What for?

[Smart-Resins]

Just wondering what what made you decide to make your first model? Then why did you continue? If you ever left the hobby,why and what brought you back? Last what model/memory is your fondest?

I was given a 1/16 mustang for Christmas when I was a little boy. Ruined many models there after! I finally decided to enter a show. I placed 3rd..... out of 3. The othertow were so dog gone good, mine was garbage!! That was the end for me! Finally after many many years I decided to buy a Big T. In the last year I have bought a few kits and ruined them too trying to hard to scratch build everything and making it too perfect. Finally gave them away and started over with some 1/16ths and a couple of bikes.Making sure I keep my mods to a minimum. Now I am hooked and also took best of class not too long ago on a bike build! My fondest memory was just recently when I helped mydaughter hand in hand do her first completemodel, another bike, that she took best junior award with and first place in class with at the same show!!

[MonoPed]

I built (a term used very loosely here) all sorts of models when I was a kid. Cars, planes, model rockets, rubber band free flight planes made of balsa and tissue, and even some "interesting" hybrids (think model rocket motors in cars and boats), were all fair game. School, girls, first job, girls, first car, girls, work all sorta got in the way of any hobbies. In 1995 I was in a bad car wreck, and I picked up the hobbies during, and to help with, my recovery. First it was the balsa and tissue Guillow's kits, then it was back to the cars. Cool idea for a thread, but now I have this urge to buy some rocket motors... :twisted:

[Chas SCR]

Never got into building model cars when I was a kid, My Daughter got me into this 4ys ago by asking me that she could build a street rod out at the shop so instead of her cutting up a real car I was seeing model car contest at the 1:1 shows around here. One thing lead to another and then here I am building model cars also with the 1:1 cars and having fun doing it.

[pettyfan43]

I had an uncle that bought me my first one. I can't even remember what it was. BUt the first one I ever bought and built MYSELF was the AMT 70 Ford police car. YEAH it was pretty bad.

The rest are kind of a blur, but I have the Hobby Heaven issue of that Ford plus a couple of the Stevens INTL reissues from last year.

I enjoy about anything now and for a while I built FOR contests. OVer the past few years, I have started building what I WANT to build, Then if I go to a show, I just take what I have built.

I have a LOT more fun this way.

[Mike]

Fun topic!

I built my first model - a Strohmobile - with my uncle Jim as a 5/6 year old when he was staying with us one winter. I was allowed to help him and after that he, and my parents, kept me in the hobby with snap kits. As I got older, I was given glue kits that were turned into assembled glue bombs. I quit about age 8 and started playing with GI Joe's instead of jet plane models.

Age 14 - GOT MY FIRST AIRBRUSH FOR CHRISTMAS! Back in the hobby again for 2 years before girls, school, girls, a flood, college, marriage, and a newborn son took over my life.

Age 28 - my parents replaced my airbrush and compressor that I lost in the flood of 1997, and I've been back in the hobby for the last 3 years and will never quit!!!!! 8)

[BIGTRUCK]

Baby boomer model builder getting bad builds from older cousins thru the 60's. Left models in 1973 got married in 1977, got back into the hobby in 2000 because my visiting brother in law asked for a ride to Als hobby shop, thats all it took, that and I suck at golf

[SpreadAxle]

My interest in trucks brought me into it at age 12, although I couldn't find truck kits at first, so I did a few cars and planes. My builds have all been trucks ever since I found that first Mack. I built steadily until my boyhood dream of driving a truck became a reality. After about 4 years of totally staying away from the workbench, I returned after seeing some really cool builds on a website last summer, and I am not looking back this time. It's great to be back.

[bob paeth]

My first model car was a '35 4-door Oldsmobile that was given to me by my grandfather, and I still have it. It is made of rubber and pretty close to 1/32 scale, with pretty good detail.

All of the first cars of mine were made of rubber and in a small scale. According to what I have been told I started to customize them at about the age of three. I used modeling clay to change the fender lines, etc. As soon as I was old enough, I could use my mothers paring knife to cut off the running boards or the top if I wanted a convertible. Larger scale rubber models came out after WW II, a '46 Buick fastback and a '41 4 door Olds. Using straight pins these latter "works of art" I installed working suspension and cut out windows. To my knowledge the first 1/25 scale model in styrene was a '48 Olds ( four door ). I never saw one of these until years later. I did, however, start working with a 4-door Ford, sanding off detail and using paper for fender skirts. I first bent the metal frame drastically to lower the rear end ( style of the day ). I then discovered, after removing the friction motor that you could turn the frame upside down and really lower it. 1950 brought another Ford along with a 4-door Plymouth and 1961 a '51 Pontiac ( 4-door ) was offered along with the Fords and the Plymouths, and as they say the rest is history.

bob

[RodBurNeR]

i think my first model was a large scale Harley Davidson. i remember my dad and i building it, he hung it up on the closet door to let it dry and i could not help myself, so i took it outside and played with it and ruined it lol...

i have never built another bike and don't know if i ever will. i kept building because everytime we went to Kmart (when it was a good place to shop), there was always a new cool drag car or hot rod on the shelf i had not seen. my uncle Bob RIP and my dad RIP both kept me interested in the hobby as well as my uncles Mike, Joey and Lauren that all were into building models. my uncle Bob used to own a Hobby Town here in Omaha and the whole "family" would get their stuff from him. almost everyone i knew back in the late 70's and early 80s and even through the late 80's to early 90's built models! now days i don't go to hardly anyones home that has models on the shelf in their den or living room , let alone a "hobby room" to build in. the only people i know that build these days are the only friends i have. i don't know if it exactly the best thing, but i have closed myself off from almost everyone that does not build or have real interest in cars or trucks. i have learned over the years that most the people i knew that didn't build models was doing something else such as partying , drinking or doing drugs. i did a lot of that when i was younger , but i think it's boring and a waste of time, not to mention i am married with a child so i don't want to be involved in anything that could possibly get me into trouble. bottom line.....the old days are gone, but i am hanging onto them.

even though about 90% of the models made today or reproduced are of no interest to me, i can always find something to build if i keep an open mind to the vintage stuff still floating around since i missed out on a lot of them as a kid and was not born when most of the best ones were made. :wink:

[Billy Kingsley]

Great thread!

Just wondering what what made you decide to make your first model?

My mom...On thanksgiving day, myself and my dad were always in the (very small) kitchen bothering mom as to when the food is going to come. To keep us both occupied she suggested that dad build a model with me. This consisited of him complainging the entire time about how his hands were too big and how the parts were too small, and me twisting the parts off the trees and handing them to him.

Then why did you continue?

That went on for three years until my dad wouldn't be bothered to do it anymore.

If you ever left the hobby,why and what brought you back?

I left the hobby then, circa 1995. (Remember, I was born in 1984) but I wasn't really in it then anyway, just handing parts over, when my dad lost interest.

What brought be back, in November 1999, when I truly started building models, was again, my mom. We had purchased or had been given a couple of models for future Thanksgivings that we never used up, and one of them sat at the bottom of the basement steps for something like 5 years. (AMT 1994 issue 53 Ford Pickup) I got to looking at the box quite a bit and mom suggested to me that I try building it. As they say, the rest is history! I built that one, then built the rest of what was left over, then I started buying new stuff! Eventually building up a stash that's way too large and building lots of models.

I did come very close to leaving, again. Around 2003, I was pretty fed up with model building. I was no longer having fun, and it was all because I was brush painting everything. I was just so disenchanted, if you will, in how crappy my builds looked compared to everyone else's, both on the internet and the TNMCC, that I was ready to bring my stash to the TNMCC meeting, give it away and walk away from the world of modeling forever.

However, at the 2003 TNMCC Picnic, Rick Hanmore and the guys of the TNMCC taught me how to spray paint. It's been a long road with a lot of poorly painted bodies, but I am finally at the stage of my building where I am happy with what I am building, and I don't ever plan to leave the hobby. In fact, I'm thinking now of how I can go about improving the hobby (or at least one segment of it) for everyone. But more on that, later. (once I determine my cource of actions!)

Last what model/memory is your fondest?

Now that, is hard to say! There have been so many memorys, so many great things that have happened to me because of it. Would it be....The satisfaction of knowing I DID have the talent to turn a box of gray plastic into a realistic looking truck? No, probably not, I was not aware enough of things back then.

I would probably have to narrow it down to a couple things...

The first time I saw one of my models in print (in the other magazine before MCM, although I have had one in Model Cars now, and it's far better then the build in SA!)

Winning my first ever award, at MASSCAR 2006 (Something I never, EVER expected to happen)

Seeing my name on the byline and in the contributor section in print, in a real live, genuine magazine? It's been a long time dream of mine to be a writer/and or photographer (going back to when I was in grade school, even) and just a few months ago that became a reality, thanks to modeling (And Model Cars Magazine!)

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. There's just so much neat stuff that has happened to me or around me and I couldn't begin to narrow it down more.

[bobss396]

I got a model for xmas of 1961, it was the Monogram Black Widow. When I see one built, I get a flashback to when I built mine. I also did the Green Hornet after that and kept getting models for xmas and mainly my birthday. I would LOOK for that certain size box wrapped up.

I built all the Trophy Series (great box art) kits, some many times over. I would build with my brothers, the kids next door and my buddy up the street. He's the guy that turned me onto the AMT spray paints. I built up to 1973, got my first car and started working and attending college.

I dragged around about 10 unbuilt kits whenever I moved. Never cracked one open, just stacked them in the closet. I got back into it in 1993, built a couple of kits that turned out so-so. Built more in 1995 into 1997 and started finding better paints, better hobby shops. By 1998 I had joined a model club, discovered after market parts, entered my first show.

Since then I've had as many as 400 kits in my stash, amassed a small forune in parts and paints. I'm having fun with it only wish I had goten back into it sooner.

Bob

[Matt LeBlanc]

Like some others my dad got me started.Around 65 or 66 he bought a 36 ford coupe from the dealer.He built it on the kitchen table.It took him about 2 weeks.He would work on it a little while before work.I have never really stopped since.My kids have dabbled in it but only 1 has a real interest in it.My best memory is of my dad building that 36.My parents always encouraged my building.It kept me out of trouble then and now.lol. Matt

[Smart-Resins]

So far someveryinteresting stories! I bought a badly glued green hornet long long time ago and thought that was a very nice kit for its age. Maybe some day Ill find another one. Bob, I seem to remember hearing that before? Keep them stories coming.

[Modelmartin]

I think my first model was an Airfix 1/32 VW Beetle. I brush painted it yellow and put race numbers and lots of decals on it. My dad built models and I took to it like a duck to water.

I briefly quit building scale models when I got my license and started building 1/1. That didn't go well and went back to plastic about 4 years later.

My fondest model car memory ( pre-adulthood) was winning 1st Senior at the 1973 MPC contest at the St. Paul ISCA car show.I was just turned 16 years old. I still have the model but foolishly threw out the trophy about 20 some years ago. Ten years later I was helping re-establish a model car contest at the same venue. Here are pics of my first contest winner! It's an IMC Beetle turned into an NHRA gas class car. Perhaps I will build a clone of that model with my present skills at age 50!

[Howard Cohen]

I was in the hospital for a couple of months when I was 12 and one of my neighbours brought me a model car kit and a car magazine to keep me busy. When I got out of the hospital, I spent a few months at home recovering and started to read more car magazines (Dad, on your way home, can you buy me...). When I became mobile I found a local store with model car kits and that was it...the bug has stayed with me since then.

In 1963 I got my Dad to take me to my first 1:1 custom car show at the Showmart Building in Montreal. Besides all the cars that I had seen in the magazines, there was a Revell-Testors model car build-it-yourself area. In 1964 I had my first model car display at a car show and I still work at car shows today.

Old hobbies never die...

[Randy Kern]

My first models were the 1/32 Monogram and Lindberg kits back in the early '60s. I left the hobby for a while in the early '70s, after getting my license, plus driving and working on 1/1 cars took up all of my time. I then got back into it in the '80s, left the hobby briefly again, until '88 when AMT came out with their great '66 Nova. I bought a 1/1 project car in '91 (1960 Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite) that took up most of my spare time since then. It wasn't until 2003, when I had surgery (to remove a tumor in my spinal cord!) and was off work for a couple of months going stir crazy, that I came back to the hobby I always loved. The side benefit now has been making lots of new friends in clubs, at shows, and online. Hey Andy, that Bug is way cool. You gotta build again!