There's something special about a first model. Like many of us who left this hobby only to rejoin it, I don't have any of the models I built as a kid. They were most likely thrown away, or lost at some point, with no thought given to the relevance they might have in the future.
Truth is, I wasn't very good at building models when I was a kid. And who would be with those little 1/32nd scale Airfix kits of mundane British sports car subjects, pots of the slowest drying enamel paint money can buy and those nearly-useless tubes of glue that even a seasoned mdoeller would be hard pushed to apply without leaving little spider web strings of it all over everything. Add to that a lack of tools - I doubt if I even had anything to cut the parts from the sprues and a lack of patience and we have a fine recipe for a pretty horrific waste of a plastic kit.
I remember one birthday where a childhood friend, knowing how car and model crazy I was, got me a small scale kit of a Stealth bomber. It was a lovely gift, but at the time I was gutted it wasnt a car. A little after this, all I wanted one birthday was a model of the DeLoren from Back To The Future. I'd seen the model kit in a model shop on holiday and convinced my parents that that was the gift for me that year. Come birthday morning said kit was there, all wrapped up, just waiting for a gluey misfortune to happen to it.
One Christmas, on a trip to a nearby shopping centre to take advantage of the January sales I picked up a Tamiya Fiat 500 kit. WAY too advanced of a kit for someone with my modelling skills at the time, but none the less, home it came. An article in a modelling magazine showing some aspect of customising a kit inspired me to hack up the poor Topolino and have that one's fate sealed in a mess of glue AND 1:1 body filler. I ruined a lot of stuff, but never intentionally. I've ever been one of those guys who takes a kit, builds it and then ties it to a firework or something. For one thing, I didn't have any fireworks.
Then, as time passed, I got into girls, got my first job, first flat, first 'real' car, and the hobby got forgotten. Until one day when my girlfriend, who I'm still with 7 years on, presented me with a kit. She didn't remember who she'd bought it for, an unused Christmas present for someone most likely, but it was mine. Guess what? Made a mess of that too. At least I still have that one.
Frustrated, I decided a larger scale kit might be more fitting - all the others had been 1/32, I'd guess. A trip to the local hobby shop, the much missed R&D Models in Cambridge, revealed all manner of awesome kits of all kinds of things. I settled on a BMX Dixie, a German variation of the Austin 7, on the line of thinking that the 1:1 would be a lot simpler than some of the other kits there, so it oughta be a little easier to build.
On the way home, a plan hatched to make a few mods to make it a little cooler. Primer, maybe, lose the doors to save a little weight, smooth it out with that body filler I had so much messy fun with in the past. A plan was hatched! An over the next week or so, sped up by a summer well suited to painting things, I completed the model.
Looking at it now, I'd feel a little ashamed of it if it weren't so wonderfully naive in its finish an execution. The filler I used melted the plastic slowly after assembly, causing that pit afront the steering wheel on the cowl. I didn't give much consideration to panel lines (eg: just puttied over them) and it doesn't have an engine either. Looking at that 'first' build is a great indication of how much I've learnt, how far I've developed my skills, and how even something as poorly put together at my little Austin (I decided my build was an Austin, though of course didnt actually make any modifications to actually MAKE it an Austin) can trigger a headful of great memories. I cant remember much else about the summer I made this Austin, but I remember where I bought the kit, what was going on outside when i was painting the various parts, what problems I encountered - all kinds of details.
And for that reason alone, I'll always treasure this poorly put together little hot rod, in spite of all my shortcomings when I built it.
JB
Truth is, I wasn't very good at building models when I was a kid. And who would be with those little 1/32nd scale Airfix kits of mundane British sports car subjects, pots of the slowest drying enamel paint money can buy and those nearly-useless tubes of glue that even a seasoned mdoeller would be hard pushed to apply without leaving little spider web strings of it all over everything. Add to that a lack of tools - I doubt if I even had anything to cut the parts from the sprues and a lack of patience and we have a fine recipe for a pretty horrific waste of a plastic kit.
I remember one birthday where a childhood friend, knowing how car and model crazy I was, got me a small scale kit of a Stealth bomber. It was a lovely gift, but at the time I was gutted it wasnt a car. A little after this, all I wanted one birthday was a model of the DeLoren from Back To The Future. I'd seen the model kit in a model shop on holiday and convinced my parents that that was the gift for me that year. Come birthday morning said kit was there, all wrapped up, just waiting for a gluey misfortune to happen to it.
One Christmas, on a trip to a nearby shopping centre to take advantage of the January sales I picked up a Tamiya Fiat 500 kit. WAY too advanced of a kit for someone with my modelling skills at the time, but none the less, home it came. An article in a modelling magazine showing some aspect of customising a kit inspired me to hack up the poor Topolino and have that one's fate sealed in a mess of glue AND 1:1 body filler. I ruined a lot of stuff, but never intentionally. I've ever been one of those guys who takes a kit, builds it and then ties it to a firework or something. For one thing, I didn't have any fireworks.
Then, as time passed, I got into girls, got my first job, first flat, first 'real' car, and the hobby got forgotten. Until one day when my girlfriend, who I'm still with 7 years on, presented me with a kit. She didn't remember who she'd bought it for, an unused Christmas present for someone most likely, but it was mine. Guess what? Made a mess of that too. At least I still have that one.
Frustrated, I decided a larger scale kit might be more fitting - all the others had been 1/32, I'd guess. A trip to the local hobby shop, the much missed R&D Models in Cambridge, revealed all manner of awesome kits of all kinds of things. I settled on a BMX Dixie, a German variation of the Austin 7, on the line of thinking that the 1:1 would be a lot simpler than some of the other kits there, so it oughta be a little easier to build.
On the way home, a plan hatched to make a few mods to make it a little cooler. Primer, maybe, lose the doors to save a little weight, smooth it out with that body filler I had so much messy fun with in the past. A plan was hatched! An over the next week or so, sped up by a summer well suited to painting things, I completed the model.
Looking at it now, I'd feel a little ashamed of it if it weren't so wonderfully naive in its finish an execution. The filler I used melted the plastic slowly after assembly, causing that pit afront the steering wheel on the cowl. I didn't give much consideration to panel lines (eg: just puttied over them) and it doesn't have an engine either. Looking at that 'first' build is a great indication of how much I've learnt, how far I've developed my skills, and how even something as poorly put together at my little Austin (I decided my build was an Austin, though of course didnt actually make any modifications to actually MAKE it an Austin) can trigger a headful of great memories. I cant remember much else about the summer I made this Austin, but I remember where I bought the kit, what was going on outside when i was painting the various parts, what problems I encountered - all kinds of details.
And for that reason alone, I'll always treasure this poorly put together little hot rod, in spite of all my shortcomings when I built it.
JB
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