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Ex-builder here.

My dad built models when he was a kid in the 40's, and passed the hobby on to me. His preference was jet fighters, as he wanted to be a pilot, i meandered into cars and got hooked. He also explored remote control airplanes and model trains with me, and we had a blast. He built models on and off until his death a few years ago, and a couple of unopened kits are in the basement, and I want to distribute them to my nephews when they're older and see if they get the bug.

A group of us in school were all model car nuts - we did'nt blow ours up, we rebuilt them and redid them and added more and more stuff until we ruined it. :) We learned about engine wiring by pestering our dads when they worked on the family car (another sight you rarely see), and pored over issues of Hot Rod for ideas and inspiration.

We did'nt sniff glue, we learned to PUT THE CAP BACK ON, nothing was worse than settling in for a good modeling session and finding the glue dried out. Paint was currency, and we became scavengers whenever electronic devices were thrown out, for the wire inside. A model car was not considered complete unless it had minimum spark plug wires, throttle cables, and radiator hoses, all of which were possible with simple wire. Airbrushing was unheard of, we learned custom paint by happy accident with spray cans (and the fury of fathers seeing overspray on garage and basement floors).

The Holy Grail for us was the balsa wood models.Cheap to buy, but nobody ever finished them. But the solace and calm of mounting the sheets to the board, pinning spars and strips of wood until they dried, the joy as the skeleton emerged from a few slabs of wood. The fury and angst of propellor carving experiments. The wonder that if one messed up, a replacement block of wood was cheap and easy. Then, the long rumored but never seen plaves that had engines mounted and flown...

I gave it up for art years and years ago, but sometimes i stop by the hobby store just to see the state of the art, and the plethora of laser cut brass parts, machined pieces, amazing kits, and tools and materials available make me itch to build. I have my eye on this:
http://naturecoast.com/hobby/bil560.htm ( I always thought that boat was THE coolest boat, ever)
for that mythical day in the future when I have spare time.

The last model I build was a glider, with a 4' wing span, build from scratch from balsa wood, the summer before my freshman year in High School. Took me all summer to build, it was a beauty. I took it to Hampstead Heath in London, and promptly smashed it to bits on it's maiden flight. I left the parts and the hobby in a rubbish bin on the hill, and never looked back...until lately. I can feel the itch. Just the other day, I was remembering z scale trains, and how fascinatingly small they were...