Our Father/Son project with my kid

[GLMFAA1]

Who say news has to be bad, ugly or gory, Yea modeling is handed down to another generation. Just wonder how many times can the models be released before they are considered outdated as a dial phone, Always make memories when you can.

Now for the goofiness, When I see this model I imagine Yul Brenner and Steve McQueen powering up the hill on this machine

greg

Edited April 17, 2014 by GLMFAA1

[mrm]

The pic of the body mocked up on the chassis, is that before or after the yellow pearl was added?

Dave, I'll let Ryan read the comments after he gets home from school, so he can answer your questions. About the paint, the picture of the body mocked up on the chassis is just the base starfire paint that Ryan sprayed. On the second to last picture, where he's painting the curtains, the body already has the yellow pearl.

Today when he comes home from school, I am introducing him to BMF.

[thatz4u]

the little guy is a natural painter, he needs to wear a mask if he does much of it(I know from experience) too bad more kids aren't interested in models...

[mrm]

I knew I was going to get some BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH about letting him spray without a mask…LOL. Well, I have few masks and would definitely protect him. This was such a small job, that we decided to run without it. Not much surface on this model to be covered. He keeps looking at models that will be pain to build. Lil Coffin, Mysterion, Beatnik Bandit……He loves the show rods, but some of them are hard for anyone, let alone for a novice. The closest hobby shop is almost a two hour drive from home and yesterday I went all the way there just to get him gold BMF. He was really excited about it, so we'll tackle it tonight.

edit: wow!, just noticed that my post got censored and got c-r-a-p replaced with blah-blah. No disrespect was meant to anyone.

Edited April 17, 2014 by mrm

[BirdWatcher]

That pic of him sitting in front of his build is awesome! Don't even know you guys,yet I still feel proud of Michael. Great Job Michael!

[mrm]

Ryan,

You are quite a talented builder, your paint job came out great. This is a pretty hard model to build and you are doing a fantastic job on it. I look forward to watching it progress and to see it finished. Are you enjoying building it, and better yet, spending time with your dad? One more question, do you plan to build more models? If so, what do you think will be your next project?

Michael,

Great job on bonding with your son, I wish when I was a kid that my father showed any interest in my hobbies or interests. The pic of the body mocked up on the chassis, is that before or after the yellow pearl was added?

Hi this is Ryan. Thank you everyone. I love building models and spending time with my dad. I will love to build more models. I want to build a Ed big daddy car with two engines.

[Faust]

That is looking great!

I'm both amazed and impressed by the workmanship that Ryan is capable of producing! I'd never even tried modelling when I was 8 years old!

Congrats and Kudos to father and son both!

Man, I can't even get paint that good NOW, and I've been modelling for 25 years!! I've been building cars for 3 or 4, too, but not this well.

I think you've got a real scale Rodder on your hands, there!

Edited April 17, 2014 by Faust

[Austin T]

Excellent model so far! Thank you for actually making him build the model! I can't begin to tell you how many "Here's my son/daughters first model kit, he/she did almost all of it her/him self" I have seen at shows and you look at a glass smooth urethane clear coated HOK paint job and a fully plumbed chassis and engine bay from a supposed 10 year old. It makes you go "Nice try dad,looks like you played a little bit into the build of the model". Your doing it the way it should be done,your starting him off the right way!

Edited April 17, 2014 by Austin T

[Duntov]

Fantastic ---- I really like this one!!!

[Tom Geiger]

Excellent model so far! Thank you for actually making him build the model! I can't begin to tell you how many "Here's my son/daughters first model kit, he/she did almost all of it her/him self" I have seen at shows and you look at a glass smooth urethane clear coated HOK paint job and a fully plumbed chassis and engine bay from a supposed 10 year old. It makes you go "Nice try dad,looks like you played a little bit into the build of the model". Your doing it the way it should be done,your starting him off the right way!

One time at a show there was a six year old with a perfectly built model that any of us would be proud of. When the kid went to touch the model his father yelled at him, then moved it himself... hey, it was supposed to be the kid's model!

[Del Austin]

That is awesome. My "boys" are 16 and 20 and just starting to build too. Cool when we can share hobbies and time with our kids.

[charlie8575]

I'm just imagining my father letting me use an airbrush when I was eight, and all I can think is...

.....bwahahahahahahaha! Yeah, right. My father (who's an experienced airplane builder) was terrified of me using spray cans. I didn't try an airbrush until I was a freshman in high school. I love airbrushes; don't love cleaning them, but I do like the results I get.

Gentlemen....very nice work from both of you! Enjoy the time you spend together- the memories may outlast the models, but it's those memories that are so incredibly valuable.

Charlie Larkin

[mrm]

Thank you guys. I want to tell you what an amazing effect this forum is having on him. He is over the moon having "his own page". After school I make him read the comments and he is just glowing reading about people liking his work. It is highly motivational to him.

Today we had a BMF lesson. Started with the small straight lines on the sides of the big windows, then the long straight ones and then the curved bottoms at the end. He picked it up pretty quick. He of course made a couple of mistakes, I yelled at him, he cried and then I almost cried for making him cry. We are both learning from this joint project. So we redid some of the lines and all is well now.

I showed him how to measure and cut the pieces. It was pretty amazing to him pulling them from the sheet.

He got a kick out of using his Q-tips and smoothing the wrinkles. It is great seeing the amazement on his face discovering how things work. It is hard teaching him about angles of the blade and to move smoothly…..them I pull myself back and tell myself that he is just an 8 year old kid and I can't expect this from him.

This is what his work looks like. I had to retouch a little bit here and there, but not bad at all, me thinks.

He is very proud of his handy work.

Now about the show circuit and the Junior class…..it has always been a pep peeve with me. I used to be very active on the show scene back at the end of the '90s in the Chicago area. There was this guy that was a regular at the shows in the area. Don't remember his name, but he had a black Oldsmobile Cutlas (the last one/modern) and two kids, a boy and a girl. He used to enter models in the junior class under his kids. Like mentioned above, they were all photoetched, flawless paint, fully wired and plumbed………And the saddest part was that his kids didn't even care about the models or the shows. Yet this "great modeler" was soooo proud of the wall of trophies he had. He was always the first to question the authorship of other people's builds. Everybody knew and yet nobody ever did anything. I never really got over that PC attitude and the whole ordeal left such a bad taste in my mouth that I quit building plastic kits for over 10 years.

I would never do something like that with my kid. In my opinion, I wouldn't be doing my kid any favors if I did. This is why this is a joint project. He needs to see something cool becoming out of his own labor, but he does not have the experience. This is where I come in. He has literally done more than 50% of the work on the model. I just help him with showing him exactly how to do different things and with the little details and finishes. You know what they say….Devil is in the details.

[charlie8575]

First of all...more great work.

Mike- when I was Ryan's age, Crayola made a very elementary drafting set. I would suggest seeing if they're still available or go hit eBay for one. That's how I started to learn geometry and design. And it had an interesting side-effect of helping me learn to build better models, although that took a while longer to all gel. This one is on eBay now. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1982-Crayola-Designer-Drafting-Kit-For-Cars-Planes-Spacecraft-Complete-In-Box-/331161216364?pt=Vintage_Antique_Toys_US&hash=item4d1abf256c

I'm for the idea of parent-kid classes, as long as there's documentation of the child actually dong a reasonable amount of the work, but your points are very well taken.

Charlie Larkin

[mrm]

First of all...more great work.

Mike- when I was Ryan's age, Crayola made a very elementary drafting set. I would suggest seeing if they're still available or go hit eBay for one. That's how I started to learn geometry and design. And it had an interesting side-effect of helping me learn to build better models, although that took a while longer to all gel. This one is on eBay now. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1982-Crayola-Designer-Drafting-Kit-For-Cars-Planes-Spacecraft-Complete-In-Box-/331161216364?pt=Vintage_Antique_Toys_US&hash=item4d1abf256c

I'm for the idea of parent-kid classes, as long as there's documentation of the child actually dong a reasonable amount of the work, but your points are very well taken.

Charlie Larkin

Thank you for the suggestion Charlie. This is actually a pretty cool idea. And his birthday is in less than a month. He amazes me with some of the things he makes. He has kind of a 3D line of thought, where he sees things in his head and how they are constructed before he makes them. He made an entire skateboarding park with bunch of ramps and somewhat complicated 3D shapes out of old boxes and masking tape. At first I was mad because he waisted my tape and did not ask to have it, but then I took a closer look at what he made and I was stunt. He makes crazy Hot rods out of legos too.

And I am with you on the parent-kid class. And if it was up to me I would not even require documentation. You take a good look at how the kid behaves at the show and you can see right away what the deal is. In some cases I wouldn't even care if the kid did only 5% of the work, as long as I see that that little trophy makes the kid really happy and it inspires and motivates him. I always looked at shows and trophies, not as much as what they are giving, but rather what they are taking away. By giving the trophy (undeservingly) to one of "the club members" (and this happens absolutely everywhere) you are not giving him anything. But you are taking the spark away from someone. You are robbing them from motivation and inspiration to continue with the hobby and to expand their abilities. Having said this, I am absolutely against participation trophies, which IMO do nothing for the participants, but lower their standards. Life is a tough school, but that's a lesson that needs to be learned early in life. Or so I was taught.

Anyway…..let's not turn this political. The idea of this thread was to share my excitement from building a model with my kid and flex my pride a little. A pleasant side effect is that this is having a very positive effect on him.

Edited April 18, 2014 by mrm

[charlie8575]

Your son has a very good future in product design and development, and that's where you can make some real money. Do whatever you have to to encourage it.

For giggles I checked Crayola's site, and there's nothing in their present product line-up that comes even close to that drafting set. I don't know if there's anything available now that is, but there might be someplace. Worst case, you can cobble something together with a visit to Staples, Office Max, or a good independent artist and drafting supply store.

This might be another alternative. http://www.amazon.com/KIT-ARCH-TECHNICAL-BLUEPRINT-Drafting-Engineering/dp/B004CZ1Z8U/ref=sr_1_44?ie=UTF8&qid=1397796873&sr=8-44&keywords=drafting+kit+engineering

Good luck. And keep up the good parenting. As a mostly ex-teacher (I still tutor and sub a little,) this is really the kind of stuff that kids need.

Charlie Larkin

[Tom Geiger]

For giggles I checked Crayola's site, and there's nothing in their present product line-up that comes even close to that drafting set.

I believe it's an AP these days!

[dragzz]

hes doing great that paint job came out great and the foil work its so good. keep up the great work i relly hope to see more work just keep on going

[mrm]

So we are one step away from finishing the model, which we'll do either tomorrow or Friday (no school).

However he has his new project ready. He is extremely curious learning about the showcars of yesteryear and their builders. Right now his big thing is Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. So he wanted to build the Mysterion and I finally talked him out of it, because it is not a kit for him even with my help. So we settled on a Big Daddy car and I thought that the easiest for him would be the Beatnik Bandit II.

[mrm]

The Stanley Cup playoffs are slowing our progress, but we are almost there. This is what it looks like right now. It needs to have the steering wheel painted, the "headlights" painted and the tail lights painted and mounted, plus a couple of chrome handles. I'll do the masking on the front lights and I'll let Ryan paint them. We are on the home stretch now.

[1930fordpickup]

Still looking great .

[Duntov]

This is looking really good ---

You guys are great building team!!!!!

My best to you both!!!

Regards

Bill (Duntov)

[BirdWatcher]

What a great way to learn some of life's lessons. I'm sure he's on his way to becoming a responsible young adult, and when obamacare dissolves he just may be able to provide for himself and his family. Might even be the next Roth or Foose. Way to go!