I will only have short posts on this blog about model kit building. Short posts because I won’t probably build any model kits in the future. But then maybe I will if I can stop creating blogs after blogs after blogs…
In 1958 I had to choose between this airplane model kit…
and this one.
My brother, who was 11 in 1958, chose the Spitfire.
There was no arguing because I liked the Sabre Jet better.
The Spitfire was the only model kit my brother would ever build in his life. I would go on to build hundreds and hundreds of model kits mostly from WWII era.
For every model kit I built since 1958, there has always been is a story behind each one! So I could continue on writing this blog about building model kits without even building another one.
Next time I will tell you where I got the box top images.
Short posts because I won’t probably build any model kits in the future…?
Sorry for the long post yesterday even though I had only a few readers. In fact I just had one, and he probably got lost on the Internet. I don’t mind, I write by pure selfish pleasure.
This will be short post about a P-40…
I built this kit probably 20 years ago. No reason in particular, just that I like the shark markings. I have known about the Flying Tigers and John Wayne when I was young. I love that movie especially when John has to leave all the Chinese food on the table.
The model I made was a modified P-40 using U.S. insignia instead of the original Flying Tigers insignia.
Click on the image to view a close-up of 20 year-old dust.
I found this next story on the Internet. It’s about someone who got back into building model kits.
Excerpt
After taking nearly 4 years to build a 1/350 Titanic, I realized that I was not having much fun modeling. What could I do to love this hobby as much as I did when I was younger? Then I was lucky enough to meet Eric Freese and Dick Hague. They introduced me to a new style of building strictly for fun. After seeing numerous photos of fantastic looking kits built “The Old Fashioned Way”, I tried my hand at a few and I was hooked. My sincere thanks to Dick and Eric for their “therapy.” I hope you give it a try soon! – A.B.
I hope you won’t get hooked on My Forgotten Hobby.
So what’s the story behind that 1/64th scale B-17?
I was walking home from school during lunch hour in 1958. There was this men’s store, on the corner of Jean-Talon Street and De Lorimier Street in Montreal, which had model kits in its display window.
The men’s store is not there anymore.
2035 Jean-Talon Street
There were two display windows, one on the left and one on the right. I stopped cold and I was mesmerized by what I saw.
Not men’s clothes…Model airplanes!
I had never seen a model airplane before in my whole life. This was one of them although mine in the men’s store display was silver.
I can still see that model airplane in my mind. Boy it was huge. I wish I had a cellphone at that time to snap a picture, although being 10 years-old and coming back from school in the 50s this would have been quite improbable.
Anyway I got hooked and I built a F-86 Sabre Jet after that epiphany.
I got hooked even more later on when I saw a movie in a church basement on a Saturday matinee.
This is what I wrote seven years ago on the original My Forgotten Hobby.
December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy…
Click on the image.
How I got hooked on building model kits?
1/64 525-249 Lindberg Boeing B-17G Bomber by Paul Lindberg NM+ Injection Molded old
From the late 1950s. Fantastic condition kit with dramatic box art by Ray Gaedke. Colors and box top are as new with brilliant colors and gloss. The only flaw is a slight and even dishing in of the box. Inside, the kit has never been started and is inventoried 100% complete with all parts, decals and instructions. Features complete crew, movable control surfaces, rotating and elevating guns, retractable landing gear and clear adjustable display stand.
This is where I retrieve this information that was etched in my mind since 1958.
I am not selling anything, but I thought I would give this person a little publicity.
So what about the story behind this model kit I have never built even though I built hundreds and hundreds?
I will tell you next time because you remembered what I told you before…
Only short stories on this blog.
That’s what I had written seven years ago about short stories. Since then there were more than 575 posts written on the original My Forgotten Hobby, then there was My Forgotten Hobby II in 2016 with more than 350, and My Forgotten Hobby III with more than 225 posts.
When this will stop. I have no idea but I am well prepared for the future on My Forgotten Hobby.
Last Saturday night I watched “Air Force” one more time. It was a propaganda film of course but I did not know it at the time. However the scenes where the B-17 is shown still bring me back to that a church basement on a Saturday morning in the mid-1950s.
I am now full confident I can use my airbrush inside during winter. The second basecoat has been done and I know the yellow coat will soon be following.
I know it because the yellow coat was done late Thursday afternoon.
Decals will wait for airbrushing a clear coat. The F-4 Phantom got also a white basecoat on its underside.
It will be set aside for now until I spray some light gray to another model kit. This can wait, but not 40 years. I don’t think my airbrush will last that long…
Next in line will be the Me 109 with its canopy masked off with Tamiya tape in October.
I will have to mask more, decide which camouflage I will be using and mix the proper shades with homemade acrylic paint I will eventually use with the He 111H-3 some day.
My Forgotten Hobby is mostly a waiting game and writing about it.
This is the Tamiya kit. It’s currently their newest kit. My one word review is: WOW! I think I said that word every five minutes while building it. The engineers at Tamiya are artists. This is simply the best scale model kit I’ve ever seen in my life. Make no mistake, any good thing you think when looking at these pictures is to Tamiya’s credit. I’ll accept the blame for any shortcomings; that is, any place I didn’t do this masterpiece of a kit full justice.
Plane Dave was so convincing I had to buy it.
However the “WOW” Plane Dave had used was quite intimidating to say the least. How can I be up to the challenge with Tamiya P-38?
Reflecting on how to choose my next build last week, I found this model kit hidden somewhere in the basement since the early 1980s.
Source Scalemates
Why in the world I had bought it I can’t remember. I remember I had built Fujimi F-4 in the early 1970s as well as their A-6 Intruder. Japan was starting to invade North American markets.
Source Scalemates
Source Internet
Why I had bought this SnapTite F-4 Phantom? I had no idea, but now I know why. It was not at all intimidating.
Finding it in my workshop sitting there for almost 40 years, it was partly built. On the spur of the comment I decided last weekend to finish it instead of throwing it away in the garbage. I had no instructions and I forgot to look on Scalemates which had them on their website.
Anyway I did not need instructions to finish it and adding a quick coat of homemade acrylic paint and sticking the decals on.
I also had this Monogram SnapTite SR-71A model airplane in 1/110 scale which I did also in the 80s.
The stand and a tail cone are missing, but I will keep it anyway.
This 1/72 scale Arado 240 by Revell was built in the early 2000s while on vacation.
Source Scalemates
If you look closely you will see I had used Scotch tape for framing the canopy. I keep those model kits simply because I had built them and I want to remember the good old days.
All my collection of built model kits are in 1/48 scale except two Tamiya 1/700 scale aircraft carriers.
What I will do with all my collection is probably what other modelers are also thinking about their collection.
I have been given some away. One was a gift I had intended to give to the niece of Gérard Pelletier, a Boulton-Paul Defiant air gunner who is still missing off the northern coast of England since September 3, 1942. I can’t give it to his niece right now because of travel restrictions due to the pandemic.
One more model airplane was given two years ago as a gift to a virtual third cousin-in-law who had researched a P-47 pilot killed in 1945…
One more, a P-61 Black Widow, was given to a friend blogger whose father was a paratrooper during WWII.
I wish I could give more away but sending them by mail is very risky business.
One of my two sons has two. A P-47 D and a P-38. My other son had asked for a Me 109 two years ago. I still have to find the time to give him one. My grandson has two but I took his Monogram A-26 Invader and his Monogram A-6 Skyraider back to put them on my wall for safe keeping.
It’s hard to let them go sometimes, but giving them is what I found best to have more space for the new ones. My brother has several German planes: Fujimi Me 109G, Monogram Me 262, Monogram B-25J, Monogram Ju 87G and Monogram Do 335. He has his eyes set lately on my ICM He-111H-3.
Sweet dreams…
The problem he will have is where to display it. Maybe I will just take a picture, put it on a frame and…
About what’s next in December?
I will be compiling the results of your suggestions dropped in the comment section for my next build. Your comments will be approved but your suggestion will not appear so no one will see what followers wrote. On December 14 the result will be known.
I just can’t wait… Waiting is what I do best before choosing what next to build. Until then I will hit the pause button on My Forgotten Hobby III and be practicing my airbrush skills on my SnapTite F-4 Phantom using this as reference.
I have modified my workbench yesterday and discarded my homemade spray booth which I found too cumbersome.
Last winter I had felt a little dizzy after I had used my airbrush indoors. That was the reason I was working only outdoors during the summer months.
I gave it another try indoors Tuesday afternoon with a mask on, an opened window and a running fan.
This is the same homemade spray booth I have used. I took this picture after my airbrushing session with just a little dizzy feeling again.
My North American Harvard had been waiting since early 2020 for its RCAF decals. I had found some leftover decals but I was not happy with the result as well as the shade of yellow I had used.
This would have been the shade I wanted.
So I decided Tuesday to repaint it. This is how the Harvard looked in June when the spurious decals were removed.
After I had masked the Harvard, I sprayed a white basecoat to cover the yellow.
However it did not cover as much as I first thought.
It is now sitting there with a homemade batch of yellow waiting for a second basecoat.
I wonder if my airbrush will stay idle more than just one day,
I am also thinking about my spray booth set up which will be completely useless for painting my large He 111H-3 once I get there.
Day 30 was a day for mixing homemade paint with some leftover paint I had already made. I just mixed homemade zinc chromate with homemade dark grey and stirred it up until I had the shade I wanted…
How did it work?
I tested it in the cockpit area…
I tested it on the bomb bay doors…
I tested it in the wheel wells and on the landing struts.
Finally I tested it in the bomb bay.
After all that testing, I still had lots of homemade RLM 02 acrylic paint left over that I can use when I will be building my next German model airplane.
Tomorrow maybe the biggest decision ever made on My Forgotten Hobby III.
Day 29 was a day for “colorizing” the past. This is what I like to do in my spare time beside building model airplane kits.
This is the latest one I did for his children using a black and white photo they had of their father. Looking at it I think I got the shirt color wrong. I will fix it later. If you are interested, what I wrote about Flight Lieutenant Thomas Oscar Meteyer is here. He is the reason I bought these two model kits of the planes he flew in WWII.
Getting back to my build, this is where I am today.
The landing doors were added last Friday night. Before…And after…
The engines panels and the exhausts were added Saturday morning. Again I had fitting problems, but I’ll get over it.
The small parts will be added after all the painting has been done. That way I won’t break anything. Final unpainted photo of ICM He 111H-3.
Tomorrow I should mix some homemade RLM 02 or RLM 66 and test them in the cockpit area, on the bomb bay doors, in the wheel wells and the landing struts.
About Lieutenant Meteyer’s colorised photo… Can you spot “la différence”? Before…
My Forgotten Hobby III 