First/best/most Memorable Model

[Guest]

C'mon then chaps and chappesses...

What's been your favourite model that you've built?

Or which one made your jaw drop when you opened the box?

Or which one made you think WOW!!! When you finished it?

And so on and so forth....:thinking:

[Guest]

I'll kick off - Tamiya 1:35 King Tiger Porsche Turret: -

Was the biggest thing I'd built at the time...

First experience of zimmerit (love the smell of squadron green filler!!)...

Very imposing sight when finished...

Only thing I would change is the quality of the paint job

[Guest]

Can I suggest we add approximate date of purchase to these too?

As for me, if memory serves (which it doesn't, more often than not these days - probably due to inhaling polystyrene cement fumes in my youth) my first purchase was the Tamiya 18 Ton Half-Track and 88mm Flak + carriage. I reckon I must have been about 8 years old, and so that would have been 1972.

Actually now I think of it, that sticks in my mind as my first 1:35 AFV kit, and it was a landmark for me - because after that, I was obsessed with Tamiya German WWII armour and troops. But long before the Half-Track there were many Airfix kit planes, again mainly from WWII. I also remember saving coupons from cereal boxes, with which I was able to order a Dambusters Lancaster. That was awesome - I think it must have been larger than 1:72 scale because it seemed huge when it arrived. I don't remember who it was manufactured by though.

[Guest]

You got one of them when you were 8, lucky kid!!

Trying to pick one for each is so difficult as they all have so many memories in them. Over the years I must have made hundreds of models and picking out one for the "Best" takes a bit of brain racking!

Anyway lets have a go:

1) Favourite, I must have liked the Heller 950cc Honda Japauto as I made it three times!! The first two bit the dust for various reasons but the last one has survived somewhere in the region of 25-30 years. I still like it and there is a picture of it on my photo page. The last one must have been made around late 70's.

2) Jaw dropping, the Revell U-Boat did a pretty good job but when I was a teenager my parents bought me two models as my main Christmas present one year. One was the brand new Airfix Saturn V and the other was the equally new Airfix Jumbo. Both generated a heartfelt "Wow" when I opened the boxes. That must have been around 1970

3) Now the "Wow" when I had finished it is the most difficult as I never really feel satisfied with a completed model. I always know what I could have done better and this even goes through the years as new materials and techniques are developed and sold and I look back on the old ones and think how they could have benefitted from todays knowledge. A lot of them had a "Wow" due to a new specific technique that I had tried such as the near perfect gloss red finish on my Tamiya Ducati or the very first time I filled a joint and smoothed it down.

I think though the first prize goes to another pair of Christmas presents from my parents when I was in the region of 16. They bought me the Tamiya King Tiger and the American, was it a T60 or something like that, both with the remote control units on the battery box that you held in your hand. I was really chuffed with those two and even made radio antenna's out of stretched sprue and a camoflage net for the american one out of one of my Gran's hair nets!! They would have been around 1973

[wonwinglo]

Yes a difficult choice,but the Tamiya Gloster Meteor 1 took some beating for sheer fit of parts and quality of mouldings,going back a bit more,my memories of building the old Revell Sikorsky H-19 helicopter in 1=36th scale stand out,fitted with pontoons and a detailed engine bay with removeable panels.

Loved building the Airfix Bristol Superfreighter as well.

[Guest]

That would have to be my first "big" kit and also my first ship...HMS illustrious from Revel back in 1982. she was a beast, my father had to Staple the hull together due to the then ghastly quality of the kit... the swordfish looked like squashed bugs and my paint job left a lot to be desired (i was only 8) but it was the first of the hundred or more warships that followed. Cant remember the scale on that one..it was about 6" wide, 8" from hull to mast top and about 2 feet from bow to stern... havnt seen one in years on the shelf of any model shops..anyone remember it?:thinking:

[Guest]

the first kit was a avro lancaster when i was about 8 yrs old, there was more glue on the outside of the model than there was on the badly fitted model parts.

the kit that made my jaw drop was the artesnia latina amsterdam tug as the timber was not suitably seasoned and very warped.....

and the kit that was awesome when completed then i have a few, an old matchbox kit of a bristol beaufighter, the other was a tamiya 8th army long range desert group vehicle/ jeep set and for RC kits then the old boats and models kits went together very very well, some 12 years ago i built the north sea 38 trawler, it was so good i was offered really good money for it so i sold it !

[Guest]

The most memorable/best was a Panther Tank, i think a Monogram kit during the 50's.

This was the time when Airfix was king of the roost and there 1:78 scale stuff lined the shelves of model shops. The Monogram kits were only available in "selected stores" and where about 4 times as big as the 78 scale stuff so, maybe 1:35 scale? i really cannot remember.

What was amazing at the time was the grey-coloured plyable tracks that came with the kit, for the first time you had the impression that the model would 'roll', and the level of detail was superb for the time.

I used to visit my grandmother in Coventry during the summer holidays and found a model shop near the old cathedral, in Gosford street. This place was a true revelation and i used to stand in front of their window just looking (gawking would be more precise) at the models.

Some were huge for the time, items like the 155cm? cannon from a kit maker called "Adams Action Models", this was top of my wish list for ages but models were very expensive in those days (relatively speaking) and i knew even then that it was nothing more than a dream. They also stocked stuff imported from America such as the Monogram range and they all just so much bigger than the home grown stuff, absolute heaven for small boys then, even though it would be regarded as 'small' these days.

The choice was staggering for the time, planes, boats, cars and military vehicles, all plastic kits, then the bigger stuff such as Keil craft planes to make and fly, i felt like i had discovered the end of the rainbow. Funnily enough, i cannot remember ever going inside but he memory of that window is still as strong as ever.

J.

[Guest]

The first kit i recall making was the airfix 32nd triumph herald in about 1973ish,it was a wet day and my parents went shopping in lisburn,so i made the kit-no paint as i recall.that was the bug,have always loved cars.

My favourite kit?

easy that is the tammy mk1 mini cooper in 24th.got about 10-11 made,7 to go....