and people butting into your "me" time? Sure. If that's whet YOU (or anyone) want from the hobby, it's entirely fine. There's no hobby police, yet anyway, who tell you how involved (or not) you HAVE to be.

sometimes I just want to have a steak, but that doesn't mean I need to know all the parts of the cow. And that's where the "develop their hobbies" part comes in, right? Some will choose to go deeper in every endeavor in life, some are satisfied with a superficial involvement (or any level in between).

People engage in hobbies for a variety of reasons.

Some people simply want to "pass the time" doing something that requires little real effort or intellectual involvement. Fine.

Some other people prefer to spend their free time learning new skills, developing old ones, and producing well-crafted things of beauty in the process. Also fine.

Each modeler's (or hobbyist's) expectations are different, and no one can define them for anyone else.

But there still seems to be some animosity from the ones who prefer to expend minimal effort, directed towards the ones who choose to get more involved...and I just can NOT understand why.

I'll never criticize a model that's obviously put together with little effort, with grainy paint, poor fit, glue smudges, etc. If that is what the builder wants or that's all he's capable of, that's OK by me...but I'll never praise it either. Effort and skill get my praise, not just going through the motions mindlessly...in anything.

But the whole POINT here is that even the least-skilled builder shouldn't care if his work is praised or not, unless his motivation for showing it here is to get feedback and constructive criticism, helping him to develop as a modeler. The level each of us chooses to build at is the result of many personal decisions and attitudes and life-experiences. The most highly skilled builder shouldn't be motivated by a desire for praise either. The only valuable satisfaction from accomplishment, on ANY level, comes from INSIDE.

And that, I believe, brings us back to the definition of "I build for fun, I build for myself".

Edited August 3, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[Tom Geiger]

Some people simply want to "pass the time" doing something that requires little real effort or intellectual involvement. Fine.

Some other people prefer to spend their free time learning new skills, developing old ones, and producing well-crafted things of beauty in the process. Also fine.

But there still seems to be some animosity from the ones who prefer to expend minimal effort, directed towards the ones who choose to get more involved...and I just can NOT understand why.

I'll never criticize a model that's obviously put together with little effort, with grainy paint, poor fit, glue smudges, etc. If that is what the builder wants or that's all he's capable of, that's OK by me...but I'll never praise it either. Effort and skill get my praise, not just going through the motions mindlessly...in anything.

But the whole POINT here is that even the least-skilled builder shouldn't care if his work is praised or not, unless his motivation for showing it here is to get feedback and constructive criticism, helping him to develop as a modeler. The level each of us chooses to build at is the result of many personal decisions and attitudes and life-experiences. The most highly skilled builder shouldn't be motivated by a desire for praise either. The only valuable satisfaction from accomplishment, on ANY level, comes from INSIDE.

And that, I believe, brings us back to the definition of "I build for fun, I build for myself".

I think that you've described the 90% of model builders. The people who make up the majority of the kit manufacturers market, the guys who buy an occasional kit at Michaels or Walmart and put it together on a rainy day. They never put it against research material, nor do they care if something is a quarter of a millimeter off. They've just got this 3D puzzle of a Mustang that they're going to attempt to put together.

I once knew a guy named Dale, who lived in motels a lot for work. He just wanted some evening entertainment, so he'd find a model kit and a tube of glue. He had no paint, didn't care about mold lines or any other imperfections. He got about a week of evenings out of just assembling the kit. It made him happy. And those are the people who actually finance our hobby.

As a group we need to realize that we are that odd 10% that take this hobby to an extreme. We are the lunatic fringe who participate in message boards, clubs and shows. If you want to run with this group, the game is a bit more serious, and better results are accepted as the norm. Note that the manufacturers recognize us for who we are. They take us with a grain of salt since our requests for new kits, and our criticism of their kits doesn't reflect that of 90% or more of their customer base!

On the other hand... there was a guy in my club who was a sloppy builder. He did no clean up on parts. He'd brush paint parts on the trees, and spray his bodies with one coat of Walmart paint. He saw no purpose for primer. He wasn't all that careful with his glue either. He'd knock these out on a regular basis. If a kit took him more than a week or two, he lost interest. He once said that he wasn't happy if he spent an evening and didn't finish a major part of the kit. And that would be okay until...

He complained about our little club contest we held every other month. He wasn't winning! I tried to coach and motivate him to put more effort into his models. Nope, not interested. Then he'd come up with contest suggestions that the models should be shown with the hoods shut, since others did a lot of detail and he couldn't be bothered to wire anything. He'd whine to anyone that would listen. He also suggested that the models be judged (popular vote) from 5 feet away to equalize them. He'd complain that the contest "wasn't fair" since others had more time to build since he worked for a living. Truth is, he probably spent more time building than the rest of us!

He so wanted to win a contest, but wasn't willing to put in the effort to do so. We couldn't get through to him that effort = reward. And this was a man in his forties.

Now the scary part.. he would put himself out there as a commission builder. Yea, occasionally some poor unsuspecting soul would hire him to build a model for them!

Edited August 3, 2014 by Tom Geiger

[cobraman]

BMF can also be used as a great masking item. Nice and thin with a sharp edge.

[southpier]

let's get those Dales to write model companies for a 1927 Ford 3 in 1 kit to be produced!

[Ramfins59]

BMF can also be used as a great masking item. Nice and thin with a sharp edge.

The problem that I've had when doing this, is that sometimes it's a real beeyotch to peel the foil off after painting. I'd use a dull toothpick to pull up an edge so I'd have enough to grab with tweezers, but usually would wind up marring or pulling up some paint at the edge. I've found that Tamiya tape works much better.