Those that need to hear this won't listen and those that will listen probably already know it.

[LUKE'57]

Wrote this a while back for my son's website but wanted to share it with ya'll.

Be a Hero

How much do you like modeling? Enough to share it with everyone you hang out with? Enough to spend most of your leisure time practicing it? Enough to spend major bucks chasin’it around the countryside? How about enough to be a hero in a kid’s eyes? Think you’ve got to be a big name builder or a contest winner? If you’re like most of the rest of us you couldn’t make that grade but you have probably already got the skills necessary for the job.

What do kids really want? Acceptance and approval from the people they look up to. Hey, that kind of looks like what we all want, doesn’t it? If you'll read on then I’m gonna tell you a whole new way to enjoy modeling and be a hero as a bonus.

I still have this 40plus year old graphic reminder of my first race car model and it ain't pretty. But it is the first step that could have been derailed by some well placed "expert commentary" on my neophite skills. Do you remember the first time you finished a model (or any project you were proud of) and ran in to show it off? I hope you showed it to your Mom or Dad and not one of the “all-seeing all-knowing EXPERTS that populate “Model Worldâ€. Most of them seem to have forgotten the time they put in as a glue-smearing, brush-painting beginner. If I would have had the benefit of all these modeling TITANS way back when then I probably wouldn’t have gotten past those first few model airplane kits that I have such fond memories of. The “ruined†kits that I “wasted†were the foundation for the cars I now build that have brought me so much satisfaction and some notoriety.

The next time a kid admires your collection, offer to help him or her build one of their own. A snap kit is not very expensive or difficult and can be a great time for the builder and the “mentor†as well. Introduce them into the wonderful, almost forgotten world of modeling for FUN!!! You guys with the clear-coated, fully wired, machined and photo-etched detailed miniature vehicles remember ‘’fun’’ don’t you?

I spent my youth happily ruining all sorts of airplane and car kits while learning that if enough glue was good then too much glue wasn’t wonderful. (It would seem that glue is not like horsepower.) All you ‘’real modelers’’ and “kit collectors†just crawl back under those flat rocks because if guys like me hadn’t built all those old kits when they were new then your un-built collection wouldn’t be worth nearly as much today. So there, you're welcome, case closed.

My modeling took an extreme left turn when I discovered what was making those wonderful noises behind that big board fence with the Coca Cola signs on it. The racing bug bit hard in the early sixties and I decided that airplanes were alright but oval tracks were so much better than runways because I could see me driving a car but wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance to fly a plane. So I jumped into this new world of wheels with a vengeance.

I learned things about real cars and things about modeling that I never would have otherwise, that I needed to know if I wanted to build all those wonderful machines that I saw race on the TV and the local dirt tracks. It wasn’t like today when the kits of your favorite racecars are on the shelf of the local Wal-mart and you can just take it out of the box and build it. You had to build the small ones just like the big guys did the real ones. You take whatever car you wanted to race and threw away everything on it that didn’t look like a race car and then you started over.

I took out back seats, covered over holes where radios, consoles, and other road gear used to be and covered headlight and tail light openings with sheet plastic and sometimes even paper. I would carefully trim and smooth the runners that the parts came on so I could heat and bend them into roll cages for the interiors. OK, the careful trimming and smoothing came later.

The dirt cars had to have the fenders cut so I tried everything from pocketknives to coarse sandpaper until I found and got to the point I could afford Dremel Moto Tool.I learned to sand off the emblems and chrome trim that some poor guy had spent so many hours engraving into the mold because if Fireball didn’t have’em on his car, darned if I was gonna have’em on mine.

I painted with brushes when I could get them and everything from twisted toilet tissue to magic markers when I couldn’t. I even tried ballpoint pens when I started trying to letter the race cars. It took me years to learn that those very expensive artist brushes everyone said to use were worthless for what I was trying to do and then another few years to perfect a scale lettering brush that would work like the big ones. But what I was doing then was laying the foundation for all the things I do today. Now, if I find out about a model of a car I have always wanted to do as someone’s race car I don’t worry if it has a race car version, all I want to know is when is it getting here. Just like my friends at the airport in Charlotte at Holman-Moody, it may roll in the back door a street car but it’s gonna roll out the front door race-ready and spittin’ fire.

Now, like some of the people who grew up in the depression and felt sorry for all those poor bored kids who didn’t know how to make their own ‘’fun’’, I feel sorry for the modeler who has to have a ready-made race car kit. Or worse still, the guy that has to have a die cast factory made ‘’perfect’’ car or else he wouldn’t have it in his showcase. Maybe it doesn’t bother him to hear someone say, “ I’ve got one just like that one, too.†but it sets my teeth on edge. Fortunately, with all those ‘’high-dollar collectible kits’’ that I’ve built I don’t hear that very often. One of the biggest kicks in this “little car business’’ is having someone say,’’ Man, I’ve never seen one of those. Where did you get it?†Thanks to my parents who bought me all those kits so long ago, the gleeful destruction of the collector value of those kits, and some God-given talent, I can say to the where'd cha git it question,â€Hey, I built it myself.†I’ve been fortunate enough to say that about everything from an HO slot car that placed in the top five in an Auto World contest to the full-size ’64 Ford that I drive today.

An even bigger kick is watching the faces of one of those “closet stuffersâ€, that hoard kits the way Scrooge hoarded money, when they see that I’ve not only opened that precious collector’s item, but ripped out the interior, ground off all the chrome trim and painted numbers on the doors. The look of horror that replaces the dollar signs in their eyes is priceless.

All this “gluein’ and doin’ “ has been my passport to all sorts of adventures including a weekend with Bunny and Curtis Turner Jr. at the 25th anniversary of Rockingham’s first race, a party with Tom Cruise and Robert Duval that featured Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings as the “drop-in†guest band. It’s also made it possible to meet some of those childhood heroes that we mentioned earlier like Neil Castles and his wife and son, Wanda Lund Early, Bud and Chris (husband and son), the enchanting Doris Roberts, Larry Frank and his wonderful wife, Bob Welborn, Neil Bonnett, Marvin Panch, David Pearson, Rodney Combs…………. Well, you get the idea. This isn’t “name droppingâ€, only a more graphic way to tell kids where something constructive, like modeling, can take them. It makes more of an impression than just saying you could met some cool people at cool places because of your modeling. But if the chance to meet people like that could convince a kid to stay out of trouble by building cars then call me a namedropper. Or anything else you'd like because the kids are worth it.

While “rubbing elbows†with some of the rich and famous is a hoot it hasn’t been my most cherished memories of the little cars. It has been of the “little guys†I’ve met along the way who didn’t have to be famous or even well known to be very special. In fact, most of you don’t even know that you’re special. Do you, Earl, Reynolds, Ron, Alex, Shawn, Chuck, Malcolm… the list goes on.. and I didn’t even mention family yet.

Go down to my brother’s shop and see dirt track cars from yesterday all the way to tomorrow. He built the masters for some of the die cast companies that changed their cars from lumps with numbers to accurate replicas. Now with latex molds and his hand built vacu-form he can make almost any race car that has run the local tracks in the last fifty years.

And now my grown up son gets into the act as he brings over the Tiny Lund Torino that he is finishing up with his first hand lettering on it and the specs for some of the new web sites that he is designing for some of the dirt tracks and for racers like Tiger Tom Pistone and Chad Paxton for me to see. Seems they were both watching big brother and the old man closer than I realized at the time.

Now that’s something for all you ‘’expert modelers’’ to chew on while discussing the state of the hobby up there on Mount Olympus. How many times did you have the opportunity to help and influence a kid and you blew it. I left an organization that I was one of the charter members of (which will remain nameless out of respect for Clint Curtis) mainly because they had become such slaves to accuracy that they forgot what modeling is all about. In the search for the ‘’holy grail’’ of accuracy they lost sight of the real prize. C’mon guys, this is a hobby. We’re supposed to be havin’ fun. You do remember fun don’cha?

But, you say you are a mountain top guru full detail model craftsman. Fine, but next time someone of lesser talent, skill, or knowledge approaches you, throw him a rope instead of greasing the cliff. Instead of officiously pointing out the color being off two whole PMS points (he’s still using spray cans, give him a break) and it is simply not acceptable, tell him how much fun mastering one of the simpler airbrushes can be and how satisfying mixing the correct color is when you can’t get it in a spray can.

The next time some kid comes up proudly to you with his latest project, complete with glue-smeared windshield, loose chrome parts and all, you can either go into your patented ‘’expert modeler’’ routine and tell him in no uncertain terms that such sloppy workmanship can not be tolerated… Or, you could try remembering when you were just a glue-smearing beginner yourself. You were proud of everything you built back then, not because it was flawless but because you built it with your own two hands.

If done as a regular exercise, I'll admit, this little remembering trick won’t make you a better modeler but could make you a better person. It could also make you start saying things like, ‘’You know, when I first started building I had that problem with glue and I found this really neat trick to get around that’’

This could also make you a ‘’big deal modeler’’ in the eyes of some kid to whom your ‘’expert advise’’ would really mean something to. That’s the stuff that kids make heroes from. I don’t know about you, but if it comes down to being a hero or a jerk (even an expert one) in some kid’s eyes, I’ll take hero every time.

But don’t look down on the die cast collector just because you build ‘’perfect scale models’’ of the cars that he only has ‘’reasonable facsimiles thereof. Your people skills probably could use some work even if your modeling skills don’t.

I’ll leave you with this thought as I slowly and carefully climb down from my soapbox (old bones break easier and heal slower it seems)..........Winning trophies may be a good thing for the shine on your ego, but the ‘’shine’’ on a true friendship won’t tarnish like the plating on a trophy. And as an “expert†who has to do his own housework, unlike trophies, you don’t have to dust friendships and that’s a definite plus.

Now get out there and build something!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Foxer]

I totally agree with you and one reason I love this site so much is that most everyone here practices that creed.

You're excused for your soapbox .. but isn't that label supposed to be in the left corner??

[LUKE'57]

I totally agree with you and one reason I love this site so much is that most everyone here practices that creed.

You're excused for your soapbox .. but isn't that label supposed to be in the left corner??

Only if it's in box stock, sometimes in junior and never in full detail or light commercial.

[62rebel]

collecting kits.... never made any sense if ya never build 'em. might as well be an empty box as a virgin kit, IMHO...

and if that 40 year old '55 is indeed your initial build... you were already miles ahead of me. i remember using a steak knife to cut roofs off models (razor saw? what's that? eggsacter knife? never heard of it...) and painting them with POSTER PAINT of all things... poster paint, of course, dries dead flat and a scale 3-4 inches thick! it does TINT plastic after it's washed off...

my trouble is completing a build. i probably have at least a dozen "almost finished" kits in the closet, and one by one they each get a few minutes once in a while..... i WISH my son had the bug; i'd almost willingly hand over MOST of them to him, but he's addicted to Warcraft. my Granddaughter, i don't think will be interested, but if she even HINTS at it she gets it ALL. she's got the fingers for it... piano players' fingers.

[BigGary]

The thing implied but never stated in your lengthy treatise is that we build these kits for our own personal pleasaure, and the collectors you so distain also do it for the same reason. Yes, there are some who are in it strictly for the money. I have a friend who collects kits, in his case airplanes- as a hedge for his retirement. He's buys 3 of each new release. More power to him

I buy for the pleasure of building, although I haven't actually finished anything in the last 3 years!? I know I'm not alone in that. It seems to be a disease among some modelers. None the less, when time and motivation align themselves, things happen. I taught one of my sons to model, and now his models are medal and he hopes to soon have one that runs on gas.

Gary

[BigGary]

The thing implied but never stated in your lengthy treatise is that we build these kits for our own personal pleasure, and the collectors you so distain also do it for the same reason. Yes, there are some who are in it strictly for the money. I have a friend who collects kits, in his case airplanes, as a hedge for his retirement. He's buys 3 of each new release. More power to him

I buy for the pleasure of building, although I haven't actually finished anything in the last 3 years!? I know I'm not alone in that. It seems to be a disease among some modelers. None the less, when time and motivation align themselves, things happen. I taught one of my sons to model, and now his models are medal and he hopes to soon have one that runs on gas.

Gary

Edited August 19, 2009 by BigGary