I'm in my early 70's going on 18. I'm a retired Process Engineer from an electronics manufacturing service provider. My Father, a WWII vet, instilled in me a love for all things with wings and I started building models around the age of ten, with a lot of help from Dad at first. Back then Aurora, Hawk, Lindberg, Monogram and Revell were the main stream kit providers and kits with raised lines where the markings went were not uncommon.
I continued building aircraft kits up until about the time that I got married in 1978, then stopped cold turkey. I eventually packed up all my completed models and my stash, figuring I'd get back to it eventually. I never really stopped collecting and would continue to add to my stash when I would find something I thought would be cool to build.
When aircraft kit makers began to crank out a plethora of kits in 1/48 scale a few years ago my interest began to peak again and a lot of kits previously unavailable in that scale caused me to start collecting big time again. Late in 05 I picked up a copy of Fine Scale Magazine and I was hooked ! I started searching out sites online with reviews and articles and checking out manufacturers I never knew existed. I also noticed the use of things that just weren't being used in the 70's like Future floor wax as a clear coat, resin and photo etched parts, precut masks, detailing kits for cockpits, Mr. Surfacer and special bare metal finishes. Back then about all we had was Squadron green putty and bare metal foil and if you wanted a vacuformed canopy you made a master and used your Mattel vacuform !
Fortunately there are a bunch of that have loads of information on materials and techniques. See the Links section for some of my favorite sites.
Finally, I decided I needed to limit my efforts as I had collected way too many kits to build in my remaining life time. That was one reason for starting this website as a way of deciding what it was that I really wanted to build and at the same time give me some motivation to finish them so I would have something to display online besides photos of boxes. Things have changed some since I started, more things added and some removed to reflect on some changing ideas and when better kits of certain planes are released.
I figure these kits will keep me busy for several years and by the time they are completed will have totally filled my display case.
One might think looking at the various lists that I'm
biased towards
German aircraft, well, I guess I am. Not that they were necessarily
better but to me there just seems to be so many interesting types and a
wider variety of paint schemes. I built the P-51's and B-17's in my
youth and I like to travel a different path now. I have quite a
collection of British, French, Italian and Japanese aircraft that I
would love to build but may never have the time.
So what is this site all about?
As I stated on the home page creating this site helped me narrow my focus and hopefully will inspire me to complete many of these kits that I have long wanted to build. Some pages may only contain photos of the completed model others will be more of a review / build. I am not setting any time frames for completion or order of completion, as I tend to work when inspired and don't like deadlines. I usually have several in progress at one time and if one hits a snag or I lose interest it may go on the back burner for a while. Since I started this site I have found I like writing reviews and started out doing a number of them for Matt Swan over at Swanny's Models (which is no longer on line). While I didn't intend the site to be a review site, most of the kits now feature an in box review as I found some kits had minimal coverage online. When you are trying to decide whether to shell out hard earned cash on a kit it helps to have as many opinions as possible. Unlike other sites, I include links at the bottom of each review to other reviews and builds that I have found to help give you a balanced look at any particular kit.
I hope you find at least something of interest poking around here and maybe learned something that will help you chose a kit and thank you for visiting.