Ohnothimagen

Not sure if this is the best place to post this, and no I don't mean the "anorexic, runway, photo shoot" variety.

After many, many years I have recently gotten back into the hobby of model building. Back in the day I would build them straight from the box, as quickly as I could, so I could play with them. Later on, probably late teens and early 20s, I pretty much did the same thing - build them fairly quickly, trying to be neat but with very little attention to detail, but getting them done so I could display them. Then I drifted away from the hobby, only occasionally trying my hand at something.

Somewhat out of the blue I decided to get back into trying my hand and building something, but this time really putting some effort into detail. While I am having a good time, even if it seems to be taking forever to get anywhere with this current project, the old eyes and hands aren't quite as sharp as I remember.

I was just curious if any other "vintage" folks have reverted back to this pastime?

Rex

Conedodger

In my teens I was heavily in to it. Did a lot of custom body work and airbrushed paint jobs. Even won a contest or two. I haven't touched a kit in 35 years, but I saved some un-built kits and hope to get back to it when I retire.

Two of the kits I have from the old days:

Lovetodrive2000

Got a S2000 model for Christmas......

Will be putting it together after I retire!

Haven't touched a model kit in 40+ years.

windhund116

A friend made this diorama for me, quite a few years ago, when I was doing some research on the 116th Panzer Division (windhund) participation in the Battle of Bulge. Jagdpanzer IV (hunting tank) Mark IV. Capture of US troops. December 1944.

1/48th scale.

Emil St-Hilaire

WOW...

Ohnothimagen

No kidding WOW!

boltonblue

that's not modelling. that's on an entirely different level.



a few years back I did a functional balsa glider with a 48 inch windspan.
Sadly those sorts of kits have all but vanished along with the stores that sold them.

robb

I remember buying those as a kid at Benny's.

dlq04

I've been making model cars off and on most of my life. In the past few months I've done several. This was done several years back for national contest and took first place.



In the past few months I did a Lotus Elite, Jame's Hunt McLaren, Triumph Stag. My last was a 1950 Talbot Largo F1. And currently I am doing a 1969 MGB club racer. {nice being retired}

Here's an article I wrote not too long ago about doing Old models that have been in storage a LONG time.

Model Cars & Memories

Preface

Although building models has gone totally out of fashion I find I still get as much enjoyment building a model as I did as a kid – maybe more now that I have more patience. Mine are not going to win awards but they are winners to me since they bring back wonderful memories.

The Race

The year was 1976. It was the bicentennial year. I was driving my yellow 1972 Triumph Stag to the racing mecca known as the “Glen” in Watkins Glen, NY for the United States Grand Prix. What could be better? Driving from Michigan we stopped in Pennsylvania to drop off my seven-year old daughter Patty and three-year old son Steve at my parents house. My Stag, one of less than four thousand imported and one of only 432 stick-shift versions, featured a small back seat that was just the thing for traveling with two young kids. The MGA was tucked away for the winter. The Stag with its T-roll bar for protection had a removable hard top we put on just before leaving. Good thing. It snowed over night on Saturday at the Glen. The Stag was lively and fun to drive as long as the 3-liter V8 engine ran properly. History will tell you its aluminum heads warped like mad, timing chains broke, main bearings seized, and so forth. In fact, when I joined the Stag club, a week after I received a welcome letter I got a second asking if I wanted to join a class-action suit against British Leyland. Hummm. But, on this, the longest trip we ever took in the car, it ran fine.

Although I’ve attended several Grand Prix’s, the 1976 remains my favorite. My notes say we stayed at the Taughannock Motel in Trumansburg, NY for $18 a night. Ah, the good old days but tax did add another $1.26. Trumansburg is on beautiful Cayuga Lake and was approximately 50 miles from the track. As teams and spectators grew over the years finding close accommodations was the downfall of the Glen as an international track. However, it was still very international that weekend. The build up in the championship struggle between Hunt and Lauda was at a peak as they left rivals trailing in the dust. It was prior year World Champion Lauda vs. Hunt. Ferrari vs. McLaren. Two strikingly different drivers that started their race to the top of motor racing in 1968. Other drivers included two-time World Champion Emerson Fittipaldi and previous F1 winners Ickx, Peterson, Reutemann, Regazzoni, Scheckter, Andretti, Pace, Watson, and Mass. Teams included Ferrari, Tyrrell, JPS Lotus, Brabham Alfa Romeo, March, McLaren, Shadow, Surtees, Williams, Ensign, Hesketh, Ligier, and Penske. The great driver and car line up was but a part of the memories.

We met up with a Ford engineer and his wife that we knew from Michigan. He did Indy car suspension setups for a famous shop. Friday's first qualifying session saw a thoroughly wet racetrack with Hunt on pole in his McLaren-Ford, ahead of Jody Scheckter’s 6-wheeled Tyrrell-Ford, with Lauda's Ferrari fifth. Saturday's rain was worse than Friday morning's had been, so the times from Friday afternoon made up the grid. But that worked out well for the four of us who spent the down time in the pit garages where my wife got Hunt’s autograph, “To Donna, with love. James Hunt”. She got the autographs of the two Brazilians, Fittipaldi and Pace. On Sunday we had great viewing seats and our Michigan friends shared their expert knowledge throughout the race. They even had Donna keeping a lap chart! The icing on the cake was the next day, after the race, when Donna & I went back to the track and into the pit garages again.

That was a day to remember. There were my racing hero’s mingling with the small handful of onlookers while the mechanics disable their racecars to be put into boxes for shipment to the next and final race in Japan. What I wouldn’t have given for an iPhone camera that day. I know I didn’t take any pictures; perhaps we were not allowed to. There was James Hunt, yesterday’s winner, in his blond locks and muscular physique that thrived on being the center of attention on and off the track. The daily papers carried stories of his ex-wife’s affairs with actor Richard Burton and his racetrack incidents in Long Beach and Monza. Thus living up to one of his nicknames, “Hunt the Shunt”. Sadly James died of a heart attack 17 years later at age 45. It seemed unreal standing within a foot of Niki Lauda with his head bandaged, ear gone, and half his face looking like hamburger after his near-death dreadful fire-burning accident at the Nurburgring only a mere six weeks earlier. His single mindedness to win at all costs and race that weekend was mind blowing. He would go on to win the World Championship for the second time the following year. Even today, Niki can be seen on TV every F1 weekend in the Mercedes pits where he is part of their management team. The lone American, Mario Andretti, was there with two beautiful young ladies; one hanging on each arm. Photo op. Right! Some driver’s were being interviewed, some were watching their cars taken apart piece by piece, and others were just chatting with mechanics or with one another. It was 1976 and I was just soaking it all in. Hunt would go on to win the World Championship. Five years later the Glen would host its last Grand Prix.

The Cars

Remember when you were a kid and put together plastic car kits? Part of me never out grew it. I’ve put together hundreds over the years. I was in heaven when metal kits came out because I would eventually learn how plastic models generally do not hold up well over time. That is probably why I still have some two-dozen unmade kits still in the box that are over three decades old.

One kit was a 1/20th scale released by Tamiya in 1977 of the McLaren M32 F1 of Hunt I had seen at the Glen. Additionally, I purchased the famous six-wheel Tyrell kit of Jody Scheckter. Back in 1977 I built the Tyrell but sadly it did not survive the years that followed. {This was the very same kit that Conedodger posted} Whereas the McLaren kit sat in its original dusty and dirty box for 38 years! It always had a special meaning for me knowing the same car and driver went on to place third at the Japan GP in the rain on October 24, which was enough to crown Hunt as the World Champion and inspire the 2013 movie “Rush” about his playboy life and rivalry with Niki Lauda. In 2015 I decided it was time to finally build it.

The real challenge came with applying 38-year old decals. Decals because of their age can yellow, crack, and lift off the backing-paper, rip easily, or simply crumble apart when trying to apply them. To overcome this I developed a process that worked most of the time. First I applied Johnson clear coat floor wax on the plastic model. Then I cut out the decal to apply and placed it in warm water, face down, holding it with surgical pliers. Fresh decals typically come off in no time - usually less than 10 seconds; but not these. I had to soak them much longer and often three or four times. Keep in mind if you leave them in the water too long you ruin the adhesive. So I would place the decal on a dampened paper towel for a period of time and see if it would slide off and if not dunk it again and repeat the process. This took lots of patience. There were dozens of decals, large and small; some that went on top of one another. Holding the surgical pliers I slid off the decal where I already applied a liberal amount of Micro Set on the model. Micro Set was used to maneuver the decals for best placement on curves or panel lines but it also can cause the decal to crumble. When possible I would blot the applied decal dry with a paper towel being really careful. But rolling a Q-tip over the decal (better than pushing) often was best. When I applied a decal to one side of the car I had to leave it for a full day before I could handle it to do the other side. I made the mistake of applying Micro Sol, another product, to the first and largest decal after reading it was suppose to make the decal look like it was painted on. Instead it took a nice smooth decal that covered most of the body and shriveled it up in places. Ops! Micro Sol works best when putting a decal on very irregular surfaces. When done with model, I was still concerned the decals could lift due to age so I applied a light coat of clear acrylic enamel spray paint over the finished model.

The Triumph Stag model was different. It was a 1/18-scale die cast model already put together by Jadi in China and thankfully no decals. But, it was painted white and mine was Saffron Yellow (dark yellow). Plus it did not have pin strips down the sides like mine. I dismantled all that I could within reason and painted it yellow entirely by hand. To minimize the appearance of brush strokes I used a flat yellow. To create the pin strip I bought a small roll of actual pin stripping and then trimmed down the stripping to suitable width.

Since doing these two models I have done a Morgan Plus 4 and a Lotus Elite. The type of model collectors who look at unopened kits as an investment would shake their heads at my opening kits after so many years but for me it’s like MG owners thinking their cars are too valuable to drive. They are missing out on all the fun and sense of accomplishment, especially you have put them together yourself.

windhund116

Nice one of MG. Did you paint the blue design on that guy's shirt?