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Just wanted to let off some steam, How many of us live in a plastic model builder dead zone? I live in such a place! (Myrtle beach S.C.) Yes we do have a Hobby shop, but it’s targeted towards R/C cars. They carry plastic kits and paint. But no one is interested in them they don’t even want to have a display case. I have tried to start a model club here for over ten years posting on their message board, but no takers. I feel like an old (56) dinosaur! Looking for a fellow dinosaur .when I lived in N.Va we had mutable hobby shops filled with display cases and other hobbyists shooting the bull with each other about what they’re working on from Albatros d 3s to Zero 21s. There were also a good number of clubs to go to. But here its like a cry in the wilderness .Is it just me here or do others have the same experience were they live. Cheers Bill P.S. trying to start club here again pass the word! Thanks ! Thank God I have the Inter net!!!

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I grew up in southern California where there was a plethora of hobby shops. Where I live now, is a hobby store wasteland. Have to drive 2 hours to get to one.

Not much in clubs around here either.

I was never much of a club guy but enjoyed chatting with fellow modelers at the shops.

-Gregg

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I grew up in southern California where there was a plethora of hobby shops. Where I live now, is a hobby store wasteland. Have to drive 2 hours to get to one.

Not much in clubs around here either.

I was never much of a club guy but enjoyed chatting with fellow modelers at the shops.

-Gregg

I know what you mean. For me the nearest club is in Charleston about 2 hours away on a week night.

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Are people more disconnected from history today? Are kids out of the fascination of planes, ships, tanks, rockets and model building? I’m a teacher and I see a large interest in fantasy games that kids play on their computer devices. Not much on real historic events or machines. Second problem is mechanical knowledge, people today have cell phones, I-pads, etc.. You can’t open up these items and see what makes them tick, even if you did it’s mostly electrical and micro scale parts. Even cars are run though a computer system so we leave it to the ones with the diagnostic machines. Today we are disconnected from how everyday things work. When I was a young teen in the 70s I had a big interest in military aircraft. At this time my friends and I would bring in to school books and magazines on planes, war and cars, .etc.. (Playboy stayed home under the bed!) and shared them with each other. We would then build models of what we read about. Good or bad we made it with our own hands. The next model drove us to be better ! Back than we couldn’t bury our heads in to a computer screen were every thing is given to you with a push of a button? Building models takes time and a high amount of motor skills, Plus problem solving with out a reset button! If you make a mistake on your model, you had to find away to fix it. Will plastic modeling disappear? mmm

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Are people more disconnected from history today?

**RANT WARNING!**

Mostly, yes. 'History' seems now to come in only two forms: what happened within an individual's memory-span, and everything before that. The second category now appears to be like a huge builder's skip, where everything is lumped together without perspective or context, then largely forgotten. The former is mostly based on the dismal obsession with 'celebrity' rather than actually significant events. Having recently been benched for a couple of weeks due to a recurrent neck problem, I was introduced to the dubious pleasures of daytime TV game shows (UK variety). Some of the formats/questions were quite smart but contestants under 30-40 years old, when asked about some major historical event, would invariably cry "Ohhh...that's before my time!" and gesture hopelessly. Well, lots of $h1t happened before my time, but at least I know a little bit about it, when it happened and roughly who was involved! In passing, I feel I must also mention the astonishing enlightenment of one contestant -introduced as a TEACHER(!) who believed that unicorns originated in Cornwall :bandhead2: , and another (Z-list actress) who opined that the British monarch on the throne at the start of the 20th century was Margaret Thatcher... these people are allowed to drive, and have the vote!

Are kids out of the fascination of planes, ships, tanks, rockets and model building?

Not entirely; quite young kids (up to around 10-ish) still seem to like the stuff. After that...? Maybe, like many of us, they'll return in (much) later life.

I’m a teacher and I see a large interest in fantasy games that kids play on their computer devices. Not much on real historic events or machines. Second problem is mechanical knowledge, people today have cell phones, I-pads, etc.. You can’t open up these items and see what makes them tick, even if you did it’s mostly electrical and micro scale parts. Even cars are run though a computer system so we leave it to the ones with the diagnostic machines. Today we are disconnected from how everyday things work. When I was a young teen in the 70s I had a big interest in military aircraft. At this time my friends and I would bring in to school books and magazines on planes, war and cars, .etc.. (Playboy stayed home under the bed!) and shared them with each other. We would then build models of what we read about. Good or bad we made it with our own hands. The next model drove us to be better ! Back than we couldn’t bury our heads in to a computer screen were every thing is given to you with a push of a button? Building models takes time and a high amount of motor skills, Plus problem solving with out a reset button! If you make a mistake on your model, you had to find away to fix it. Will plastic modeling disappear? mmm

Everything given to you with the push of a button? Having to use time and effort to fix something instead of a reset/reload? My friend, I have seen the future...and it's BEAUTIFUL! BEAUTIFUL!!! Bright, shiny, outa-date-by-next-Tuesday consumer goods no-one can afford, but we all buy! Whole nations covered with malls full of Apple Stores, everyone and everything wired together via the Hypernet! We will NOT become Gods -WE ARE CREATING GOD!!! YES! IT IS TRULY BEAUTIFULLLLLlllll....

(Gibber, burble, blab, blub...no more daytime TV for me, then. :rolleyes: )

Edited by ChippyWho
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Somewhat...

I'm in Southern Maryland, right up the street from NAS Pax River...an aviation, technology, testing hot bed. We do have a solid group of modelers but there is no hobby shop in sight. Nearest one is about an hour and a half to two hours away. It's frustrating, if you run out of a bottle of paint of any supplies its mail oder city, that or texting a buddy and borrowing something.

I suppose it could be worse.

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And then we have Down East Maine. Until about five years ago, I thought modeling had all but died in these parts. We're in the general area of Acadia National Park and hour from Bangor.

Through a series on coincidences, three of us found each other. That led to starting meetings and forming IPMS Down East. We have a core group of about a dozen modelers, a wide range of ages, and some darn fine models being built, many of which earn awards in contests in New England contests down where there's bigger cities!

The vast majority of our models are mail-ordered though we have a small shop in Ellsworth that keeps us in supplies and some kits.

We modelers are out there but it may take some work to root us out. Maybe some luck, too!

Oh...if you are ever down here, IPMS Down East meets the first Wednesday at 7 pm at Station 2 of the Hancock Vol. FD on Rt. 1.

Cheers

Rick in Maine

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I am one of the lucky ones in that I have a good old fashioned small town hobby store just five minutes from my house. Nice size store that stocks a nice selection of plastic kits of all sorts/themes/genres, Testors enamel and Acryl paints, various tools and glues, balsa wood kits, trains, RC, coins and stamps, reference books, toy soldiers and even a good selection of Hot Wheels for the die cast collectors (like my 5 year old Son :lol:). I rarely go in and come out empty handed. What is really nice, is we have an informal Saturday morning coffee BS session where whomever shows up can bring in a completed model, a model under construction, or a new model they just received in the mail for those present to look at. We stand around with our coffees and talk models, planes, tanks, ships, autos...whatever suits our fancy. Considering our population here is under 10,000 and spread out over miles of farms and rural areas, it is a wonder my LHS is still here. So, I consider myself very lucky to have it and some fellow modelers around.

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My city, Edmonton, has the largest IPMS Chapter in Canada. We have a lot of youth attend our meetings. At our contest we have freebies for the younger modelers for entering. We encourage members to bring in young children and it actually works. When I was president for 7 years that was my goal.

Our club has telent too, we have people who write for model magazines, box-art for Dragon, work on all the Dragon test-shots, and write most of the Osprey Modelling magazines.

Our contest this year, we had Roy Surherland as our special guest. He was shocked that we have eight hobby shops. We have a population of just under 1 million. His stomping ground, the San Fran Bay area, only has one.

We took him to Calgary, to the late Uncle Rick's store, and Roy stated that it was the largest collection of Hasegawa kits that he has seen in many years.

The hobby is doing well in Canada.

I went to an IPMS meeting in the US and was shocked at how old the members were. There was no mix of ages.

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in my area (Québec City, Canada) i only met once in the last decade, someone that was enjoying gluing plastic models...

nonetheless, i can think that there is many of us, plastic modelers, in my area, as there is one pretty big hobby store (operating since nearly 40 years)... and that, after nearly disappearing from the shelves of any store... plastic models have made a comeback in many stores (craftstores and collector stores) so now, there is at least 6 stores in my area that keep at least a small inventory of models and supplies...

haven't met with other fellow modelers in my area since then... but there is maybe hope...

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I'm so used to not having an LHS or local club that it doesn't bother me at all. The old-timey hobby shop in my hometown burned in the early 80's, restarted for a year or so and then closed for good. I got by on whatever was available at dept. stores and limited mail order until after I got out of college and had a decent income.

Now I mail order from all over the world and love it, there's far more available now than there was 10 or even 5 years ago. There are new aftermarket companies popping up almost weekly and I have a hard time keeping up with all of the new releases. Plus all of the new companies doing injection molded kits with subjects that have never been kitted, it's definitely the new golden age.

A Hobby Lobby recently opened near my hometown and the times I've been in there's at least one other person looking at and buying a kit, I see families in there as well looking at kits and trying to decide on which one to get, that's a good sign.

I've said it before that for every person posting on a forum I'd guess there are multiple "silent" modelers in their area that don't post on boards, join clubs, etc.

Sure things aren't like they used to be but a lot of things have changed in the past 30-40 years for the better and I think modeling is one of those.

Edited by kenlilly106
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Everything given to you with the push of a button? Having to use time and effort to fix something instead of a reset/reload? My friend, I have seen the future...and it's BEAUTIFUL! BEAUTIFUL!!! Bright, shiny, outa-date-by-next-Tuesday consumer goods no-one can afford, but we all buy! Whole nations covered with malls full of Apple Stores, everyone and everything wired together via the Hypernet! We will NOT become Gods -WE ARE CREATING GOD!!! YES! IT IS TRULY BEAUTIFULLLLLlllll....

(Gibber, burble, blab, blub...no more daytime TV for me, then. :rolleyes:/> )

Hey! Have you heard World War one will be 100 years ago starting in August, LOL.. According to the Movies and cable it never took place at least what I have seen in previews. Maybe they’re waiting till the middle of the anniversary in 2016-17. How many average Joes know about this anniversary? When on the History channel you have Ice road tuckers, mountain men, biker battleground and so on! So where’s the history in these shows? It makes me sad to think that all of these young men have been forgotten. They’re Lost in the rush of self satisfaction of our times. Millions of people died in that war and not remembered buy the majority of the public. Even resent movies have corrupted the truth of these heroes: Flyboys, Red baron and so on, but that’s another story. When I was a little kid in the sixties I saw many celebrations of the civil war’s 100th year. I doubt we will even see TV. shows or movies dedicated to the war. I could be wrong, I hope I’m wrong! Cheers Bill

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I'm so used to not having an LHS or local club that it doesn't bother me at all. The old-timey hobby shop in my hometown burned in the early 80's, restarted for a year or so and then closed for good. I got by on whatever was available at dept. stores and limited mail order until after I got out of college and had a decent income.

Now I mail order from all over the world and love it, there's far more available now than there was 10 or even 5 years ago. There are new aftermarket companies popping up almost weekly and I have a hard time keeping up with all of the new releases. Plus all of the new companies doing injection molded kits with subjects that have never been kitted, it's definitely the new golden age.

A Hobby Lobby recently opened near my hometown and the times I've been in there's at least one other person looking at and buying a kit, I see families in there as well looking at kits and trying to decide on which one to get, that's a good sign.

I've said it before that for every person posting on a forum I'd guess there are multiple "silent" modelers in their area that don't post on boards, join clubs, etc.

Sure things aren't like they used to be but a lot of things have changed in the past 30-40 years for the better and I think modeling is one of those.

Yes I agree, the model business is very strong with new kits every year, but it’s pricy for most young kids. I even have some trouble paying the piper for kits. That’s why I scratch build my aircraft models. Filled in with kit bashing when I can get a good priced kit. Thank god for companies that keeps the cost down with new kits like Revell. After market parts can take a 1/72 scale model over $100. If you got it go for it. I just think that the majority of modelers are older and kids are not stepping in to the hobby. Hobby shops are or were like the old pub, a place to buy something new but also to hash about model ideas, projects and bring in you latest work.

Face it, several photos on the inter net is no match for the real thing in front of you. I wonder if other countries are stronger with numbers of youth building model kits? Like our Canadian friend stated about their clubs. Cheers Bill

Edited by baronred3
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Are people more disconnected from history today? Are kids out of the fascination of planes, ships, tanks, rockets and model building? I’m a teacher and I see a large interest in fantasy games that kids play on their computer devices. Not much on real historic events or machines. Second problem is mechanical knowledge, people today have cell phones, I-pads, etc.. You can’t open up these items and see what makes them tick, even if you did it’s mostly electrical and micro scale parts. Even cars are run though a computer system so we leave it to the ones with the diagnostic machines. Today we are disconnected from how everyday things work.

You might not be aware of products like Arduino or Raspberry Pi that allow folks to design, build, and program a myriad of projects from 3D printers to improvised bio-metric door locks to usable micro-PC's. Visit sites like Instructables and you can get a glimpse of what people are doing with products such as these. You could say that these folks are the hobbyists of the 21st Century. Granted increasingly we can't take apart the hardware of modern consumer electronics...this limitation has not prevented people from learning to exploit the software and programing of our electronic products to gain as much utility out of it as possible. One example is the practice of rooting smartphones or tablets to to allow the users greater access to the operating system to accomplish things like overclocking a tablets processor or the installation of a second operating system on our phones. Even gaming requires some level of problem solving to make the game run the way we want. I used to play YS Flight on my PC; during that time I would have to troubleshoot a malfunctioning aircraft add-on pack and figure out why it wouldn't run normally. That often required editing the lines of code that made up the aircraft list files to get them to work. What some may construe as a "disconnect" is rather a misunderstanding that the skill sets required to leverage utility have changed. As you pointed out Baron; the mechanics are largely out of our ability to alter or modify; but the software and programing is there for those with the skills to manipulate them.

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Thank Tenax Sniffers for the info on 3-D printers and coding, but what is the percentage of people doing it at a competent level? I’m a sculptor and I dread the 3-D printers and think they’re cool at the same time. Soon we’ll just speak to the computer. Telling the computer verbal commands and then the 3-D printer making it. Boy! That was so hard. I had to move my hand to take out the project from the printer. You get what I’m saying? Would the great sculptors be great if they were 3-D printed? Isn’t the worth of things include the psychical effort involved? Will a mans hands lose their wonder of what they can do? I hope not! Cheers Bill

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