lost past. models you made as kids.

flimsy those are awesome scratchbuilds! Like Zombie61, I preserved my original models for a long time then lost all of them to moving. Then I left the hobby for a long time and now that I'm back I truly miss my old models, warts and all, painted ugly and unpainted. Holding an old model in your hands brings you back in time.
 
I always had an air fix kit for my birthdays in the 70=80's..being British it was always a Spitfire or a Black Widow. I would love a 1:64 black widow now!!

Both beautiful planes that almost never got built, yet changed the way we flew.....
 
Oddjobkia said:
I always had an air fix kit for my birthdays in the 70=80's..being British it was always a Spitfire or a Black Widow. I would love a 1:64 black widow now!!

Both beautiful planes that almost never got built, yet changed the way we flew.....
Click to expand...

Airfix kits were rare over here for a long time but I got a couple off Amazon and for the price you can't beat them even if they're the same molds from 40 years ago.
 
My first ever kit was the 1/72 Airfix FW-190 which I got for my 4th birthday, in 1971. My brothers had most of the first (and second) world war's aerial combat going on, pinned to their bedroom ceiling so I naturally also went for aircraft. I progressed to 1/32 aircraft when I was about 10 - and had covered my ceiling too. I remember I had the Harrier Jump Jet, F-18 Hornet, Mirage, SBD Dauntless, Spitfire and Hurricane to name just some. The occasional weekend was spent re-building and/or repairing the ones that crashed on night missions. :rolleyes Some of the dogfights that happened while I was asleep were fairly bad. One thing I did learn early on was never to cross the strings of one model with another, as you hung it from the ceiling, or it would cause a daisy-chain collapse of models if one of them pulled its pins out of the plaster. :facepalm
Then when I was about 14, I discovered Tamiya 1/35 armour and went for that in a really big way. Everything had to have a diorama and the shelves weren't big enough. Ended up with about 50 vehicles, some on the shelves and some carefully stashed in a spare couple of drawers.

All the aircraft (that survived) went to my best friend's younger brother when I was 19, and the armour got turned into target practice for my old Weirauch .22 carbine when I was about 25. Makes me cringe to think I did that now but by that time my life was all about work, pubs, clubs, friends and girlfriends and holidays. Ah well.
 
I had one of the early AMT Enterprises. My Dad made it for me but I "supervised."

"It doesn't look right."

My Dad was long-suffering, and found a novel way to address the nacelle "Droop."

He sawed/sanded the top aft portion of the neck down, and inclined the saucer at a bit of an angle. So the nacelles and the saucer lined up--but the secondary hull looked to point "down" at an angle--seen from the side.

So he sanded the front of the secondary hull below the neck, where the deflector dish array mount could point a little more forward.

The result? A decent looking ship. The windows had to be redone. He essentially changed the waterline.

A great model--before my wicked little cousin broke it on a trip to my maternal grandmother's house.
 
All of my childhood models are long-gone, save for this B-17 that my grandmother somehow managed to keep stored these last few decades and I rediscovered last month... I remember using a heated sewing pin to melt in flak damage, and watered-down Testors and ash from the barbeque for weathering ... Not bad for a 11 year old :$





 
i never bought any model kits but do have a large collection of metal model cars.
when around 15-16 years old i made a battle star galactica from scratch from screenshots and photo´s taken from magazines using whatever i could find to to go on the model. not that much detailing and dimensions i am sure werent correct, but at time well happy with it. had so much fun building it that i made about 18 model spaceships from scratch. just from my imagination, not following any directions from movie/series spaceships. also made fictional weapons to display. sadly, all the spaceships and weapons got destroyed in a fire.
 
No models left from my (first) childhood. they didn't survive a couple of moves. Started with planes though, ships, figures....got through half a chess set with old Tamiya figures. TIE fighter, X-Wing, Viper (that fired a plastic bolt with a flat end) Thunderfighter (dunno why but always my favourite), Moonraker Shuttle. Dioramas on 1/72 scale and my first ''my imagination'' involved balsa wood, harrier wings, battleship cannon (mounted so both sets moved together) anddddddd a few other bits (spares) that I can't remember.

Made Space 1999 weapons from wood (at my grandparents) and it all went West when i moved out. But the spark still glows somewhere - or I wouldn't be here...lol
 
I'm so glad and lucky that most all the stuff I would want to keep, I still have. Although the biggest thing I wish I had was all those lego creations I made....still have the legos, just in pieces only. I can't really remember the first model I made. I do remember right before 6th grade, taking a lamborghini toy car, which was a little bigger than a hotwheels car. Then taking apart a radio and making it look like the Back to the Future car, but in even more style. Still have that one today.
 
I had R2, 3P0, X Wing and a Tie Fighter, all the MPC stuff that came out. Kenworth trucks and American muscle cars, WW1 and WW2 planes and dioramas and all sorts of models.

There was no internet, no smart phones or computers.

I don't have anything left from those times, but some very fond memories of spending countless hours building and painting those wonderful creations.
 
It's kinda sad... all those kits gone by the way. I still have a couple that were made by my best friend (an fellow nut case) from high school days. Even sadder is he to is has now passed. (sigh) Anyway I remember the old-old revell space kits I built and repaired (modified to death) back in the late 50's and 60's. A couple have come back into release and I scarfed up two of each to rebuild. Ah the good old days! Models, firecrackers and 8mm film...

Regards,
Chuck
 
I still have my 1968 era Flying Sub, and Invaders Saucer. I still remember my mom getting me to get rid of all those kid models and grow up... I pitched a LIS Robot, Seaview and Land Of the Giants "Spindrift". They have been replaced as well as a bunch of Lunar models Moebius and Round 2 kits as well as some other garage type kits. She'd poop if she knew I had a 4 foot diameter Jupiter 2!
 
division 6 said:
Over the last few years I've been collecting models that I had as a kid so I could rebuild them.
Click to expand...

I was at Piper Hobby in Chantilly VA (got to give them a shout out, since there are so few proper hobby shops left), and they had an enormous number of kits I built as a kid, including a bunch that I'd fogotten existed. One in that forgotten category was a "visible" P-51 Mustang, with a spinning propellor and working retractable landing gear. Also, I had a couple of plastic barrels in my parts box, and they had a truck model that turned out to be the one those parts came from, the actual truck being long gone.

if I bought every kit I saw in there that I used to have, I'd be broke! What a trip down memory lane.

Having said that, I DID end up buying the reissue of MPC's Space:1999 Eagle, like the one I used to have. :)
 
My first kit was a Mirage III jet. Not knowing anything about modeling, I used regular white glue to glue it together and no paint. After I finally built it, a kid in the neighborhood wanted to see if it could fly and tossed it while riding his bike.

My first sci-fi kit was the AMT U.F.O. Mystery Ship which I got for Christmas.

xmas 1975 super 8 film.jpg

I had many kits from planes, cars, trucks, tanks, ships, monsters, animals, etc. But when I discovered Star Trek and Space 1999, I found a niche in modeling. And then Star Wars. I was buying every kit that I or my folks could afford. Then I started experimenting with photography and special effects using my models.

1981-01 Rear Proj Test.jpg 1981-02 Rear Proj Test.jpg

1984-01 Ravenwood Bar.jpg 1991-01 Raiders Truck.jpg

1993-01 Death Star Attack.jpg

stuff 07.jpg stuff 08.jpg stuff 10.jpg

In the 90s, I recollected all my favorite kits when my originals started to fall apart. But I only built a few, the rest were given away. Today, I'm more choosy what I build.
 
I remember my first models as a kid was the amt USS Enterprise with lights( I could never get the warp nacelles to line up straight) & the Klingon battle cruiser... they both fell victim on the 4th of July... cause of death... firecrackers.
 
I remember my first model like it was yesterday . It was an Airfix 1/72 Hurricane ( Bagged Plastic Kit ) .
Dad got it for me for something to do while I was recuperating from having my appendix removed as an 8 yr old in hospital .
After that I’d save my pocket money and partial school lunch money , to have enough ‘ coin ‘ to get a new kit - Airfix or Matchbox every couple of months .
Enjoyed building planes and tanks ( especially with those Matchbox included diorama pieces ) mostly , until Star Wars came out in 1977 ( now 11 yr old ) and blew me away .
All monies earned/ saved from then on went towards any kits found/ available - limited selection over here at the time IIRC .
SW figures and toys were added birthday & Christmas present bonuses !

Sadly as with most have shared here , they’re all long lost now except in fond memories , and unfortunately no photos to share ...

Took this up again a couple of years ago after a 30+ yr hiatus , building and some collecting - having life and starting own family happening inbetween .
So , now finding ‘ free ‘ time becoming more available , along with finding the RPF , I’m rekindling the fires that got me hooked on this much loved ‘ hobby ‘ .

:cheersGed
 
Last edited:
What a cool thread!

I started building models when I was about 9 or 10. My first kit was an SR-71 that my dad helped me with...really all I wanted was some cool aiplanes that I could fly around the yard, so I couldn't be bothered with details like landing gear, and accurate cockpits...That SR-71 got left on the deck of our pool one sunny afternoon, and ended up melting.

A couple years later I got my first MPC Falcon...I had no idea what I was doing...but somehow that model has made it through life with me, and 30 years later, it's hanging on a wall in my man cave...I'm getting ready to move to a new house next month, so I pulled it down to take a few pics to share here...





It's really awful looking, but I keep it as a reminder...we all started somewhere, and out of all the Falcon kits I've built over the years, this was my first.
 
This thread brings so many warm memories. I assembled so many kits from cars, to tanks, to airplanes, to submarines, old pirate ships, sci-fi (mostly Star Wars of course) and sadly no pictures to show. I would always remember the one kit that made me abandon the hobby for years.....the Highjacker Ford van from MPC. It was so difficult to build, the kit was beyond my abilities at the time that it made gave up. As destiny would have it MPC re-issued the kit a few years back and I had my revenge! I built it, modified it until satisfied...LOL!

In all its glory:

LY2A2034 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2045 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2050 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2051 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2073 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2083 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2085 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2088 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

LY2A2090 by Oscar Baez Soria, on Flickr

I made a custom roofrack, added all those accessories, some were scratchbuilt. made all the interior furniture from real wood, added upholstery to the front seats, printed correct era posters for the inside, weathering, mud effects, real springs, aluminum shocks and custom exhaust, etc. I had such a sweet revenge!!
 
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