Jump to content

Dispatch columnist takes a look at us....


Recommended Posts

Mike Harden commentary: Plastic models not just for the young

Wednesday, August 19, 2009 3:13 AM

By Mike Harden

In an ongoing quest to swap Marlboros for a less-lethal avocation, I dropped into a hobby shop last week and picked up a kit to make a scale model of a 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster.

As an avid plastic modeler in my youth, I was not unlike many of my boomer contemporaries who traded the hobby for girls or -- as a slight few did -- more glue.

The Auburn led me from the Hobbyland on Sawmill to the mother-ship store at Graceland and the news that the International Plastic Modelers Society will be meeting today through Saturday at the Ohio

Center.

"Everybody who is anybody will be here because this is the nationals. It's like going to Indianapolis for the 500," Bob Jones told me. He is president of the local Eddie Rickenbacker chapter of IPMS, which is the host chapter for the event.

Hundreds of models of planes, ships and cars and even a few dollhouses will vie for bragging rights among the society's members.

Jones, a salesman of automotive replacement parts, recalled, "I was probably 7 or 8 years old, growing up in Circleville, when I built an F86-D Sabre jet. At that time, plastic models were typically sold at hardwares or in drugstores."

At 14, he entered a model of a supercharged 1941 Willys drag coupe in a local contest, having created homemade touches such as spark-plug wires fashioned from sewing thread and inserted in holes made with a hand drill suitable for hamster dentistry.

In that contest, Jones said, he bested another Columbus teen modeler who was then-national champion -- Dan Christiansen.

For Jones, modeling survived the testosterone hiccup of puberty, though he might need a few days respite from the hobby after coordinating the logistics of a national convention that he expects will draw 5,000 modelers, vendors and spectators.

He and a handful of serious modelers gather each Friday evening at the Graceland Hobbyland, set up a table and launch into plastic modeling's equivalent of a quilting bee.

Some might consider modeling to be in the category of what my colleague Nick Chordas has called "geek catnip."

"I've been surprised at how few nerdish comments we get," said Columbus modeler Graham Holmes, a Friday-night regular at Hobbyland who is anything but the stereotype of a modeler, as portrayed by Steve Carell in The 40 - Year - Old Virgin.

Area residents can decide for themselves. The convention is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. The $5 admission includes a make-and-take area in which young modelers are provided with free kits from manufacturers and free advice from IPMS members.

Somewhere, crunched in a steamer trunk that now rests at the bottom of a landfill, the Bill Vukovich Indy-winning roadster I built at age 12 rests in peace beside a 1940 Ford sedan, a 1958 Chevrolet Impala convertible and a few purloined, dog-eared copies of the nudist magazine Sunshine and Health.

Just now, I am staring at the parts to the 1935 Auburn and wondering if a hollowed-out exhaust manifold can be made to hold tobacco.

(now is it just me or does Mike Harden sound like he wonders if a kit can be used to make a bong.... Matt)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...