What made you return to building?

[Uncle Mike]

I had built model cars for years, when young...all the way 'til '62, when we started drag racing actively.

In 1976, I opened a Hot Rod Shop, in Campbell, California. Frame jig was tied up one-after-another, and old hot rods were being totally revamped as well as fresh ones being built.

A 40-year old guy came in one day, all eyes, "Wow, you do it all here?" I assured him that 'we' did, and he stated that his company had recently incorporated Profit-Sharing, and he just got a '32 Roadster from his uncle. It was an old hot rod, and he wanted it to look like "one he had seen in a movie..."

I did a quick sideview sketch on the blackboard in the office, he looked, but said he 'couldn't see it'. I erased the sideview, and did a quick 1/4 frontal isometric, which he said he couldn't see either.

I said I'd bring in a customer's Highboy for him to look at, and he could drop by the next week.

That evening, I dropped into D&J Hobbies, 1/2 mile from the shop.

I bought a Monogram '32 Roadster, an AMT '53 Ford F100, and a Monogram '40 Ford pickup, for parts.

Upstairs at the shop, I had my Control Line Model Airplane hobby room...well equipped.

I cut the fenders off the cast-in frame of the '32, and added some Bristol Board for the front framerails...Mixed & matched 'steel' wheels from the '53 pickup, and the flathead from the '40. Red engine block, same for the tranny and wheels, '53 center hubcaps. Hairpin wishbones from piano wire, ('lead-out' wire from Airplane stock) Black Pactra 'Namel, and a nice Quick Change rear from some stuff "Howard the Duck" (the upholstery guy) gave me. (Howie laid a whole 2 big cardboard boxes full of old Model Car stuff on me)

When the guy with the Deuce came in, I showed him the model of the Highboy. He shrieked, "YES! This is IT!"

A $20 bill plus some glue, putty, and Pactra 'Namel not only sold a $3K job, but also got me back into building models of the hot rods and pickups and Customs, and...well, you know.

[62SS]

I never really "quit" building, I just slowed down in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when life got in the way. You know, stuff like kids, houses, 1:1 stock cars, and jobs and stuff. But now I'm older and more laid back and back to modeling on a regular basis.

LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

Ed

[evilone]

a 6 4 impala was screaming at me when i went to pegasus

hence my light blue 6 4 impala

[Mike]

My dad remembered that after the flood of 1997, they had never replaced my compressor and airbrush. When he remembered 2004 (I'd actually mentioned I was going to buy one again) he tooke me to Michaels and bought me a new compressor and airbrush. I was at McGiffin's Hobby shop the next day after work buying a 1969 Baldwin Motion Camaro.

[Tom Kren]

At my old job around 9th grade.Worked at a little store and one day we got magizines in and had (OK I know im going to get yelled at for this Sorry Gregg ) issues of SAE # 75 so i bought it and read it from front to back and got the fever again and been building since!

[LVZ2881]

I got back into when I grew up a little ( just a little bit), and had kids...

I found it was the perfect "quiet" hobby to do after the kids were down for the night....

that was also about the same time I found a 1/2 completed original issue Revell '70 AAR Cuda in a box of stuff from my old room my mom sent me...I stripped the old paint that was crazed ( thats why it was in the box) and finished it...

Edited October 9, 2008 by LVZ2881

[RodBurNeR]

I have a hard time trying to remember when i started building. It was 1978-1980 somewhere in there. For a long time i thought i was 8 when i started, but i was about 5-7 years old. I would estimate i have been building for 27 years at least. During the whole time, i simply never did quit or slow down. No matter what i was doing or got into over the years, i always came home to models. I have always had models. Maybe i didn't touch a model for a few months here and there....but i never stopped, not any different than i am today when i get burnt out and take a break for a couple months or whatever......i always have them and always build every year. I go through phases. I get to a certain point where i am maxed out on a few techniques, then i start learning and trying more things....when i get better at other things, i look back at my old builds and used to throw them on ebay cuz i didn't want them near my newer builds haha! Sound stupid don't it? I should have kept them all, but i was disappointed in them. I doubt i will do that again though, I would rather have 200 built models in various conditions than 200 unbuilt kits to show for when i die. One of my biggest goals is to build as many vintage kits as i can WAHAHAHAH!!!!!

[Draggon]

I've been building since 1962, though I slowed down as I got into my early twenties. In 1988 I was going thru a messy divorce, the soon-to-be ex-wife got into my house, carefully laid out my models in pile on the floor and stomped on all of them--some dating way back to the sixties. It was horrible, and it is a true story. It upset me so much that I quit the hobby until finding models on ebay, then remembering my LHS and Michaels, and online mags and forums. a couple of years ago. So I guess it was mostly due to the internet and Model Cars Mag.

[MarkJ]

I had not built a model in 35 years. I saw a model of an AMT 62 Bel-Air in a five and dime store in the hill country of central Texas and decided it might be fun to build a model of Rex White's 1962 Dixie 400 winner. I built it and now I can't stop building.

[3men2s]

I remember my dad building models and telling me not to play with it

I did, I broke them, he got mad, untill he started to buy me one

and that solved th problem. 1975

1975-1981 built cars, 1982-1984 built fighter jets and stoped dead turkey.

in 1985 built a pro stock and started customizin it and stop again.

1986 got my real car and all my money went to it, and girls.

what got me back, after I am already married and goin thru the same o thing

work, oay bills, go home...one day I stop at a hobbie shop on my way home 1996

that I happen to see by chance and went in and that good old craetive feeling

came back, grabed a magazine amazed that they had magazines about model cars and

saw what people were doing and it just blew my head.....i GOT A BOOK ON MODEL CARS

and

read it like it was a Bible.... started building. In the magazine I saw an add for

MODEL EMPIRE catalog and I got it. I wanted to rebuy all my old models that I built

went I was a kit, most rare and discontinued. Got a jungle jim funny car, just like the one

my father got me the first time and I built it like it just came out of the track.

I detailed it and paint it and I put the decals, something I could not do back then

because of the mess and because it use to come off cause I played with it right

after I finished them. I saw a flyer for a Model Contest and I went very proud

with my entre, I saw people checking it out and talking about it and talking

about the old days of 70's funny cars. But what I saw on the table next to mine

incredible cars.....that I realized their was so much I could learn and do.

and I have never stoped. and with the discovery of ebay, this forum and other forums like this one

forgitaboutit i don't think i can stop. by the way I gave that funny car to my dad as a gift

and he just smiled and giggled and started to study it just like a kid again.

Edited October 9, 2008 by 3men2s

[ricky12]

years of on off again model building through out my childhood and teens alittle bit after igot married slowed down alittel when kids came then it got to were i couldnt aford my1:1 stock car so istarted playing again started getting serious and got hurt at work and was off for about three months found alocal club and the guys there realy got me hooked shows excetra thats four years and dont plan on stopping any time soon. just had a big set back i wll asking some advice soon . got to get ready for toledo

[Zoom Zoom]

I never really quit, but in high school and junior college my building tapered off a lot. Then in design school in '81 one of my best friends was a model car freak as well, got me back into building, with a whole new perspective on building/detailing. That's when my building took on a new level of creativity & craftsmanship that was lacking when I was a kid. Overnight I was airbrushing, polishing paint jobs, using bare metal foil, and having a blast. I build a lot these days, but I often take long periods off from modeling, but then put a lot of hours in to get projects done. I have no problem putting the hobby aside to recharge my batteries.

[Harry P.]

I think my story is pretty typical. I built models hot and heavy as a kid (all my friends did, too). Then along came girls, jobs, "real" cars, marriage, kids, a mortgage, etc.

I "dropped out" of building for about 15 years. I got back into it after the kids had grown a bit and I finally once again actually had a little time to pursue a hobby! It's not so much what brought me back to modeling as what forced me out of it in the first place (family responsibilities and diminished "free time").

[Dave]

I too drifed away after college and my first several years out in the real world. I actually built right through college, having set up a small work area in my dorm room. Yeah I was called a huge geek, but while most were out getting drunk on weekends I was in tinkering and building small simple kits/projects, but what the "popular guys" never figured out was there were quite a few very attractive co eds who stayed in too, knitting, making jewelry etc that would often come over and hangout with me. I'm pretty sure I got more dates because I had hemastats and knew where the hobby craft stores were than alot of the frat boys!

Any way I got back into pretty good around '96-97. I was working near a pretty good LHS and went there one day and saw a NASCAR Craftsman truck kit on sale....bought that one and a Dale Earnhardt kit (I had started to get into NASCAR) and started the bench up again.

Dave

[bobss396]

I built as a kid through 1973 or so when I discovered 1:1 cars and women. I did some street racing, gave that up after too many trips to traffic court. Got into stock cars for a few years and had fun with that.

After the stock cars, I got into a lot of things that people should not get into. Somehow I stayed married to Wife #2. I one day dredged up a box of model cars that I had moved with me for 20 years and started tinkering with them. This was in 1995, so after a 22 year break, I was back!

At first, I was building like ######, just where I had left off in 1973. Testors paints sucked, tube glue was horrible, I knew NOTHING about model cars it seemed. Little by little I discovered that the hobby was in fact alive and well. I found a LHS that was well stocked with supplies and slowly acquired a bunch of kits. I joined a local club which put me in touch with a lot of great people and great ideas. Add the internet into the mix and I was all set from there.

Bob

[CAL]

A bunch of stuff.

Stopped partying it up, girls, real cars, racing, had extra money and time and picked it up again in 1990. By 1993 I was in deep.

[Eshaver]

Returning to 1982, I had moved to Dallas from Houston . AM T had just released their 1961 Ranchero again. This time was different as this one came with a Chevrolet engine. Now, opersonally , i would have prefered a six, but since the hood was open, I figgured I could build something that resembled a Ford six. M P C had also re-released their 1953 Ford Pick-up Flipnose too. I ahd just aquired a 1953 Ford Panel delivery in 1-1. I was stalking about trying to find a Monogram 1955 Panel to convert back to a 53. I also experimented with scratch building gasoline pumps during the same time too. Ed Shaver

[MonoPed]

After a bad car crash in '95, earning the moniker "MonoPed", I took up building balsa/tissue Guillow's kits (as I had done as a kid along with cars) as an additional form of occupational therapy to regain fine motor control of my right hand (nerve damage). Planes take up too much space, so I switched back to cars around '96-97, and have been building since.

[Jantrix]

Like most of you I built as a kid, but it was just that- kid stuff. Then one day in my late teens (I was in college I think) I stopped by my LHS and found my first copy of SAE. I can't tell you what that magazine did for me that day. It took my guilty pleasure (kid stuff right?) and turned it into a legitimate hobby that adults did! I took it home and showed my Dad, and we were both so impressed with the work done. That night I dragged my old kits out and started creating.

I built for the next several years with regularity. Unfortunately the models I did back then were all lost (read: stolen) during a military move years later. I got married at 23 and entered the military. I built two models during the next 14 years for reasons I'm sure you understand. Three years ago I bought my first home, with a garage, and a shed and.........room to build and collect. I'm 40 now. Although for a long time I couldn't build, I was still always thinking about it, missing it, and picking up a kit here and there. I build when I want to now and enjoy it immensely. It's not kid stuff, but I'm pretty darn sure it is keeping me young.

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

I built models as a kid from 1967 thru 1976, when I turned 16 and my interests turned to 1:1 cars, girls, partying, etc., etc. During the college years, I tossed out all my old model parts, supplies, and collection of Car Model and Model Car Science magazines to the garbage. After college and marriage, I would always look at the model car isle in the Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or whatever department store we shopped at. I've always been an avid reader of car magazines, either by subscription or at my favorite newsstand. One day in 1995, I found SAE and Car Modeler magazine on the stand and purchased them in a fit of nostalgia.

Soon after, I bought a couple of kits and started to dabble. My wife was a "stay at home" mother so with only one income, model cars was an affordable hobby for me. At that time, my wife only let me build in the garage at the workbench. Over the next few years, I discovered the model car forums on Compuserve and in 1999, found the Hobby Heaven message board. The internet took my interest in the hobby to another level. The real turning point in my return to the hobby was in 2002, when my lovely wife gave me our extra bedroom to use as a hobby room.

Model building is a great quiet time hobby for those of us that have families. I don't smoke, drink, gamble or play golf, so model cars is my only vice.

[forthlin]

I built models as a kid from 1966-70 & then lost interest as a teenager. I didn't restart the hobby until 1992 when my Brother found a '32 Ford model at a rummage for a quarter & thought I might like to build it for old times sake. That model restarted the love I had for modeling as a kid & I haven't stopped since.

[Rob Hall]

I never did really quit, but did very little from about 1986 through 1996, from a junior in HS in Florida through college in Ohio and grad school in Michigan. But in the mid '90s, when I was living in Ann Arbor, MI I discovered the Rider's hobby shop, bought a few kits, and then went to the Toledo Toy Show a couple of times and got hooked again. Then in the late '90s working and living in Colorado, after discovering ebay, I started buying old kits in a big way, along w/ new releases. I now have 1500 or so unbuilts, and a lot of restorable '60s-70s builtups that I've bought. Alas, I buy a lot more than I actually build..

Edited October 11, 2008 by Rob Hall

[70elcamino]

Mostly same story for me, started out young in early 70's, then along came girls, real cars, work, marriage and kids. I got into Hot Wheels in 1988 and collected those for years. and slot cars. Then in about 1998, I was sick of all the bickering over new hot wheels so I mostly sold out and traded off what I had left. I went to a guys house to trade and he had several of the Tom Daniel cars, including the garbage truck. We traded and I have not stopped since. I still do slot cars as well. The reason the garbage truck struck a nerve is because my best friends older brother had a built one when I was a kid and I always thought that was the coolest model ever and of course I had no idea of the name or designer. But now I am trying to get all the Tom Daniel cars and build them.

Russell

[Dave Mikrut]

I started building models in 1960. My allowance was $2.50. An incredible amount of money back then for an 8 year old boy, altho well deserved. My mom was a single parent; I was cooking dinnner for her already at that age and cleaning half the house and helping with laundry every other week. An AMT 3-1 kit was $1.49 then and our local five and dime even discounted that sometimes as low as $1.29. Spray paint was $.49 a can and I even had money left over to buy a custom car magazine or model car magazine as they first came out, small tv guide size. Loved it when Cartoons came out then too. If I couldn't afford something I would satisfy my urge to possess it, by drawing it. Became a pretty good artist over the years, art is also in our family genes along with music.

Like many others, getting married, having 3 kids, getting divorced, raising my kids as a single dad, all contributed to drifting me away from my beloved hobby. Got rid of most of the magazines but thank God I kept all my model cars stashed away safely for when would come the day.

When my kids got older, and time got freed up somewhat, I began to get these models back out into an area where they could be repaired, rebuilt and in some cases started. Along came Ebay. Since I had sold all my magazines, I have since bought all of them back, from 1960 - 1972. Got alot of old preemo kits too, not to collect but to build.

I tried the ultra detailed, aluminum and photoetched parts style of of building and it gave me no joy to assemble parts made by other people. Even the kits I build very rarely are right out of the box, ever since I was a kid. A childhood hero was Don Emmons. I dreamed someday of maybe, just maybe being able to build as cool as he. Someday I would love to thank him for sharing his dreams with us, for such a small price...just a magazine. This has become my new style of building. I grab a handfull of old model car magazines and browse them for inspiration while sometimes in a slump and everytime I see something that possesses me and I cannot rest until I have rode the wave of styrene fabrication and putty slinging!

I keep on building. Not to win a contest, altho I admit watching from a distance, people admiring something I've built. It's for the personal gratification and creative rush we get for creating these little dream cars that we love so much.

God bless all the hobby heroes that have guided our way. They are passing but we are richer for what they have left with us.

[Gregg]

At my old job around 9th grade.Worked at a little store and one day we got magizines in and had (OK I know im going to get yelled at for this Sorry Gregg ) issues of SAE # 75 so i bought it and read it from front to back and got the fever again and been building since!

That was what, Last year?

luv yah!!!!!