John1955

When did you build your first plastic kit? Do you remember what it was and how old you were and where the kit came from? Why did you get into this hobby, did someone inspire you to? For me, it was a Pyro '57 Chevy, 1/32nd scale, and I hadn't started first grade in school yet. There was no kindergarten back then where I lived, but I entered first grade at age 5 so I was probably 5. I don't remember the price, but it came from local hardware store that was also a bicycle repair shop and sold bicycles as well. My oldest brother was 10 years old and he bought it for me, using money he had from picking up discarded glass pop bottles and redeeming them for 2 cents each at another store. He and my 8 year old brother built models and insisted that I build them, too. It was molded in color so I didn't need to paint it. I surprised my brothers by not getting the Testor's model cement all over it or all over myself. I was hooked from day one and I'd give anything to still have that model now and to remember whatever happened to it. I should remember because I had it on the top of a shelf on the bunk beds for awhile, and my older brothers were proud of me at how well I'd built it. But I just can't recall it's fate.

When I was younger, I thought that once I retired, I'd work on models constantly. But I didn't know that I'd get arthritis in my hands and fingers. How much time I spend on models depends on how much my arthritis acts up. It's okay, I'm not complaining, there are people far worse off than I am. When a whole week without severe pain and cramping happens, I'm a busy beaver, assembly line style, getting the hard work done like climbing up and own the steps to the basement paint booth and I can paint as many as a dozen or more. In bad weeks, I can lay in bed and make plans, which kit will I build next, what level of detail will I try, so it all works out. My grandmother had a saying, "It'll all come out in the wash", and she was right.

Yes, I agree, turn the fan on and let it run a few minutes before you start painting.

Thanks for reminding me! Yes, I do recall a grocery store here that sold model kits, paint and glue, I'd forgotten about that. OMG @ having $200 in my pocket in the 1960's, I'd have gone crazy. That reminds me of something else. When I was still in high school, my older cousin was working at a restaurant called Harvest House, connected to and owned by the Woolworth's store. As an employee, she got a 15% discount on anything at Woolworth's including stuff on sale. She told me about the store being overstocked with last years annual kits of AMT, MPC and Jo-Han models, they wanted rid of them and they were on sale at 60% off retail. I was working at a Gulf station and had been saving money to buy new shocks for my old car. Forget the shocks! Woolworth's had a huge assortment of kits, I did go nuts. I filled up an entire cart, she used her employee card and an extra 15% was added to the 60% off discount, and I was building models for quite a while after that. Unfortunately, my car wasn't happy and one of it's shock absorbers even broke off and I had to borrow my mother's car to get back and forth from work, I even had to walk a few times. Oh well, such was my love for plastic model kits.

In the early 1990's, I built a spray booth in my basement. Where I worked then (before retiring recently), sheets of material arrived supported by 2 X 4's and plywood. That lumber was usually thrown away, so they let me take some home and I built a large spray booth. Ignoring the high priced vents we're told to use, I bought a cheap $15 vent/fan that exhausts the paint fumes and mist to the outside. I placed an old metal kitchen cabinet a few feet away. I gently use a tack cloth on the model body (to remove any dust), then spray, wait a few minutes, then move it to the cabinet and gently close the cabinet door. Then I can spray more models. A standard 4 foot long two tube fluorescent light fixture is taped on the top (duct tape). Over 25 years later and it still does the job.

You're correct. Even when I was growing up in the 1960's, it was extremely rare to see whitewalls on pickup trucks. Before that, it was unheard of. I also have that Danbury Mint '42 Ford pickup which I bought on eBay. All U.S. automakers produced 1942 cars and trucks for civilians because they had been introduced in September 1941 before Pearl Harbor was attacked. Civilian production ended in early February 1942. Interesting tidbit: DeSoto's 1942 model had hidden headlights for the first time on it's '42 models. After the war, DeSoto never offered that again, making the '42 DeSoto one of the rarest cars ever.

I remember nagging my mother to buy me one of these at Woolworth's. It was 79 cents I think and my mom was strict and frugal. She knew I had some pocket change and said if I chipped in a quarter, she'd pay the rest. I negotiated with her down to me paying 15 cents, LOL.

All of those are true, but petroleum prices did come down later and American model companies began manufacturing kits in China, which should have meant lower prices on kits, but it didn't. The main reason that kits are so high priced now is about volume of production. Back in the 1960's especially but also in the 1970's, MILLIONS of plastic kits were sold annually. AMT, MPC, Jo-Han and Revell all went to 24 hour a day production to keep up with the demand. Even hardware stores and drug stores sold plastic model kits. Even upscale stores like Macy's and Gimbel's did as well. Then along came Atari and others, then the computer age; almost overnight, AMT, MPC, Jo-Han, Ertl and Revell (and others) began losing money and most were sold off like yesterday's trash. With the loss of the kid's as customers, it became a hobby for adults, low sales, low production means high prices. Snap kits did help a lot in the 1980's and 1990's to get kids interested, but that didn't last.

Years ago, my main problem was where to put my model collection. Until 1986 I lived in rented apartments and when I finally did buy a house, it had only two bedrooms, the second bedroom was tiny though. It was an ancient house built with no indoor plumbing and sometime in the 1920's or so, a bathroom was installed upstairs in what had been part of that second bedroom. All of my models went into boxes and stayed there for six or seven years and I quit making models. But I didn't quit buying them though, and unassembled kits piled up in that second bedroom. In 1989, I bought a large old house, three huge bedrooms and I built 4 foot by 8 foot shelves using plywood in the third bedroom. My model collection came in from the cold so to speak, out of the boxes and at the same time, I got a decent paying job. So, I went on a buying binge for model kits and began building again. It was like an assembly line, trying play catch up. I built a spray booth in the basement vented to the outside. However, no matter how many I built, I couldn't keep up with the new kits I was buying and the older ones that had piled up. Then resin became the thing and I went nuts for resin kits and of course that slowed me down a bit, but Modelhaus and other resin makers loved me. I built plenty of them but I still have at least 25 resin kits (and donor kits) that I never built. Plus, only God knows how many unbuilt plastic kits, many still sealed. I'm now 65 years old and if I lived until I was 100, I couldn't build them all. And my health is failing, so I'm slower as well. Arthritis in my hands and fingers doesn't help either.

What pleased me lately was that I found another PMC 1/25th scale bus on eBay, I think I've cornered the market on them and I didn't even want another one as I have four already. It's bizarre how the prices vary on this one. Sometimes, people bid as high as $200 or more for one, other times, the bids are very low or none at all. It's in perfect condition with zero warp, but since I didn't really want it, I bid only the starting bid, $30 ($10 shipping). Then I forgot about it, well I won the auction! Sheesh. Just a couple of weeks ago, one sold for $220, exact same condition. I wish I had more time, I'd add details to my fleet of buses, window glass, mirrors, realistic wheels and so forth.

Matlock is on at 10 AM here, on MeTV. But I don't pay anything for MeTV, as you said, it's broadcast. I just use old fashioned rabbit ears connected to my digital TV and the reception is perfect.

Very authentic looking

I saw these oddball kits at the pawn shop/thrift shop a few blocks from my house the other day and I'd never heard of either of them before and wasn't particularly interested in them. I've never even seen model kits at that store before. The guy saw me looking and asked me what they were worth and I said "nothing to me, they're opened and who knows what's missing". I've heard of the Renault truck, but I thought Italeri made that and I never heard of that kind of car. The owner walked up and said he was going to throw them away but I told him I'll give him a buck each for them. Looking through the boxes, it looks like everything is there.

I have that Javelin too, it is an odd color and you're right. But AMC actually had that color in '73 and I think they called it fairway green. I also agree that Jo-Han just used whatever happened to available cheap to buy. The quality of Jo-Han kits got really awful in the 70's. The chrome plated parts trees were the worst ever, half chromed and half wasn't. Strangely enough, they used colored plastic to mold the chrome trees too, they should have used white (as they had done in earlier years). I bought an Eldorado Snap kit molded in blue and they chromed the wrong side of the chrome parts tree, so the bumpers, grilles and wheels were also blue.

I remember that one, I was 15 years old when I bought one. It's still around here somewhere, I'm not sure where since my old shack is huge and models are scattered all over the place. I was very unhappy with it because the green pigment in the plastic was so thin that you could see through it. I made the mistake of painting the interior black and you can imagine how bad the result was.

Yes, AMT did have 1/25th Craftsman series kits that retailed for a dollar, I have several, a '66 Buick Sylark, a '60 Chevy wagon, a '59 Edsel, a '64 Comet and a '63 Impala. But there were more, I don't recall them all, I have a bunch of vintage AW catalogs that are good historical references for this kind of info. Jo-Han also offered low priced 1/25th kits that retailed for 98 cents and some (but not all) included engines. Although the AMT 1970 Motor City Stocker kits didn't have engines, the hoods were a separate part, so you could add your own engines and other under hood details. They were true bargains, another bargain I remember from way back when were the IMC big rig kits. The IMC 1/25th trailers retailed for $2.00 (flatbed) and $3.00 (box trailer, tanker) while the AMT trailers retailed for $5.00 and weren't as good. IMC molded the chassis parts in black, but no brand name on the tires though which were solid, not hollow, but very flexible. I have always wondered why IMC didn't do better and expand, they made great kits, so accurate and detailed. Their L700 Dodge still is around, as Lindberg and now Round 2 I think. Their '48 Ford ('46, '47) went to Testors, and now I don't know where the mold is.

I remember when prices stayed pretty much the same through the years for plastic models, assembled ones and kits. Same with paint and glue. I was only 4 years old when I started building kits, and by the time I was in high school, prices had gone up only slightly or not at all. My two older brothers built models and got me into the hobby. The first spray paint I used was the AMT brand, I don't know why that was discontinued, it was great paint. I recall that as recently as 1970, AMT made 1/25th scale kits that retailed for only $1.00 (Motor City Stocker series) and Kmart heavily discounted them, selling them for only 68 cents each! When I was a young kid in the early 60's, Pyro made 1/32nd scale kits of classics (some molded in color) that weren't half bad, retailed at just 49 cents and at Kmart - 38 cents. Although it would be nice to be younger than I now am, I'm kind of glad I grew up when I did.

You did a beautiful job, fantastic.

Both bought new many years ago, I liked them both so much that I kept them. No computers, no GPS, both are 5 speed stick shift, both have factory cassette stereos, but I added better speakers to the Sonoma, an add on amp and CD changer (under the seat). The Sonoma has a modified 4.3, power windows, locks, cruise control, A/C, positraction, custom made true dual exhausts, the Syclone handling package, etc. The S-10 is a dog, just the stock 2.8, manual windows, no A/C, but I love it anyway, LOL. I don't mind winding windows up and down and it gets great gas mileage on low octane fuel. Both little trucks get lots of compliments and stares when people see them.

I browse through ALL posts, older ones as well. I am glad they don't delete old posts because not everyone has seen them. I agree with the above comments that it's like a library keeping older books. The valuable information is still relevant and useful.

I first started learning to drive when I was 14, my grandfather's Studebaker pickup truck, I think it was a 1957 or so. Three on the tree but a bad clutch. My mother didn't know about that. I also drove my great uncle's International pickup truck as well about that time, it was maybe a '63. Officially, once I was 16 and got my learner's permit, my mother taught me to drive in her '65 Chevy Impala wagon and my stepfather also gave me driving lessons in his '63 Chevy Corvair. Both were automatics and great to drive. I used the Corvair to take my driving test in and passed. The cop who gave me the test was a smart *** and said, "You passed, but anybody could pass driving something this easy".

It's easy to paint over black, just use one thin coat of Testors flat light aircraft gray, then paint any color you like.

A few years ago, I saw a cheap wire cutter at Dollar Tree, only a dollar so I bought one. To my surprise, it cuts sprue as good as or better than high priced sprue cutters do. I'm still using it years later, the best dollar I ever spent. Made in Taiwan it says, it slices the part cleanly from the parts tree leaving almost nothing left to trim from the plastic part.

Excellent idea! Thanks, I'm going to try that.