Jump to content

Think you will ever finish your stash?


Recommended Posts

This thread has gotten me thinking about how I work on models.  Up to this point, in my 'adult version' of model building, I tend to work on one model at a time.  What I mean by that is that I work on one model, serially.  I may not finish that model, but if I stop working on that one, I may go one to another one, but I tend to spend all of my attention on that next one, to the exclusion of all others, for a significant period of time, until something interrupts my attention on that model, before I finish it.  What I'm getting at is that I don't really work on multiple models at a time, like, for example, working on multiple kits in a day, say, 2 or 3 in  given day, at various stages of completion.  

 

While I know this hobby is, for me. completely for enjoyment, and that I have no interest in any kind of 'assembly line' building of kits, I also like it when I get a model to completion.  There is that sense of finality, completion, accomplishment.  So, this extended slow building process that I have, and it sounds like many of us have, precludes a lot of 'completion happiness'.  I'm beginning to wonder if I should re-evaluate my approach to building.  If I were to reconsider how I do things, and maybe open myself up to working 2-3 models at a time, perhaps I would get to that completion and the benefits of seeing that end state.  Why do I have a hard time pushing through a single build?  I would say that it's a variety of things.  Sometimes it's waiting for glue/filler to dry, sometimes it's waiting on arrival of parts or paint that is needed, sometimes it's just lost interest for the time being.  Then, there is a feeling I have that building multiple models in a 'piecemeal fashion' is somehow less 'appropriate' and results in less satisfaction than if I were just to focus on a single model from start to finish.  All of this just seems like a philosophical approach, a variety of ways to reach the end and have a completed tank or airplane be happy about.  

 

How do all of you build your models?  I'm guessing that the vast majority of you just start one kit, and complete it before moving on to another one, but perhaps I'm wrong.  There is that part of me that feels like I'm 'cheating' in some way, by not getting through one build before starting another.  Sorry if this is too far off topic, and I'd be happy to begin another thread if that's more appropriate...

Edited by Curt B
Link to post
Share on other sites
34 minutes ago, Curt B said:

How do all of you build your models?

 

One at a time, like you. I do not like not finishing a model and usually will let it sit on the workbench rather than packing it up and putting it on the shelf of doom. I do have two models that I haven't finished and that are packed away. One is a 1/48 Tamiya P-47 that I started for group build with the club I was in down in Ft. Myers, FL (Oh how I wish I were there now). It got packed away when I moved back to WI (I know, sure sign of latent dementia) and never restarted. The other is a Tamiya F-14A that I have been waiting to find properly fitting early VF-1 Wolfpack decals for.  I have about ten various sets of decals from various companies and none of the are quite right. But, I think I can get "close enough" and hopefully will restart it soon. My current build is stalled and every time I look at it I want to get back to it, but I just can't find the will. This may be one that I set aside for no other reason than that I lost the will to finish it.

I know that's all a lot more than you needed to know, but this recent build has made me re-evaluate the way I have been building. I have always tried to add as much detail as I could to a build. But now, age has eaten away at my skills and I think it might be time to set my sights a little lower. I have already decided to stop trying to add hydraulic lines to landing gear. This last build made it abundantly clear that I no longer have the dexterity to do so. So, simplify is the order of the day. Hopefully I can start finishing models again.

Thanks for listening. I return you to your previously scheduled broadcast :whistle:

Link to post
Share on other sites

I have a love for modeling tools.... They are all organized and in order, and I have tools for most anything. Now for the models... I have about 120 of them, in the 5 main scales from 144th to 32nd, I build from 5 to 15 in a year, depending on where I start at years end! Life just gets in the way, also I work away from home, 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, and there never seems to be enough time to all the stuff I want to do. I also tend to bite over more than I can chew for my skill level, and plan waay to intricate models for my patience so a few end their days stripped of any useful parts and hurled in the circular file on the floor.

 

Cheers

H.

Link to post
Share on other sites
14 hours ago, Mstor said:

 

One at a time, like you. I do not like not finishing a model and usually will let it sit on the workbench rather than packing it up and putting it on the shelf of doom. I do have two models that I haven't finished and that are packed away. One is a 1/48 Tamiya P-47 that I started for group build with the club I was in down in Ft. Myers, FL (Oh how I wish I were there now). It got packed away when I moved back to WI (I know, sure sign of latent dementia) and never restarted. The other is a Tamiya F-14A that I have been waiting to find properly fitting early VF-1 Wolfpack decals for.  I have about ten various sets of decals from various companies and none of the are quite right. But, I think I can get "close enough" and hopefully will restart it soon. My current build is stalled and every time I look at it I want to get back to it, but I just can't find the will. This may be one that I set aside for no other reason than that I lost the will to finish it.

I know that's all a lot more than you needed to know, but this recent build has made me re-evaluate the way I have been building. I have always tried to add as much detail as I could to a build. But now, age has eaten away at my skills and I think it might be time to set my sights a little lower. I have already decided to stop trying to add hydraulic lines to landing gear. This last build made it abundantly clear that I no longer have the dexterity to do so. So, simplify is the order of the day. Hopefully I can start finishing models again.

Thanks for listening. I return you to your previously scheduled broadcast :whistle:

 

It's funny that you mention 'losing the will' to keep going on a model.  I guess that's what happens to me.  Despite the fact that I love models, and I would think, once I start one, that I would never lose interest in it, there seems to be something that gets in the way.  I think, for me, it's often that the picture of what I plan to do with a model, which fires me up to get working on it, often doesn't end up materializing when I pick up the model and the tools to actually do what I had pictured.  This just happened yesterday with a tank model I've restarted.  I almost stalled again, when I realized that this way of accomplishing a certain detail was't going to work out.  However, I tried to go a different route, which sort of worked, but I sort of lost the passion I had when I'd come up with the way I was GOING to do it, and found out that way wasn't possible.  So now, I've started on this alternate path, but I'm not very excited about it, and am thinking that it might not look very good at all.  Hence, my stalling out on making progress.

 

Like Mstor, I usually have plans for intricate details, but I find I just don't have the skills to be able to make that detail happen.  And it's frustrating.  I've got to find a way over this frustration, though, because I don't want this to become a reason why I abandon this hobby that I love, in theory, so much...

 

Really sorry to have diverted this thread...

Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, is it windy yet? said:

Is finishing the stash even the point?

 

I don't think so. I think building a stash is like a separate activity. One that we can derive joy and satisfaction from. As noted in a previous post, there is enjoyment in the purchasing and having the object of one's desire (as long as it is limited to "things"). I like to look at my stash from time to time. I will pull out a kit and open it up. I will look at its parts and any aftermarket I have for it. I will consider the various paint schemes. Perhaps even get out a reference book if I have one.

Then I put it back on its shelf. The stash is a living, growing thing. Sometimes it grows out of hand, sometimes it shrinks as we build or dispose of kits. It has a life of its own.

 

Pardon, my nurse tells me its time for my medication. Later!  :whistle:

Link to post
Share on other sites

No, I don't think I will. 

 

I've lost interest in certain subjects altogether, some kits just have been superceded by better and more modern ones and some have been bought from purely nostalgic reasons. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
11 hours ago, is it windy yet? said:

Sometimes I lose interest in the kit and no longer have any interest in building that kit. Sometimes I sell those kits off, sometimes I buy more. 

Sometimes, you donate them to good fellas like me?!😇 I'll even pay for the courier!!!👍

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 3/9/2020 at 12:08 AM, janman said:

...,some kits just have been superceded by better and more modern ones and some have been bought from purely nostalgic reasons. 

 

This is SO true!   Especially today, there seems to be new kits and manufacturers all the time. New tooling of subjects that were already available seem to be popping up routinely. I wish I could hold off on buying new kits until I’m ready to build them, with that in mind.  However, I’m also sometimes concerned that a given kit may be discontinued and therefore not available when I might want to build it.  Probably an irrational concern, given how many people seem to buy these models and make them available on eBay.

 

I have to agree with Mstor, about the stash being a separate concept from model building.   There is no doubt that pulling a model from the stash, opening it up, fantasizing about what the future build of that kit will be like, and then putting it back on the shelf, is a ‘hobby’ of its own, in some ways separate from model building itself.  That said, I do wonder about my own stash, where I have at least half a dozen Tiger 1 and Abrams (M1Ax) tanks each... wondering if I will EVER build the armada of these kits into the dioramas I had pictured in my mind which had been the motivation for purchasing them.  But in both of those cases (though being armor) I’d been, to some degree, concerned about specific kit availability.  Pretty crazy given the multitude of manufacturers that have exploded for both these subjects!

Edited by Curt B
Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Curt B said:

 

This is SO true!   Especially today, there seems to be new kits and manufacturers all the time. New tooling of subjects that were already available seem to be popping up routinely. I wish I could hold off on buying new kits until I’m ready to build them, with that in mind.  However, I’m also sometimes concerned that a given kit may be discontinued and therefore not available when I might want to build it.  Probably an irrational concern, given how many people seem to buy these models and make them available on eBay.

 

 

This is what usually drives me to build up my stash, especially within the aftermarket community.  And when discontinued, one pays a premium price.   As soon as Zacto came out with his A-7 correction, I bought two.  One has been built, one is waiting. But the full correction kit is no longer available.

Fisher Models.  Hit by a tragedy and most likely to never rise from the ashes (literally!) I bought his AWACS Skyraider kit and some correction parts for the 1/72 Connie and before I could get another order in, Paul's entire career went up in smoke.  Just last week I snagged another Skyraider conversion someone put up for sale and a few weeks before the fire I got a second hand Panther kit at a reduced price.  I've decided to spend the rest of this year building my 3 Fisher kits.

I was made on offer by another forum member years ago for a Wolfpack Kai-Panther Phantom conversion and the Tamiya EJ kit.  For the package deal I paid what the conversion kit alone is selling for.  I think after my Fisher builds, it's next. 

G-Factor landing gear, grab them when you can find them!   Rhino Models resin, grab them when you can find them!  If you even slightly think you want an XXXX from YYYY aftermarket company, buy it now!! 

So far this year I have completed 2 builds.  Nothing special or complicated.  a 1/48 U-2 and a small SyFi kit.  But with my hands getting worse, I'm starting my higher end kits and not waiting until retirement now!

Edited by Scott Smith
Link to post
Share on other sites

At one point I thought that I would get them all built, but the stash just kept getting bigger and my time to model decreased. I used to build around 20 to 25 72nd jets in a year, but now due to working far too much, and competing past times, I'll be lucky to get 10 or 12 done this year. I have over 600 kits in my stash, and will hit my 55th birthday in a few months.... do the math!

 

I don't have a problem buying more kits, although I try to keep it limited to new kits. Sometimes though, I'll run across a good kit at a very good price and will stock up if its something that I know I will build. As a case in point: I am currently working on four of the old (raised panel line) Hasegawa Tomcats. Yes, its not the latest and greatest kit by any measure, but still builds up nicely if you replace the seats and close the canopy. I picked up a box of eight of them from a local guy that was selling off his stash some years ago. His stash was so huge that it took up his entire garage, and he was reduced to cutting parts off of the sprues, bagging the parts, and putting multiple kits into one box. Hence the 8 Tomcat kits in one box. I think I paid $20 for all 8 kits though, and once built they look great on my shelf! That kit will currently run you about $15 each plus shipping on ebay. I just finished a VF-124 jet and have VF-33 VF-41 and VF-302 to go.

 

Another reason for my big stash is that over the years I've figured out that I have about a 4 day window of interest to start a kit. If I don't have the kit on hand, and get started on it, my interest will fade before the kit arrives in the mail. Once its started, it will get finished sooner or later. It may take awhile, but it will get finished! Fred K.

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 3/9/2020 at 4:41 AM, Scott Smith said:

 

This is what usually drives me to build up my stash, especially within the aftermarket community. 

 

No kidding there!  It seems like a lot of aftermarket stuff, both resin and photo etch, don't have long shelf lives.  And when you can find ones that are no longer available from the manufacturer, the cost is often sky high!  I'm definitely not as diligent in looking for and purchasing this aftermarket stuff, but I probably should be.  Really, even if I don't end up building a kit the has aftermarket items, I'm sure that if I ever sell that kit (or my wife does, after I go for the eternal dirt nap) it's likely that that kit will be more desirable.  So, outside of the cost of the aftermarket stuff, there's really no downside to getting it.  

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/28/2020 at 8:27 AM, habu2 said:

And then there are the other hobbies to distract from modeling........  for me it's cars and photography.

 

AMItN9N.jpg

 

Boy, does THAT take me back!  I bought a 1981 Trans Am, black and gold, very similar to the one pictured, because I didn't like the new Camara/Firebird body style that come out in 1982.  I LOVED that car...big gold bird decal on the hood.  It was something.  Mine had the 'dish/turbine' wheels in gold, though, and T Tops.  Yours is spectacular!!!!  Is that original paint?  If so, how did you manage to keep it so PERFECT??

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/28/2020 at 11:27 AM, habu2 said:

And then there are the other hobbies to distract from modeling........  for me it's cars and photography.

 

AMItN9N.jpg

 

I lost count of how many of those cars I panted back in the early '80's.  I worked for a shop that bought wreck totaled Trans Am's and Z-28's and we rebuilt them and sold them at auction.  Places like that is why they started issuing salvage titles.  Some came out great, some, not so great.  But putting the big sticker on the hood was no fun!

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/29/2020 at 7:54 AM, Don said:

Nice ride! Smokey and the Bandit movies are among my favorites. In black like yours its an awesome looking car.  I was never a fan of the red or silver Trans Am's (wasn't there a cream color/tan color too? Those were pretty nasty). To me Trans Am's are like the Grand Nationals...any color as long as its black.

:thumbsup:

My first car🥰

Link to post
Share on other sites
On 3/12/2020 at 7:50 PM, Drifterdon said:

Loving the T/A.   Any other pics you can post?

 

 Here's a couple. One is at the same event as the first pic, the other is from a couple of years ago on the Hot Rod Power Tour, different wheels/tires.

 

And yes that's the original paint.  I've been fortunate enough to be able to keep it garaged most of its life.

 

I9BhYLG.jpg

 

zY8Jrdy.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Don said:

I may have to break out my MPC Firebird kit now.

 

I just realized my Trans Am model stash is probably bigger than some folks entire stash !!!

 

1/8 Monogram (x2)

1/12 Otaki

1/16 MPC (x3)

1/24 Monogram & MPC (too many)

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...