Amen, Tom!! When I started out it was tube glue and paint brushed from a bottle. When I graduated to spray painting, I rigged a coat hanger on an old phonograph turntable and sprayed like crazy in the basement! Those thin, twin pipe plastic stir sticks were great sources of modification material (didn't have plastruct or evergreen back then). When I wanted to add a radio antenna, a well formed glob of modeling clay held a spaghetti strand just fine (not yet boiled, of course). Cut up sprue made all kinds of necessary car parts - so long as one's imagination wasn't stunted. Scotch tape made suitable windows, and thin cardboard made great panels. You could even "plasticize" it by smearing tube glue on the cardboard and massaging it into the pores.
Yep, we didn't know we were bad modelers back then (there was no internet to point out our flaws or skill-shame us), we just knew we were modelers!
Oh, yeah, skills developed and progressed as we kept building and practicing. Hey, that still works!
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