Model Forum / General / Models / September 2006

Interesting conclusion. Mine would be to keep it all, build like daft, and
try to keep ahead of the rugrat. Don't bother with masterpieces, just
quick and dirty builds. In the mean time, try to infect said rugrat with
the modeling virus, and switch him over from demolition to construction
(it will probably be hard to tell the difference initially..). This will
make a horrible dent in your stash off course, but you were downscaling it
after all..

Rob

If you are no longer interested, why is it a hard decision?  Why keep
50 of anything that you have no interest in.   Humans are certainly
complex, especially us Yanks.  Why is it we feel the need to collect
something / anything?  We buy it for $10, love it for a brief time, and
then sell it for $5 so we can buy something else and then repeat the
process over and over again.  It is really pretty funny if you think
about it.

I am an "aspirational" builder.

When I got back into the hobby two years ago, I decided I would buy one
kit of every aircraft I wanted to build. Realising this was something
of a massive task, I decided to specialise. Given space constraints, it
was pretty much a no-brainer to go for 1/72 scale - both for storage
and display purposes. After that, I decided I would specialise in
Battle of Britian fighters. Then that expanded to trainers, special
purpose aircraft, and fighter bombers.

Then my well-meaning wife, not understanding the Pandora's box she was
unleashing bought me a Hasegawa Mitchell and that REALLY threw me for a
loop. So my collection started to expand to include all prop driven
aircraft on the Western front.

Africa kind of crept up on me too, and before I knew it, I had a few
LAGGs and Yak kits padding my shelves as well. So there we had it.
African and European theatres. But really, there are only a couple of
period jets, so I made room for the Gloster Meteor and the Me262 as
well. Now the brief was 1939 to 1945 - Europe.

Time to get building. Or so I thought. The lure of the pacific conflict
grew too great when at Duxford last year, I bagged a Hasegawa Jack for
peanuts (the box was water damaged, no decals, but everything else
present and correct). Before I knew it, I was installing new shelving
in our box room (the description has never been so apt) to accomodate
the Wildcat, Helldiver, Avenger, Dauntless, Devastator, Vindicator,
Jugs (Bubbletop & Razorback of course) Hellcats and everything IJN and
IJA I could get my hands on.

Oh, and just in case I decided to do a diorama or two, I have a 1/72
Isuzu fuel truck and an Academy kit with three support vehicles in it.

Did I mention the reference material, after-market detailing kits,
extra decals, paint, airbrush (which I have no space to use!?),
scribing tool, various putties, knives, cutters, tweezers, paints,
cutting mat, varnishes and the obligatory bottle of Klear?

So here I am, totally tooled up (is there anything I have missed?) with
300+ kits covering World War II adorning the walls of my box room from
top to bottom and what, exactly is the output of my two years of
feverish collecting and preparation?

(a) An Airfix Spitfire Mk IX mostly OOTB with a Falcon canopy and a few
scratch-built details; (b) An ICM Polikarpov I-16 Type 24; (c) A Revell
Curtiss Hawk 75 in Armee de l'Air colours with aftermarket decals; (d)
An Airfix Lysander built as a gift for my wife's Grandad, who used to
fly in them on special ops; and (e) A Fujimi Val, currently on the
table resting for the best part of four months!

I look upon my Hasegawa kits with reverence. I am still psyching myself
up to build one by easing out the rustiness of my skills on lower end
kits. Some of the larger models I won't touch until I get the space and
skills to use an airbrush (a criteria for our next house when we move
in 1-2 years...) as using a brush to paint the broad acreage of a
Liberator or Flying Fortress feels me with the same sort of dread that
I usually reserve for "vegetarian meals".

I have of course, sold quite a few kits in the time I have been "back
at it", and they usually fall into two criteria:

(a) I have ditched a few Airfix and early Revell kits when higher-end
or more accurate limited run kits have become available (ex. Sold an LS
Peggy when I finall found a reasonably priced Hasegawa Peggy); and

(b) I have sold problem kits (i.e. missing parts, ruined decals etc.)
to get different versions of more complete ones;

Of course, at my current pace, I will be around 459 years old by the
time I get around to all of them, but that does not detract from the
pleasure of randomly plucking a kit from the pile, opening the box,
perusing the decals, scanning the instructions, surveying the parts and
then closing the box again, in the full knowledge that those parts may
never come off their sprues - not on my account in any case.

Am I bothered? Not much I suppose, and as long as I don't start raiding
other rooms for storage space, my wife won't be bothered either.

E-BAY