THIS is how it started, 1957

[72modeler]

Milne Bay,

 

My first was also in 1955! I was in the 2nd grade and my first kit was the old Aurora F9F Panther- didn't know what decals were, so I cut each one out and glued them to the model. I remember it had a red and white panther decal for the forward fuselage and a long pitot/probe in the nose, which didn't last very long! My second was an Aurora F-90 and I glued the tip tanks underneath the wings because that's where the tanks were on the F-86F Sabres of the 8th FBG at Itazuke, Japan, where my father was the group adjutant. (True story- the C.O., Col. Woodrow Wilmot, had a beautiful Sabre with tail and nose stripes for each of the group's squadrons; this Sabre, which carried the name 'Miss Teena,' after his wife, is well-known in photos and one of the markings choices in the 1/48 Hasegawa kit; I remember getting to sit in it with his helmet on, which also had each squadron's stripes on it, at an Armed Forces Day display, and I have a color slide of that wonderful moment! Those were the days!)

 

Mike

 

P.S. If I remember correctly, 'Miss Teena' was on the cover of one of the issues of Airfix Magazine in the 70's. I found a photo collection which shows it below. Kinda off-topic, but I hope you will enjoy it!

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=8th+FBG+F-86+Sabres&biw=1280&bih=654&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiE_5Kd4aTQAhXG7IMKHWtVBREQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=gfEhknw9meBEvM%3A

[D1fuN0]

Morning chaps 

 

What a nice thread and bringing back so many memories.

My first was a little later, around 1977.

My dad was a sometimes builder and he had a Tamiya Quad and 25 pounder that he was building with me that sat on top of my cupboard in its box.

I was too impatient with the progress and wanted it finished, so after all the nagging my dad took me down to the Newsagents down the road and pointed me at the Airfix kits and said choose one...

I ended up with the T34/85 and by the end of the day it was finished... I think just about every Saturday afternoon from then on was spent the same way, building an Airfix, or sometimes even a Matchbox Tank. 

I still had the T34 up until a few years ago at which point it seems to have ceased to existed....

 

Hello to all the sarf efricans 

 

 Mad Steve 

[perdu]

On 28/10/2016 at 12:38, Etiennedup said:

I still recall that Tuesday afternoon......checking out the toy section at our local Woolworths, and there sat this

beautiful  light blue  kit of a Spitfire in a plastic bag. I just had to have it,  but I had no money.

With  pounding heart from  sheer excitement  I pedalled home and begged my mom for an advance on my pocket  money

which  was only due on Saturday.

Well, an hour later with glue and paint still wet, this chuffed thirteen year old was admiring his very first Spitfire model

................and  that is how  it all started.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 28/10/2016 at 12:38, Etiennedup said:

beautiful  light blue  kit of a Spitfire in a plastic bag. I just had to have it,  but I had no money.

With  pounding heart from  sheer excitement  I pedalled home and begged my mom for an advance on my pocket  money

which  was only due on Saturday.

Well, an hour later with glue and paint still wet, this chuffed thirteen year old was admiring his very first Spitfire model

................and  that is how  it all started.

 

 

 

It's a bit sickening isn't it

Look how good he was even then... 

 

My first was the Golden Hind with acetate shrouds ISTR

Painted it with my Reeve's watercolours and I was in awe at Airfix then and ever since

The same Spit as Ettiene came next, watercolours again which must have been milled with essence of Cloak Of Invisibility because I'm beggared if I can remember what happened to it later

 

Or did 'mom' happen to it?

 

We'll never know

 

Great thread, like a pushbutton memory chip

 

Ta E

Edited November 15, 2016 by perdu
stupid double posting issue raises its silly head again

[RichardPrice]

Oh goodness, my first kit was a Red Arrows Gnat, built with my dad back in something like 1983/84 - I distinctly remember it because I had to be kept away from my sister, who had just been born, so my dad and I had the back room to ourselves.  I had been in to Warrington military hospital that week to have my tonsils out, and come down with chicken pox the day after the op - they had to shut the ward because of me! 

[elderly]

You lot are SO young!

 

My first kit was a Veron solid balsa wood F86 Sabre;

my mother wouldn't let me have a balsa knife and so

I had to shape everything with sandpaper.

 

And then onto Keil kraft rubber powered flying scale - generally with disastrous results .....

 

....... I was by that time allowed a balsa knife with a blunt blade and have  memories of splitting wing components

when cutting them from the sheet, then getting them stuck to the plan with balsa cement,

followed by huge twists in the wings when I put the tissue covering and dope on badly.

 

If the planes survived to the finished stage, most of them then collapsed when I overdid the amount of rubber

and wound it too tightly ;-(.

 

I then graduated to the regular trips to Woolworths to acquire the 2 shilling 1/72nd Airfix kits in the plastic bags

like the OP.

Memories of getting polystyrene cement on canopies, thickly applied Humbrol plastic enamel, and torn decals

due to my impatience and not letting them soak for quite long enough.

 

The only date I can put to my modelling career was 1961 when I built my first and last diesel engine control-line aircraft.

Needless to say that didn't survive too many flights..

[Rover420]

On ‎30‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 11:15 AM, Stonar said:

I have a vague memory of those bagged kits claiming to be in 'impact resistant' plastic, or some similar wording. I can testify that they were not resistant to the impact of a .177 air rifle pellet, sadly the fate of all my early efforts was directly related to just such an impact

Cheers

Steve

Quite a few of mine ended up that way. Hanging from the washing line. Then when I was given a large scale balsa and tissue Fw190. I realised that when shot up you could repair it easily, ready for the next dogfight. Lasted days it did! And the Spitfire Mk IX was the first of them all. I still associate the weather and time of day with the models that I built. Frog Spitfire IX is sunny days, Stuka and Hurricane wet days and the Revell 1/48 B25 Doolittle Raider is early evening while watching 'The Yearling' film on the telly. oh memories. 

[Simon]

On 30/10/2016 at 11:51 AM, mackem01 said:

 

Chippys, Josephs, or Maxwells???

 

Josephs at the bottom of Holmeside - they were the recipients of much of my pocket money during the late 1970s and early 1980s...happy days indeed!

 

Simon