[Mustng959]

Good read! Didn't assemble models back in the 60's, didn't have the patience. After I turned 30, I started learning patience and have built a few model planes/jets.

[prisoner6]

Nail...hammer...hit the head.

Exactly. While not exactly a latch key kid, when I was young my Mom was registered nurse and was often helping older family members and my dad worked long hours so many times I was on my own or with neighbors.

THose hours were spent building models or reading (admittedly lots of comic books as well as traditional print).

The skill I learned in model building have been oen of the greatest assets I've retained from my younger days. The one that comes to mind first is what to do when you screw something up. If I inadvertantly broke a spare or miscut a plastic part from a tree I learned to work around it.

That ability is valuable in just about every aspect of anything you do. In news writing if I don't have the exact info for a story...I write around it. Use only what I have to turn out as good and accurate a story as possible.

The models fired immaginations...taught me about cars and planes and boats and planes. Remember the "Big T" model T series? The visible V8 and the Visible chassis? WIldlife models? Dioramas? And of course the Visible Man and Visible Woman.

AMT, Revell, Monogram, Lindberg, MPC, Sterling, Estes, Cox, and countless other companies were huge parts of my learning years. I think that is where my real, usable education came from.

Great article, can't wait to pass it along to my kids later today. Thanks!

prisoner6

[Barney59]

First class. You nailed my childhood.

Ah, a Testors P-51 sliding down the string, on fire with a hidden bottle rocket in the fuselage... ready to blow.

[Barney59]

Here's one to drool over... saving up my milk money for this one:

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/mrc/mrc62001.htm

[Liberty Valance]

Great memories pickrell. Thanks for writing and posting this.

[Caipirabob]

Excellent. You've inspired me (and reminded me) that I've collected several Estes Rocekt Models in the closet for the summer. Balsa wood, tubes and paint. My kids are just the age when I started, too! I'll dig them out today.

[USMCVet]

Loved this letter!

I started building models when I was 7 and haven't stopped. I have Way Too Many models built and unbuilt downstairs in the basement and I have a wife who believes that a man that builds a good scale model is sexy.

Life is good.

And you're absolutely right: model building set me right up for a career in the Marines!

[Skooz]

bump for after the coffee kicks in

[rlmorel]

Thank you. I love your article.

I was an inveterate model builder. I agonized over the clear plastic canopies, which I NEVER had the coordination to glue on without smearing in some way.

I could NEVER wait for the paint to dry. I always got fingerprints on it.

I NEVER was able to get propellors to spin freely.

I used to groan and scream in frustration as I tried with all my might, but my enemy, the tube of glue, always won in the end.

And I loved every minute of it.

I agree that this is part of the feminization of boys that this kind of activity is discouraged in many ways, much to the detriment of their imaginations.

When I got out of the Navy (Jet Mechanic) I decided to build my Piece de Resistance, a 1/32 scale F-14 Tomcat.

I have never finished it. But someday I will. Here is a picture of what I have so far:

[Robert A Cook PE]

Ironically, many of the "models" still at the bigger hobby shops are ...(dramatic pause) ... pre-assembled!

They've even taken the challenge of putting them together away!

[Robert A Cook PE]

I wonder how many of our future (military) tank drivers and truck mechanics, and submariners and diesel operators will NOT get a chance to learn "how things work" and get interested in engineering by NOT being exposed to models as they were (are) growing up........

[tanknetter]

Oh, it didn't say that; rather, it said things like,"1/32nd Scale", "A Revell Kit", and had words like "Flying Fortress" emblazoned fearlessly across the top.

A 1/32 injection-moulded B-17? If only ... such a creature usually goes by one of two names: "Holy Grail" and "April's Fools Joke".

For any of you who may live in the DC area, the National Air & Space Museum is holding its annual "Be a Pilot Day" at the Dulles Annex on June 17th. Some local (DC/NoVA) modellers will have their work on display ...

[R. Scott]

Very Good!

[ko_kyi]

When I was 8 I started building WWII models, then I would heat a needle and poke holes in the tail and both wings. I would use fishing line to place the plane in a flying pose and hang it from the ceiling in my room.

IIRC (almost 30 years later) I had a Spitfire trying to evade a Me-109, a Stuka in a dive, a C47, a silver P-51 with yellow cowl, a P-47 in a turn, a zero being attacked by a Wildcat, an F-4 with landing gear out as if on approach, and some Russian attack aircraft, but I forget which one.

[ArrogantBustard]

Brilliant ... I was quite an anvid model-builder back when ... got started with a Boeing 747 ... built more ships than planes ... still do one occasionally. Currently building an RB-57 ... as time permits. At work, I'm an engineer.

[Sam Cree]

*

[BradyLS]

Plastic models kick ass. 1/72 scale soldiers and vehicles are my favorites.

[NavyCanDo]

This is a good place to ask this question. Who here when you got tired of one of your models would put lighter fluid on it and set it on fire - faking a car crash or a shot down airplane? Come on it's safe here, you can tell. Mom's not reading this.

[Snoopers-868th]

Excellent article. The more protective we have become the more medicated our children become. Let them try and fail and swallow a few parts. I love the writing!

[SZonian]

Thanks for posting this, although I built most of mine during the '70s and '80s, this post is spot on! I have dozens of unbuilt models around the house that I've been wanting to build, but so little time. I've been working on an M3 halftrack off and on for close to two years.

I'm saving your post for my son who has been bitten by the "magic in the box".

Cheers!