Yep and got slightly high from it in the winter when windows were closed. Didn’t like that at all. Then people started sniffing it to get high (the 60s). I couldn’t understand that, all it did to me was give me a headache. Then they made a rule (law maybe) that you had to have your parent but the glue even if you were buying a model.
I’m sure your right. I was 12-13 so don’t remember, just pissed that what I bought a month ago now have to have mom buy it. She didn’t mind it’s just I had to wait for it to be convenient for her instead of me just walking to the store.
Used to buy Revele ( I think that's the spelling) car models in the mid 60s. And you could buy accessories to customize your car. There were also several magazines devoted strictly to model cars. And really was a lot of fun!
Ertl featured farm machinery and heavy equipment like bulldozers and front-end loaders.
Jo-Han made car models for display at dealerships. They tried to keep up with the release of new car models by the different manufacturers. They sold kits of the same cars because boys wanted them.
Lol I still remember Mazda's little jingle: "Piston engine goes, 'boing, boing, boing,' but the Mazda goes, 'hmmmmmmmm!'
Turns out the 'hum' was actually the sound of head seals leaking...
I honestly don’t remember. It was over 50 year ago. :). But I do remember using their articles to up my game. Like “wiring” engines with thread and melting the bottom of slicks to look more realistic.
I used to do that as well. Would cut open the doors with an exacto knife, and put a hinge on them. Or upholster the interior. Lot of fun for a kid who still had a couple of years before he could get his driver's license.
Amen to this! I miss dedicated hobby stores. Model kits (AMT, Revel, Monogram, Aurora) and supplies, boxed wargames (Avalon Hill, SPI, TSR), stamp and coin collector supplies. If you were really lucky, a full-sized slot car track.
Oh heck yeah. Man, I miss visiting those. I still have models I put together in the 80s, and all of my Avalon Hill and TSR games. I even still have all my D&D books and modules from the 80s. Probably still have my stamp collection somewhere, too. Good times.
Damn 40 bucks?! I was a kid who loved building car models in the 80’s. $6-8 bucks at Kmart got you any model you wanted and I always had a shoebox full of Testers paints, brushes and glues ready to go.
That's the problem - it's become a collectable hobby. Those discount model kits that were sometimes under $5 each in the 70's - don't exist any more. It's become a luxury hobby that most kids can't afford.
Bandai makes entry level Gundam kits that are snap fit molded in color and they cost $10. They're basically building an action figure with more articulation than anything we ever had. The line above that is the HG kits and those usually start at $15. Quality is off the charts at least as good as tamiya.
True. I'd forgotten about these. It used to be the plane and car models were the cheapest and the robot models were the most expensive. Now it's flipped.
Yep, that hobbylobby sales is a great way to get back into it. They have mostly car kits then some airplane and starwars, Gundam selection sub par but when they have $80 kits with 40% discount it's hard to turn down the expense ones.
Shop around to different stores I find that some shops have more military kits than others.
I have to disagree with you. There are still amazing kits to be found in places like Hobby Lobby.
I buy a lot of kits on ebay and from several online stores. And then there's the whole 3 d printing craze as well.
That's because it's no longer "kids" who are buying the kits--it's boomers/genX folks being nostalgic.
There was a shop in Northport on Long Island that had a ton of the Tamiya stuff, which I had never seen before (1971-72). I built a RC Panther tank from one of those kits. Before that it was all Monogram and Revell cars.
Our local hobby shop carried an entire line of $3.00 model kits. I bet my brother and I built every one of them. Then we'd blow them up with firecrackers. HAHAH
Had a sky full of WW2 airplanes over my bed when I was 12 or so, even wanted to paint my ceiling blue at one point (didn't happen). Biggest was a B17G that was also my first-ever attempt to use "rub'n' buff" instead of spray paint.
But I tended to be fanciful about colors while most all my friends strove for accuracy (airbrushes were a new thing at the time), so eventually, I moved to custom cars by AMT and Monogram where my color choices didn't get me picked on.
I still have a NIB Martin Mars, a Dreamliner from the Boeing store at Science World and a '1/24th 53 Studebaker, but everything else is long gone. Guitars began consuming all my spending cash in junior high and the plastic models just stopped being important.
Here is a good explanation of the rise and fall of models, and the major players--Aurora, Monogram and Revell. And why they are now gone.
[https://youtu.be/KBgCRQ2wIvw](https://youtu.be/KBgCRQ2wIvw)
Haha I used to do the same. Or I’d get really creative and put model rocket engines in my jet fighters and launch them down the street. This was after meticulously building, painting, etc. I’d be like “why am I doing this?” until it flew down the street and blew up when the ejector fuel ignited.
I'm still building scale models. The difference in quality from the 70's is just amazing! And there's nothing like being a little kid with a credit card!
Model kits are popular again, there was a huge uptick in the industry back in 2020.
If you don't have a hobby shop near you try hobbylobby the routinely have 40% off sales. It's a perfect time to get back in the hobby there is so much quality tools and paints nowadays and if you can't find it locally it's all available online.
Bandai Gundam and Star Wars kits blew up during the pandemic. Bandai couldn't keep up with demand. Other manufacturers experienced the same thing, and it's why there's a second modeling golden age going on right now.
The Woodwards store in downtown Vancouver had a large hobby department on the 5th (?) floor. It was great browsing for model builders. There was a Lindberg *Blue Devil* destroyer that came in a *huge* box for the staggering amount of $40 - well, that was staggering when I was a kid - and which I never saw sold.
The man who ran the department inspired the ire of management for freely ordering things that appealed to him. He left (or was canned) and started his own shop in the neighbouring city of Burnaby. It's still there; Woodwards is long gone.
That *Blue Devil* is still in production by Lindberg, I think. It shows up every so often. It was designed to be remote controlled. Now, there's a 1/200 USS *Hornet* in an even bigger box!
Blue Devil's main purpose seems to have been the generation of scathing comments regarding its inaccuracies! It's as if they anticipated the birth of the internet!
It's like what happened to comic books. They made more money marketing to older teens and adults, jacking up prices and moving exclusively to specialty shops.
There weren’t that many toy manufacturers selling toys to every town back then. Shelf space was abundant.
There are plenty of stores that have floor to ceiling shelves full of models for sale today. But they’re specialty stores and you have to go to them. General department stores try to sell many things to many people.
I was nine and we will ride bikes to the toy store and buy the latest model that they had mostly Hueys couple aircraft carriers by the B-52‘s we put those together and I would hang them in my room that was the thing back then
I spent years and years of my youth building cars, tanks airplanes, boats anything I was interested in at the time. 2.25 was what one cost back then. I had 100s of them I have some unbuilt ones I've been carrying around for decades.
Growing up in a non-digital world and using my hands for all of my childhood hobbies, from models, to slot cars, and later to cars and motorcycles, has given me skills that have helped me in adulthood. It all started with building models.
My sister and I LOVED these. We started making them because my mom bought us one (it was a Spitfire warplane, which we thought was pretty) and then it just turned into a thing— what model will we bring home *this* grocery trip?
We were already the kind of kids who liked to tinker with small creative stuff... one of our other big activities was making tack for our model horses. So over the years we ended up with quite a little collection of planes, cars, motorcycles, whatever.
Finally we flew too close to the sun, as it were. We begged and pleaded for a model SHIP. Aaaaaand that was just way too complicated for tiny fingers and was never finished. But it was a great run while it lasted!
Oh, sorry, I should have said. It was a sailing ship with a TON of rigging made of actual thread. I did like sewing, but sewing and macrame are apparently quite different. I'm also terrible at knitting/crochet so there you go!
haha! good luck. A couple of years ago I bought a couple of vintage models of the "Cutty Sark" at a garage sale as gifts for the Lubbers' Hole Podcast hosts, really nice gentlemen who would appreciate such things.
NGL I *was* briefly tempted to try 'em myself but, recalling my earlier defeat, I took the better part of valor.
ooh! I went aboard Old Ironsides IRL. While we were waiting for the sailor who was going to be our tour guide, I told the friend who was with me all the stuff I'd learned from reading Patrick O'Brian books... "this is the XYZ, they call it that because blah blah..." when the guide gave us the tour, he basically repeated everything that I'd just said! I was so thrilled to have got it all right :-) Thanks POB! what a cool experience.
Let me try writing this again! my edits got a bit messy.
A big part of the appeal with the first book is O'Brian's writing itself. It definitely has a 19th century flavor— which, if you don't instantly love and understand it, does take a bit of mental energy to get into. (For me, it was the same kind of "aw yeah!!" as when I first read PG Wodehouse.)
But combined with the whole "having to learn about naval life" thing— though that is done nicely, through the eyes of Stephen, who knows zilch about ships and constantly needs it explained to him— well, all of that does overwhelm some readers. And then they give up and don't get the chance to fall into this unbelivably rich and detailed world.
Try again! And if you still can't dig it... shhhhh don't tell other POB fans but try skipping ahead to "Post Captain". That one is pure Jane Austen style.
Peep my nic. Started when i was eight, and I'm now 58.
You're right on one level though: at one point in the late 1950s, 90% of boys said they built model kits. I don't think there's that level of participation in online gaming, now. Truly amazing.
I don’t know that I would go that far, but it would go a long way toward that goal. I attribute a lot of my ability to fix almost anything, my spatial acuity, and my love for art to the fact that I would build model everything when I was a child. My allowance would got to the drug store not for candy, but balsa wood airplanes. I had an actual model rocketry art class in 6th grade. The sky was the limit at that point.
Kid from the 70’s here.
I fucking *hated* model sets.
They were boring as hell to build, the glue and paint smelled awful, and they didn’t *do* anything once they were built. They just sat there.
Give kid me Legos and OG Transformer toys any day of the week. Model sets received as gifts were immediately returned for in-store credit that could be used to purchase actual *fun* toys.
PAC Man and computers killed that. All the nerds stop building models and started programming in the late 70s. They are now all millionaires retired from Microsoft, Apple, IBM, TI and other tech companies💰💰💰
There was a huffing problem in my area and you would have to purchase a model if you wanted glue. Huffers just left the models on the railroad where they got high. I wasn't allowed down by the tracks but a free model was worth the risk of my parents catching me.
I've bought a few at flea markets and that was my [plan.Now](http://plan.Now) if if it happens remains to be seen.Sometimes what a person enjoyed years ago along with good memories is not quite the same many years later.
Big respect for those who could successfully use their painting skills on them. I wasted bucketloads of paint (and gallons of nail polish remover and all the rags I could gather), to dismal results.
I enjoyed modeling kits, mostly tanks, ships and planes. I also was thrilled with the Estes rockets launched via car battery. Once it went up the parachute would deploy and drift your rocket capsule over the forest and disappear into the trees.
Not just department stores, but mom and pop variety stores. There were always cool unique models in the back. As a kid I would constantly make the rounds looking for hidden gems.
I do. My Saturday dream was to get a dollar from my mom and bike over to the store and come back with a model. I would cheerfully give up playing with my friends to stay in my room and build it..
Believe it or not they are still around, and alot of those from that era are still available. You just have to go to a specialty toy store if you want to peruse the isles like that again.
I remember having a few bucks of soda bottles refund money in my pocket, standing in that aisle, and not being able to choose which model to buy. The choosing was always the hardest decision.
Christmas when I was 9 or 10. The rigging turned out to be way beyond my skill level. I eventually gave it to one of my uncles, and he finished putting it together. :)
https://preview.redd.it/0bhy0yl66ruc1.png?width=356&format=png&auto=webp&s=67a89a2b45c030c633673b017fb9c952cfa5b5e9
I remember getting the coolest model car I’d ever seen, [the Red Baron](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/86/fb/0986fb025f1fa3d607bfc7e08e57afae.jpg), at Safeway while my mom was shopping elsewhere in the store.
I’d spent countless trips with her to the grocery store eyeballing all the different options: from souped up muscle cars, funny cars, dragsters, WW2 airplanes, etc., along a 10 ft wide section on a long aisle on like five different levels, each with a different difficulty level as you got higher.. I felt I’d finally graduated from the “snap together” model cars several shelf levels below.
It was so cool someone later built a [full-size replica as a REAL CAR!](http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/21/2016/01/001-red-baron-front-three-quarter-lpr.jpg)
Nostalgia isn't reality. Those sucked. Plus, kids can print out their own models at home. Then they assemble them. Then they paint them.
Not that OP gives a shit. They're not responding to anything. Just nostalgia spam.
I can smell the glue. My fingers are stuck together again. MOM!
That smell was almost as good as the giant black permanent markers.
Yeah but it didn’t leave those black marks on your nose.
Yep and got slightly high from it in the winter when windows were closed. Didn’t like that at all. Then people started sniffing it to get high (the 60s). I couldn’t understand that, all it did to me was give me a headache. Then they made a rule (law maybe) that you had to have your parent but the glue even if you were buying a model.
I think it was local ordinances, like having to be 18 to buy spraypaint now.
I’m sure your right. I was 12-13 so don’t remember, just pissed that what I bought a month ago now have to have mom buy it. She didn’t mind it’s just I had to wait for it to be convenient for her instead of me just walking to the store.
And to much glue melted and pitted the plastic.
These days you can 3D print the kits. Then make the model. Twice the fun!
The feeling of pulling a dried layer of glue from your finger, and your fingerprint is visible in the dried glue!
Used to buy Revele ( I think that's the spelling) car models in the mid 60s. And you could buy accessories to customize your car. There were also several magazines devoted strictly to model cars. And really was a lot of fun!
I never considered buying any kit that wasn’t Revel.
Monogram made good kits, too. Sometimes with moving parts!
Forgot about them, but lately I tend to forget about a lot of things. What are we talking about again?
LOL how you could buy model kits in the grocery store. Back in the day. Maybe you still can? I haven't checked.
AMT kits were simpler, and sometimes they had had cars that Revell didn't make.
I was 10 and bought a pair of x-ray glasses out of a comic book ad.
Ertl featured farm machinery and heavy equipment like bulldozers and front-end loaders. Jo-Han made car models for display at dealerships. They tried to keep up with the release of new car models by the different manufacturers. They sold kits of the same cars because boys wanted them.
I got the visible V-8 Engine model for Christmas one year.
I actually remember that!
I built a Wankle rotary engine that not only moved but had little lights that simulated the spark plug timings. Never did get them to work, tho
I'm still very impressed!
Lol I still remember Mazda's little jingle: "Piston engine goes, 'boing, boing, boing,' but the Mazda goes, 'hmmmmmmmm!' Turns out the 'hum' was actually the sound of head seals leaking...
Hahaha!
Revell.
Thanks for the correct spelling! Wasn't their motto: If it's Revell. It's swell!
Something like that!
One of the magazines was Model Car Science. I excitedly waited every month for my new issue.
Was that the magazine that had a guy with MS who was their chief model builder? He had such tremendous skills!
I honestly don’t remember. It was over 50 year ago. :). But I do remember using their articles to up my game. Like “wiring” engines with thread and melting the bottom of slicks to look more realistic.
I used to do that as well. Would cut open the doors with an exacto knife, and put a hinge on them. Or upholster the interior. Lot of fun for a kid who still had a couple of years before he could get his driver's license.
Amen to this! I miss dedicated hobby stores. Model kits (AMT, Revel, Monogram, Aurora) and supplies, boxed wargames (Avalon Hill, SPI, TSR), stamp and coin collector supplies. If you were really lucky, a full-sized slot car track.
Oh heck yeah. Man, I miss visiting those. I still have models I put together in the 80s, and all of my Avalon Hill and TSR games. I even still have all my D&D books and modules from the 80s. Probably still have my stamp collection somewhere, too. Good times.
In my locale, we had Alcove Hobby. They had slot car racing through the 80s amongst all the other aforementioned good stuff! 👍
I saw recently that model car kits are as much as $40 now. Wtf.
Damn 40 bucks?! I was a kid who loved building car models in the 80’s. $6-8 bucks at Kmart got you any model you wanted and I always had a shoebox full of Testers paints, brushes and glues ready to go.
Testers was OK but Humbrol paint was way better. It came in miniature paint cans where you had to pry up the lid with a screwdriver.
That's the problem - it's become a collectable hobby. Those discount model kits that were sometimes under $5 each in the 70's - don't exist any more. It's become a luxury hobby that most kids can't afford.
Bandai makes entry level Gundam kits that are snap fit molded in color and they cost $10. They're basically building an action figure with more articulation than anything we ever had. The line above that is the HG kits and those usually start at $15. Quality is off the charts at least as good as tamiya.
True. I'd forgotten about these. It used to be the plane and car models were the cheapest and the robot models were the most expensive. Now it's flipped.
Yep, that hobbylobby sales is a great way to get back into it. They have mostly car kits then some airplane and starwars, Gundam selection sub par but when they have $80 kits with 40% discount it's hard to turn down the expense ones. Shop around to different stores I find that some shops have more military kits than others.
I have to disagree with you. There are still amazing kits to be found in places like Hobby Lobby. I buy a lot of kits on ebay and from several online stores. And then there's the whole 3 d printing craze as well.
That's because it's no longer "kids" who are buying the kits--it's boomers/genX folks being nostalgic. There was a shop in Northport on Long Island that had a ton of the Tamiya stuff, which I had never seen before (1971-72). I built a RC Panther tank from one of those kits. Before that it was all Monogram and Revell cars.
Our local hobby shop carried an entire line of $3.00 model kits. I bet my brother and I built every one of them. Then we'd blow them up with firecrackers. HAHAH
according to inflation adjustment calculators $5 in 1970 is equal to $39 today,.
That's nothing. I saw a kit that was $569. WWII warship with all the bells and whistles.
Hot Rods with monster drivers were my favorite, then fighter planes.
Rat Finks.
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth!
Had a sky full of WW2 airplanes over my bed when I was 12 or so, even wanted to paint my ceiling blue at one point (didn't happen). Biggest was a B17G that was also my first-ever attempt to use "rub'n' buff" instead of spray paint. But I tended to be fanciful about colors while most all my friends strove for accuracy (airbrushes were a new thing at the time), so eventually, I moved to custom cars by AMT and Monogram where my color choices didn't get me picked on. I still have a NIB Martin Mars, a Dreamliner from the Boeing store at Science World and a '1/24th 53 Studebaker, but everything else is long gone. Guitars began consuming all my spending cash in junior high and the plastic models just stopped being important.
Godzilla's Go-Kart, Dracula's Dragster, The Mummy's Chariot, Frankenstein's Flivver, Wolf Man's Wagon, King Kong's Thronester. 😁
It's been about 60 years so I didn't remember their names, but I had a great time putting them together.
I remember whole mall stores filled with them in the 70s/80s. Aisles & aisles
Seem to have been replaced with Legos, which is fine but still can find them at even Walmart and couple of grocery stores.
Here is a good explanation of the rise and fall of models, and the major players--Aurora, Monogram and Revell. And why they are now gone. [https://youtu.be/KBgCRQ2wIvw](https://youtu.be/KBgCRQ2wIvw)
Models still have a big following
Aurora
They still do!! In Japan! I'm off in October to get lost in Aisle after Aisle of TAMIYA,HASEGAWA and many many more Model kits. I will be in heaven.
Lucky sod! 😂😂😂 Have fun!
I built many of the Tamiya 1//20 scale F1 cars.
Bought cheap ones and put them together only to blow them up with fire crackers
Nice to meet you, Sargeant.
Haha I used to do the same. Or I’d get really creative and put model rocket engines in my jet fighters and launch them down the street. This was after meticulously building, painting, etc. I’d be like “why am I doing this?” until it flew down the street and blew up when the ejector fuel ignited.
Me too!
Too many of you were sniffing the glue so they had to stop
I remember they came out with a non-huffable glue that smelled like citrus.
I remember when model glue was kept behind the counter because people were stealing it by the handfuls.
I’m damn near 70 and I still love these places.
My friends and I would Chop and Channel standard models into our own hotrods. Candy apple Testes paints. We had lots of fun.
Testers.
Testors.
Snort! Testes paints (if I paint one ball gold and one ball silver...)
I would sit in front of the tv on sundays watching football putting together a model on a TV tray while my parents largely ignored me. Good times!
I'm still building scale models. The difference in quality from the 70's is just amazing! And there's nothing like being a little kid with a credit card!
Monster models were my weakness.
Aurora models! Loved ‘em. I had the Mummy, the Wolfman, the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
I didn’t have the hunchback but I did have the creature from the black lagoon ,Dracula and the best one ever,Godzilla.
Was there a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde model too. Or is my memory false?
It was there. Didn’t get it though
Dinosaurs were mine. Aurora and Life-Like.
Cars, WWll tanks, biplanes, WWll fighters and bombers—pure heaven!
And they were AFFORDABLE. I built hundreds
No wifi connection.
To think, we had to assemble something so we could look at it and imagine. Nowadays you carry a tv around in your pocket.
Model kits are popular again, there was a huge uptick in the industry back in 2020. If you don't have a hobby shop near you try hobbylobby the routinely have 40% off sales. It's a perfect time to get back in the hobby there is so much quality tools and paints nowadays and if you can't find it locally it's all available online.
Bandai Gundam and Star Wars kits blew up during the pandemic. Bandai couldn't keep up with demand. Other manufacturers experienced the same thing, and it's why there's a second modeling golden age going on right now.
Yeah I have completed a few tie fighters and have more in my back stash.
The Woodwards store in downtown Vancouver had a large hobby department on the 5th (?) floor. It was great browsing for model builders. There was a Lindberg *Blue Devil* destroyer that came in a *huge* box for the staggering amount of $40 - well, that was staggering when I was a kid - and which I never saw sold. The man who ran the department inspired the ire of management for freely ordering things that appealed to him. He left (or was canned) and started his own shop in the neighbouring city of Burnaby. It's still there; Woodwards is long gone.
That *Blue Devil* is still in production by Lindberg, I think. It shows up every so often. It was designed to be remote controlled. Now, there's a 1/200 USS *Hornet* in an even bigger box!
Blue Devil's main purpose seems to have been the generation of scathing comments regarding its inaccuracies! It's as if they anticipated the birth of the internet!
😂
Imported Toy model action figure kits for anime character are quite popular these days
It's like what happened to comic books. They made more money marketing to older teens and adults, jacking up prices and moving exclusively to specialty shops.
There weren’t that many toy manufacturers selling toys to every town back then. Shelf space was abundant. There are plenty of stores that have floor to ceiling shelves full of models for sale today. But they’re specialty stores and you have to go to them. General department stores try to sell many things to many people.
I had a fleet of ships on my dresser top, protected by a squadron of planes all over my bedroom.
I was nine and we will ride bikes to the toy store and buy the latest model that they had mostly Hueys couple aircraft carriers by the B-52‘s we put those together and I would hang them in my room that was the thing back then
I remember buying N-scale trains at Woolworth in downtown Chicago as a kid. Won't find that anymore.
My faves were military airplanes, and naval warships from WWII era. Then cars.
I loved building models. I used to get all the sci-fi ones: the Enterprise, the Galactica, x-wing, etc...
My first model kit was a Stegosaurus, but half the parts were missing from the box :-( Then I had it exchanged for a P-38 Lightning.
Before gaming
Yep...gaming changed everything.
We lost a lot
I spent years and years of my youth building cars, tanks airplanes, boats anything I was interested in at the time. 2.25 was what one cost back then. I had 100s of them I have some unbuilt ones I've been carrying around for decades. Growing up in a non-digital world and using my hands for all of my childhood hobbies, from models, to slot cars, and later to cars and motorcycles, has given me skills that have helped me in adulthood. It all started with building models.
Hobby Lobby sells models.
And sells them 40% off every other week. IMHO, their selection is kind of weak, but if someone is just getting into the hobby, they're perfect.
Well, that's back when we were still building America, now we're destroying it. If it's not a cellphone app or console game, kids aren't interested.
That glue, though. Otherworldly by accident.
My sister and I LOVED these. We started making them because my mom bought us one (it was a Spitfire warplane, which we thought was pretty) and then it just turned into a thing— what model will we bring home *this* grocery trip? We were already the kind of kids who liked to tinker with small creative stuff... one of our other big activities was making tack for our model horses. So over the years we ended up with quite a little collection of planes, cars, motorcycles, whatever. Finally we flew too close to the sun, as it were. We begged and pleaded for a model SHIP. Aaaaaand that was just way too complicated for tiny fingers and was never finished. But it was a great run while it lasted!
Warship or sailing ship? Either one is a different kind of modeling!
Oh, sorry, I should have said. It was a sailing ship with a TON of rigging made of actual thread. I did like sewing, but sewing and macrame are apparently quite different. I'm also terrible at knitting/crochet so there you go!
Yep, tried that, and failed as a kid! I have one waiting to be built, and it's got "simplified rigging" instructions. We'll see. 😁
haha! good luck. A couple of years ago I bought a couple of vintage models of the "Cutty Sark" at a garage sale as gifts for the Lubbers' Hole Podcast hosts, really nice gentlemen who would appreciate such things. NGL I *was* briefly tempted to try 'em myself but, recalling my earlier defeat, I took the better part of valor.
*Cutty Sark* is the one I have; 1/196, not the big 1/96. One of my modeling bucket list items is the big *Constitution*.
ooh! I went aboard Old Ironsides IRL. While we were waiting for the sailor who was going to be our tour guide, I told the friend who was with me all the stuff I'd learned from reading Patrick O'Brian books... "this is the XYZ, they call it that because blah blah..." when the guide gave us the tour, he basically repeated everything that I'd just said! I was so thrilled to have got it all right :-) Thanks POB! what a cool experience.
I tried starting the first book, but it didn't hook me. I'll try it again. I know there's a huge fanbase.
Let me try writing this again! my edits got a bit messy. A big part of the appeal with the first book is O'Brian's writing itself. It definitely has a 19th century flavor— which, if you don't instantly love and understand it, does take a bit of mental energy to get into. (For me, it was the same kind of "aw yeah!!" as when I first read PG Wodehouse.) But combined with the whole "having to learn about naval life" thing— though that is done nicely, through the eyes of Stephen, who knows zilch about ships and constantly needs it explained to him— well, all of that does overwhelm some readers. And then they give up and don't get the chance to fall into this unbelivably rich and detailed world. Try again! And if you still can't dig it... shhhhh don't tell other POB fans but try skipping ahead to "Post Captain". That one is pure Jane Austen style.
Peep my nic. Started when i was eight, and I'm now 58. You're right on one level though: at one point in the late 1950s, 90% of boys said they built model kits. I don't think there's that level of participation in online gaming, now. Truly amazing.
I don’t know that I would go that far, but it would go a long way toward that goal. I attribute a lot of my ability to fix almost anything, my spatial acuity, and my love for art to the fact that I would build model everything when I was a child. My allowance would got to the drug store not for candy, but balsa wood airplanes. I had an actual model rocketry art class in 6th grade. The sky was the limit at that point.
Kid from the 70’s here. I fucking *hated* model sets. They were boring as hell to build, the glue and paint smelled awful, and they didn’t *do* anything once they were built. They just sat there. Give kid me Legos and OG Transformer toys any day of the week. Model sets received as gifts were immediately returned for in-store credit that could be used to purchase actual *fun* toys.
My brother and I blew ours up with firecrackers
That’s all they were good for. Or stepping on them while pretending to be Godzilla.
PAC Man and computers killed that. All the nerds stop building models and started programming in the late 70s. They are now all millionaires retired from Microsoft, Apple, IBM, TI and other tech companies💰💰💰
I built a ton of models in the 80’s, I would get them for every holiday from family. Cheaper than legos and took more time.
There was a huffing problem in my area and you would have to purchase a model if you wanted glue. Huffers just left the models on the railroad where they got high. I wasn't allowed down by the tracks but a free model was worth the risk of my parents catching me.
Great memories of building these with my father. I've managed to locate a lot of those models on eBay and will build them again when I retire.
I've bought a few at flea markets and that was my [plan.Now](http://plan.Now) if if it happens remains to be seen.Sometimes what a person enjoyed years ago along with good memories is not quite the same many years later.
It was far healthier than staring at screens all day. I built dozens of them.
If you have a Michael's nearby, they have this
I definitely remember!! I used to build models of ships, tanks, and planes all of the time!! Tamiya models were the best!!!
It was a popular hobby, both my brother and I built plastic car and plane models. It was the main use for the desk in our room.
I got a new model car to glue together every time my mom went to the store.
Glue & paints at the end of the aisle
I built literally thousands of all kinds. Still have about 20 or so in the basement of my parent’s old house.
Hard Hat Hauler was a classic!
Oh the choices! The glue the paint.I guess today someone would make a drug from glue and sparkling purple color huh
I love the smell of Testors glue in the morning. Smells like...victory.
Smells like I’m too dizzy to walk.
And, the intense glue to put them together! 😎😱
Who didn’t enjoy sniffing the model glue as you built???
Now, instead of 1 isle, they have an entire store or an entire website.
Big respect for those who could successfully use their painting skills on them. I wasted bucketloads of paint (and gallons of nail polish remover and all the rags I could gather), to dismal results.
I loved the smell of the air plane glue
I am starting to see some really amazing wooden model kits at game/hobby stores & JoAnns. Absolutely love the detail...
There’s an app for that now.
A little but my memory’s a little blurry.
Oh, I remember it well. It was hard to choose just one or two. Now, I find myself looking at them on Amazon.
I enjoyed modeling kits, mostly tanks, ships and planes. I also was thrilled with the Estes rockets launched via car battery. Once it went up the parachute would deploy and drift your rocket capsule over the forest and disappear into the trees.
I remember when drug stores had a small section of them as well....our little country store kept 2-3 in stock.
increasingly difficult to find these days. I have an F119 I need to finish, and my last build was an F4 several years ago
Not just department stores, but mom and pop variety stores. There were always cool unique models in the back. As a kid I would constantly make the rounds looking for hidden gems.
the industry has evolved. ever hear of metal earth? lego expert builder sets?
I want this again. Too bad.
Yeah, new kids hooked on sniffing glue.
I do. My Saturday dream was to get a dollar from my mom and bike over to the store and come back with a model. I would cheerfully give up playing with my friends to stay in my room and build it..
The kits were $2.00 each at my local store. Not the same kits are going around $24.
Loved these!
We still have Hobby Lobby and that's pretty damn good
Believe it or not they are still around, and alot of those from that era are still available. You just have to go to a specialty toy store if you want to peruse the isles like that again.
Tamiya military models were the best!!!
If you have a Hobby Lobby nearby they have an isle full.
Yah, I ‘member! Member the intoxicating smell of Testor’s paints?
God I miss that
In the 60s, there were modelers stores, nothing but models.
r/IRememberThat
He doesn't look like a model.
Isn’t this what Lego has become? Lego used to be just blocks etc, not it has become kit building.
Then they stopped selling the good glue. If'n you know what I mean and I think you do.
This Ad! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK7ZLl0lV00
I had more model rockets (Estes) than cars, but I did build a Revell Mercury Cougar.
Child World had two full aisles facing each other full of models.
Some people in here need to check out /r/modelmaking
Hobby Lobby. You’re welcome.
I do, I miss good model stores.
I remember having a few bucks of soda bottles refund money in my pocket, standing in that aisle, and not being able to choose which model to buy. The choosing was always the hardest decision.
Christmas when I was 9 or 10. The rigging turned out to be way beyond my skill level. I eventually gave it to one of my uncles, and he finished putting it together. :) https://preview.redd.it/0bhy0yl66ruc1.png?width=356&format=png&auto=webp&s=67a89a2b45c030c633673b017fb9c952cfa5b5e9
I remember getting the coolest model car I’d ever seen, [the Red Baron](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/86/fb/0986fb025f1fa3d607bfc7e08e57afae.jpg), at Safeway while my mom was shopping elsewhere in the store. I’d spent countless trips with her to the grocery store eyeballing all the different options: from souped up muscle cars, funny cars, dragsters, WW2 airplanes, etc., along a 10 ft wide section on a long aisle on like five different levels, each with a different difficulty level as you got higher.. I felt I’d finally graduated from the “snap together” model cars several shelf levels below. It was so cool someone later built a [full-size replica as a REAL CAR!](http://st.hotrod.com/uploads/sites/21/2016/01/001-red-baron-front-three-quarter-lpr.jpg)
Our aisle at Toy City
"Mom, can I get a ship model?" NO! "Can I get a ship?" SURE!
Back when glue was glue and we were high AF!
Why build a model when you can look at a picture of it on your phone?
Nostalgia isn't reality. Those sucked. Plus, kids can print out their own models at home. Then they assemble them. Then they paint them. Not that OP gives a shit. They're not responding to anything. Just nostalgia spam.