I think you'll find that it's mainly adults who make scale models these days. The level of skill and accuracy of detail achieved by these craftsmen can be stunning and extremely humbling. Wiring up an audio component is a dawdle by comparison! 😎
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I made quite a few plastic models as a kid. My assembly work was never show quality. Most of what we could get at Woolworth's was WWII aircraft. I had one or two of everything my father flew in the war, models of German aircraft were frowned upon and best not seen. Japanese models were expressly banned from the yard even if they were going to die by fire or explosion....he was shot down by a Zero twice, once MIA, presumed dead.
Several neighborhood kids would stage battles, complete with fire and explosions. We had the lake in our backyard, but could only do the war stuff when dad wasn't home. Still photography was beyond the reach of kids back then, forget 8mm movies, our parents didn't even have them.
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Good "poke your eye out" BB gun targets too, I see we all did the same stuff. 😀
Remember snakes those thing you lit and they generated a long string of carbon ash. They were good to stuff into a final conflagration.
I used to hang the made up planes from my bedroom ceiling until I was bored, then fill them with cotton wool and lighter fluid, and send them down a wire to the apple tree in the back garden. Very satisfying trails of black oily smoke, and gobbets of molten polystyrene. 😎
ants : Collateral Damage
I think at that moment in time (our youth)lots of people's parents had 8mm cameras unused in their closets because there was a fad a few years earlier. Then people saw what a PITA it was to edit the film and no one watched the family movies anyway, so the cameras were available. Didn't Steven Speilberg make a homage film- 8MM? So for sure that's how he started out. These days video is so easy and everyone has it so there's less novelty to make it attractive.
Galu: My towline glider kit had a 6' wingspan! haha!. Well it would have if I ever built it. I carried the kit box around for 10 years, slowly using pieces of the balsa for other projects..
I think at that moment in time (our youth)lots of people's parents had 8mm cameras unused in their closets because there was a fad a few years earlier. Then people saw what a PITA it was to edit the film and no one watched the family movies anyway, so the cameras were available. Didn't Steven Speilberg make a homage film- 8MM? So for sure that's how he started out. These days video is so easy and everyone has it so there's less novelty to make it attractive.
Galu: My towline glider kit had a 6' wingspan! haha!. Well it would have if I ever built it. I carried the kit box around for 10 years, slowly using pieces of the balsa for other projects..
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I had to google this. I can't see what could possibly have gone wrong with that as a concept. Although the gigantic railway guns Krupp built have always fascinated me.
I have a model plane kid from my childhood that I've been meaning to build with my eldest, but they got into D&D model building instead. ah well maybe when the boy grows up a bit...
Schwerer Gustav. It was more of a scare tactic. Moving it around and setting it up was so impractical.
I too have done plastic model kits as a kid. That's where my interest in putting things together started. WW2 tanks (by Tamia Co.) was the most common ones I've built followed by the fighter planes.
No worries - Dungeons & Dragons miniatures offer lots of scope for intricate figure painting.
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Have some time to kill, 1747 pieces. https://www.amazon.com/Hobby-Boss-Railway-Vehicle-Building/dp/B0040QD2SM
If that was HO scale I'd have bought it on the spot for when I set my train set up again 🙂. Mind you it's close enough for anything except putting onto the track...
@Galu: Also scope for justifying an airbrush kit, which I full approved of and bought as a birthday present!
@Galu: Also scope for justifying an airbrush kit, which I full approved of and bought as a birthday present!
I had to run into town today, so I grabbed a picture of the "ultimate redneck lawn ornament." I doubt that this will ever be upstaged. This guy created a half scale airplane out of steel tubing and sheet metal just so it can appear crashed in his front yard with his street numbers on the tail. The street sign is fake too, that's his wife's name.
Model airplane fuel will float on the lake and burn with a faint yellow and blue flame. It makes for some awesome night background fire effects. Dissolve some Styrofoam in gasoline and you have a buoyant flammable substance that makes Napalm look tame. Crushed match heads, sugar and charcoal makes a LOT of smoke when it burns (and good rocket fuel with a little saltpeter) Now, if we only had cameras......
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So the fuel is at least part nitromethane?
I made ”contact explosive” (ammonium iodide?) from formulas I sent away for from the back of Popular Science. We would paint it on surfaces, and when it dried it was really unstable and detonated when touched. A lot of fun until my partner in chemistry left a jar 1/3 full on a shelf in his room and forgot about it. It all dried up and when it let go it was apparently a pretty impressive explosion, plus flying glass. I wasn’t allowed to visit anymore.
I made ”contact explosive” (ammonium iodide?) from formulas I sent away for from the back of Popular Science. We would paint it on surfaces, and when it dried it was really unstable and detonated when touched. A lot of fun until my partner in chemistry left a jar 1/3 full on a shelf in his room and forgot about it. It all dried up and when it let go it was apparently a pretty impressive explosion, plus flying glass. I wasn’t allowed to visit anymore.
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Never had the patience for anything using glue. Only models I ever built successfully were the Tamiya r/c ones.
Our ants didn't like the weedkiller bombs. Quick tip; don't mix the two ingredients BEFORE grinding, if you want hands!
I believe the compound is nitrogen triiodide. Nitrogen triiodide - Wikipedia
We once spread it along the floor between the classroom door and the teacher's desk and waited excitedly for the teacher to walk in. This was in the days of corporal punishment, but the perpetrators got away with that particular merry jape!
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