How Many Models Have You Built?

[Archimedes]

Hi All,

 

As a child I built about 30+ models by my reckoning but my dad built almost as many for me when I was just beginning. Paint? What is anyone talking about?  Music practice took up LOTS of time (I played classical guitar from 8 years old) so modelling was a ‘downtime’ activity. I revisited the hobby when I bought a 1/72 Airfix Spitfire, assembled and brush painted in a day when I was 34. I got seriously into it when I built a Tamiya 1/24 Sauber Mercedes - I remember the night I finished it was the one that Princess Diana died as I stayed up all night listening to the radio whilst doing final assembly. Since then, (and I am now 56) I have completed 32 models. I build them one at a time so as not to have a Shelf of Doom. This slows me down tremendously.

1/48 Aircraft - 19

1/24 cars - 5

1/72 Aircraft - 2

1/32 Aircraft - 1

1/350 Ships - 2

 

It is still, to this day, very therapeutic despite an horrific record of my models getting destroyed. The latest victim is the 1/32 Tiger Moth that took 2 years to complete. My modelling table is next to the staircase in our new house and my German Shepherd, Sammy managed to drop a solid rubber ball onto the unfortunate DeHavillland (see below) whilst I was repairing some rigging that had broken following the house move

  

 

I shall add that latest casualty to the 1/350 IJN Mikasa that my cat Pippin used as a toy to bat onto the floor from the top display shelf of my glass cabinet (open whilst dusting).

 

I regard the building as a very therapeutic exercise so try to be fairly zen like when destruction comes… 

 

Kind regards,

Paul

 

[Panzerwomble]

247 to date  

 

By Subject top three are 

 

Panther 

EE Lightning 

Lysander 

 

By Scale 

 

99 1/35

66 1/72

45 1/48

15 1/32 

 

So thats roughly a ratio of 1 model for every four posts on this forum . .

 

I have extensive files ....

[chrish]

looooooots....hunerts I'd guess

About 115 on display in various locations throughout the house (mostly in the basement away from the curious and prying eyes) but that's only since returning to the hobby in about 2006 or so....

many more from my childhood when my buddies and I would sit around a card table building models drawing/ painting in the late 60's early 70's to early 80's, when marriage and kids took priority (and spare money) no idea in reality how many I've built but I've only begun building better models when I returned as an adult.

[John Stambaugh]

My dad got me started very young. Mostly cheap 1/48 aircraft. Start to finish in a weekend.

 Then came that fateful day when I got my first big boy kit; the venerable Revell 1/32 F4u1D. I was hooked. Haven't even looked at anything smaller since. Probably built 3 dozen or so before girls and cars pulled me away.

 Building large scale WW2 aircraft resumed in 2018. Am currently working on number 16, a Revell 1/32 He-111H. 

 

[Dpgsbody55]

Absolutely no idea whatsoever.

 

Since starting with this forum in 2016, I've built 25 aircraft in a mix of 1/32 and 1/24 scales, but mostly the former.  I started building models when I was eight, and I'm sixty eight now.  All the models I built when I lived in England got turfed when we emigrated to Australia in 1967, and most of what I built in Sydney met the same fate when we moved to Perth in 1972.  I stopped building for a while when I moved out of home and all my models got turfed when my parents moved back to the UK later that year as I had no where to put them except for one, the Airfix 1/24 Spitfire which I still have.  Started that one in Sydney and finished it in Perth and I did a much better job of packing it than the "professional" removalists.  In the middle eighties, once I was settled in my own home, I started again building mostly 1/48 scale planes, but stopped again in 2002 as work was too demanding by then and didn't restart until 2016 by which time I was retired.  I'm sure I've built in the low to middle hundreds and I presently have about sixty models on my shelves.

 

I'm sure many can relate to my modelling life.  I lived on the outskirts of Bristol when I was five, not far from Filton aerodrome and remember too well the sound and shape of Avro Vulcan's howling overhead.  Pure magic!!  When we later moved to the country (Cotswold area), I'd head down the the newsagent in the village where I lived, and buy two of those 1/72 models in a plastic bag for half a crown.  I built a mixture of cars ships and planes in my teen years but that was the period when 1/32 Revell kits hit the market and these were what held my imagination the most.  In my more adult years, I thought 1/48 scale was the best fit and the detail you could get on those kits in the 80's and 90's was as good as or better than LSP kits and they took up less space.  These days, I think the LSP space is doing well with plenty of kits and addons to keep me occupied, and I can see then too.  Bonus!!! 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[MikeC]

Since records began for me in 1995 or so, 243 in various scales.  Many of those have since been disposed of, with fates ranging from an appropriate museum to the bin.

 

For 1965-ish (when I started) to 1995: no idea!

[Phantom2]

I have no idea!

 

I started building kits when I was around 5years old, and stopped only for trains, cars and girls (yes, in that order...  )!

 

i have built almost the entire Airfix catalog (1965-80) and every brand you can think about, so I guess a couple hundreds?

 

I did a restart in aircraft modelling 2000 and since I have built around 270 kits (that I know for sure!), all scales and all subjects.

 

Stefan 

Edited January 13 by Phantom2

[Duncan Doenitz]

Childhood - everything

 

Last 18 months - Airfix 1:24 Spitfire, Trumpeter 1:24 109-G6, Tamiya 1/35 Ukraine Leopard tank, Airfix 1:72 Vulcan underway. 

 

Zoukei Mura FW 190 next 

 

That awesome HE-111 whenever it is available !!!!!!!!!!

[mozart]

Since 2005, about 30. Mostly 1/32, the rest 1/48 (4) and one 1/72, this a Gladiator which I did purely for a review article. 

Edited January 13 by mozart

[MikeMaben]

1958 'til now ... I have no idea. Not even a reasonable guess. When I was a kid, all my friends and relatives

knew I liked models , so every birthday and Christmas I got models models models. Planes, cars, ships, tanks,

monsters. Like most of us there was a kid phase and a grown up phase. I remember the last kid phase build

was a Mustang funny car (Orange Gas Ronda). Hiatus until about 12 years later when my Mom sent me to the

LHS to get my Dad a balsa kit she knew he wanted. While there I just had to check out the plastic stuff. Wow,

kits by companies I'd never heard of, mostly Japanese, couldn't resist a Fujimi Bf110. On my way back to the

checkout, I passed a rack full of thinish books (Squadron) one of which was on the 110 so I had to buy that too.

Then one day I saw a 1/32 Bf109F. At that time the only round wing 109 was a 1/72 Airfix G. The rest is history.

[LSP_Mike]

I'm right there with you, Mike. Got a Revell box scale USS Massachusetts and built ships, until 1972. The obligitory 1/96 Constitution,  then got a 1/32 Revell kit, prolly a 109, and never stopped. Built some of the classic 1/72 kits, Dambuster, Fw 200, etc, but 1/32 was it. Went thru my armor/ figures/ misc. phase, but always had 1/32 in tandem. I just finished a 1/540 USS Essex- CVA 9, for my dad. Lots of scratch work and the GMM PE set. At this time, a 109 off the SoD, and a 190D9. Next: something with roundels.

The stash? Down to 200. All airplanes 1/32, except a PBY-5a. Some armor. Some ships, and naval vessels in 1/350.

[mywifehatesmodels]

Thank to everyone for responding! I didn't expect such an outpouring of great stories and information. I can relate to each and every post, at least on some level. Proof that maybe we are all the same, at least in more ways than I would have expected. I also remember building my first model with my father. Actually, my very first memory of a model airplane was my father building an F-15 with me at his side. At that point, it was probably 1977 or '78, with me being around 4 years old. It's actually one of my earliest actual memories.

 

Also, as with many here, it seems that my volume of builds was certainly larger when I was a kid. However, I never really "quit" modeling, or felt that I had put it aside, throughout my life. Although, there were certain points where I was busy with other things and it was far less frequent. In my adult life, I definitely have my building spurts, but still feel the same way. I don't know if I could ever stop building models. And, while my screen name is misleading (It's just for humor. I think of it more like a Rodney Dangerfield joke.), I've always had the support of my wife, which is a great help.

 

Over the past 24 hours, I've recalled a few more of the aircraft and car builds I've done (a couple of them on this very site), as well as at least a half dozen different Star Wars related subjects (thanks for jogging my memory on that!). So, I'm definitely well over 300 now, but comparing to some of your comments, I still have a long way to go!  That also takes me to the topic of my stash, which has undergone, several "stash reductions" over the years and I've made various resolutions, to myself, to focus more on specific subject matter, but I always seem to find a way to grow the stash again. Funny how that works.

 

Thanks again to all who have responded. 

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark_C]

Must be many hundreds.  Like a lot of you, I started very young, when my father would bring home the little bagged Airfix kits about once a week.  I've done ships, aircraft (1/144, 1/72, 1/48, 1/32, 1/28, plus oddballs from Revell), tanks in 1/76, 1/72, 1/48, 1/40, 1/35, 1/32, cars in all sorts of scales, figures ranging from 1/15 to 54mm and 1/48, spacecraft from 1/12 on down, and so on and so on.

 

It's been a long time since I finished a kit, though.

[dmthamade]

Have to say, never did keep a count . Been building since 5yo, now 64. Just built when i wanted, sometimes one after the other sometimes 1-2 a year, no way to guesstimate how many....

 

Don

[monthebiff]

Nice thread John! While growing up til around the age of 16 I was a prolific armour modeller and used to churn them out. I remember vividly building a 72nd scale Airfix Sunderland with Dad and it felt like forever to get it over the line as he doesn't like to take shortcuts and I guess that's why I don't finish to many a year these days.

I stopped building for many years and got back in to it in 2012 after a messy divorce and have stuck to 32nd scale since. 

 

Regards. Andy