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How many of you built models as a kid?

7K views 52 replies 21 participants last post by  MARTINSR 
#1 ·
Where my kid is now playing video games every waking hour I was building models.

This is one of the last I built, believe it or not in a model building class in highschool!



The hood has no hinges and wasn't setting on correctly in this photo.







I guess I had something for mid engines as I built a real version just three years later.



That's the steering wheel in the upper left corner.



Brian
 
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#2 ·
probably EVERYBODY OUR AGE HOMER!!!

it's a generational thing, like, who hadda transistor radio, or a honda 90, or..... good ol days bro.

and how many of them got lit on fire and thrown them off a cliff? musta build a zillion army tanks, battleships, airplanes, not so many cars but still plenty of them. creamed all over when those larger scale Funny car models from Revell came out.
 
#4 ·
I revisited the hobby of my youth, after a street rodding neighbor showed me what him and his son were building. :)

Drag racing was my passion then, so that's what I started building! I spent about ten years doing it, until I burned out about five years ago!

Here are a few...
 

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#5 ·
The old amt kits I think they were called "AMT Stylize" Had a club of custom modelers and entered many contests back in the 50s in the old Pocket mags ( like Hot rod ETC.) Do they still make the AMT kits? Now I build full size fully functional ! Its funny as young boys we modeled and as men we're builders!!!!:thumbup:

I dont know how you guys kept those models all these years!!!! My children destroyed mine years ago!!!!!
Jester
 
#6 ·
I don't have any that I built as a kid. I gave them to my cousin who built and did contests with me. He can't remember what happened to them, since it's been about 45 years!

I still have some that I built recently, but sold many of them after they hit the magazines.

I'm giving a couple to the drag racing museums.
 
#8 ·
I built literally hundreds and have 2-3 boxes of a few partially started and several never opened kits left so when my knees and back wont let me work on or drive my car I can still 'return to my youth'. Most of mine met with a demise in the form of 2" or cherry bomb fireworks. We (my friends and I) also used some of the friction drive cars to 'customize'(the favorite was the '50's Studebaker. One model that will be built will be the 1/12 scale Model A my wife gave me 3-4 years ago - and hope it turns out looking like my '31.

Those of Jays - he pictured some a few years ago somewhere - beyond my imagination and skills:thumbup:!!!

Dave W
 
#11 ·
Yep, I have a number of boxes of them, some of them classics from the seventies that would be worth a few bucks if I hadn't partially built them. :rolleyes: When the model came out of my truck (I would have eaten a live rat for one when I was a kid) I bought five or six of them and they are in storage.

Brian
 
#9 ·
I'm 27 and built a few models on rainy days, but got board with them because they didn't have an engine... LOL :D


Then I got into making a few small battery powered model hovercrafts and such, and then I decided to build a 1/2 scale radio controlled hovercraft:



It was 6' long 3' wide and had a 5hp horizontal shaft briggs on it. I think I clocked it at about 35mph a few times with my GPS.





I got lots of use out of it and later on I'd bring it to hover-ins with our full size hovercraft and all the kids loved to buzz around the parking lots and beaches. Just this year I gave it to a father and son who were trying to get into hovercrafting to fix up and get going again.


You can see the construction pics, and some more pics and vids of me using it on my website below, just click on the hovercraft banner and then the rc hover banner:

Zach Bell’s Creations - Hovercrafts, Woodworking, V8 Beetles, and more!


Zachb-

V8 Beetle Website:
V8 VW Beetle Resource- Follow our Hot Rod Beetle Build and Plan Yours

Hovercraft Website:
Zach Bell’s Creations - Hovercrafts, Woodworking, V8 Beetles, and more!
 
#12 ·
I'm 27 and built a few models on rainy days, but got board with them because they didn't have an engine... LOL :D


Then I got into making a few small battery powered model hovercrafts and such, and then I decided to build a 1/2 scale radio controlled hovercraft:

It was 6' long 3' wide and had a 5hp horizontal shaft briggs on it. I think I clocked it at about 35mph a few times with my GPS.

I got lots of use out of it and later on I'd bring it to hover-ins with our full size hovercraft and all the kids loved to buzz around the parking lots and beaches. Just this year I gave it to a father and son who were trying to get into hovercrafting to fix up and get going again.


You can see the construction pics, and some more pics and vids of me using it on my website below, just click on the hovercraft banner and then the rc hover banner:

Zach Bell’s Creations - Hovercrafts, Woodworking, V8 Beetles, and more!


Zachb-

V8 Beetle Website:
V8 VW Beetle Resource- Follow our Hot Rod Beetle Build and Plan Yours

Hovercraft Website:
Zach Bell’s Creations - Hovercrafts, Woodworking, V8 Beetles, and more!
Very cool stuff! I love this stuff, everyone has their own thing and those hovercrafts come easy to you where at to others they are only see in the movies, so damn cool.

Brian
 
#15 ·
When it came to regular model cars not very much only built a Dodge Viper and a Ford Torino (wish I kept the Viper!) I did build an F-15 once thought that a friend painted after an F-15 from a video game (its blue and white not grey).
However, I was a huge collector of Hot Wheels and I loved Legos!
I remember I built Greg Ray's Indy Car out of legos (circa 1999) as well as Al Hoffmans Firebird funny car, an 80's camaro, several dragsters, a Prerunner/Baja like truck, and a NASCAR.
 
#16 ·
AMT, Testors, Ambroid, Pactra, and do you remember Johan? Revel, Monogram, then on to scratch built airplanes. U-Control, R/C stuff was for rich people. Lawn mower engines, Baby Bee's,.045 Red Heads, the Old Man's Buick. First solo brake job-10 years old. First Hot Rod Mag 1958, mowed lawns, $1.50 for front yard, $1.50 for the back. And truly, the never ending summer hardball game in the vacant lot down the street.
BB
 
#18 ·
Great link! I read a couple of British car mags regularly and have come to understand that modeling and just collecting car models is a very active hobby in Europe. Much much more than it is in the USA. They take it much more seriously than we ever did. We for the most part built models as young people. The European's do it as a older crowd as well as youngsters. I'm trying to see a Lincoln in that 62 customized Lincoln Continental kit! Looks like a T Bird to me.
 
#22 ·
I go to the stores and their nonexistent the clerks don't know what I'm talking about too young to know I guess !! if kids don't see em they cant buy em! But 5&10s used to have every model on their shelves cars boats planes rat fink a man and woman anatomical see threw!! How about where you guys are?:confused: I'd like to get my grand son the Ala Cart or the Dream Truck! We could build it together!:D

Jester
 
#23 ·
Just for my own curiosity I goggled AMT then Revell. Most of those kit are still avalible and lots more! Both sites I looked at let you down load the instructions and I believe that the kits actually have more parts then before. The 5 and 10's are long gone and the drug stores no longer have a hobby department but the internet has everything! If I want something I first locate it on the internet and then swipe it's nomenclature and part number. Then I plug it into amazon and find out who has the best price with shipping included and Taa Daa! Just like going to Woolworth's! You still can get those kits and enjoy them with you grand kids! Of course you have to go through a FBI background check to buy the glue but you can still have fun! :thumbup: BB
 

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#24 ·
Made quite a few all hot rods, this kit was my favorite.
The instruction booklet was worth an art prize.



There was a sister kit to this, same dragster but in red not yellow and a Fiat Topolino.
Fantastic engine detail if my failing brain remembers right.
 
#26 ·
I´ve searched several times over the years and it has´nt come up, just the one above, it was selling for $600.
Another search of the Revell/Monogram site awhile ago failed as well.

The first model I built was an AMT 1940 Ford, build it three ways.
First time I had a kit with parts left over.
 
#27 ·
My first model was a Hubley 1930 Model A roadster. Before long I had 2 more Model A's and a Packard. Guess that was around 8 years old and dad had to help me with some of the screws. Wasn't long after when the AMT's started hitting the display shelves. As the hobby grew I had to support habit so mowing yards was the way but when I got my driver's license, the interest in the non motorized cars went away. And yeah, most of the plastic cars got crashed and burned but kept a few of my nicer modified and custom cars but don't remember where they are today. I just gave away the Hubley's last year.
 
#28 ·
OK, you guys forced me to open up a box from the past. Here are my old models from 50-55yr ago (now 63). You can see Ala Kart, I was into gassers, even making my own frame out of brass tubing for the black GTO. A few static friction cars (the pink 58 Buick I got from the dealership when my Dad bought his brand new 58), an Edsel, and Continental. The Andretti Indy car was a clear plastic slot car body that I made into a model, the blue spagetti exhaust pipes where made out of household electrical wire and tips where from paint brushes!!
 

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#31 ·
The Edsel brought back some memories. I pestered my dad to go down and look at the new 58's because the dealer was giving away a promo friction motored Edsel. That was a feat in itself because my dad hated Ford products with a passion but at 7 years old, I loved the look of them and wanted one so I begged and begged until he gave in lol. I played with that car until the wheels fell off.
 
#36 ·
I did and almost every boy growing up did, sadly as soon as the safety goons started on toys, the glue it together models, got all but removed from stores..
I have about 25 to do and I get about one to three done per winter..
wife reads books, I build these..
sadly it's swap meats or inline to buy them now.. not many places carry them..
the toys r us here has a few... but the crafts store has more.. go fig..
 
#37 ·
I am surprised at how many I will see still at the stores. We have a chain "craft" store called "Michaels" that has an eight or twelve foot long section in an isle filled with models and modeling goodies.

I came across this one yesterday out in the garage. My son built it and put it in the Goodguys model contest back 18 years ago.

Brian

 
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