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Build 'Hopping'


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On 9/22/2022 at 9:50 AM, andyf117 said:

I have ALWAYS been like that - hence why probably half of the kits in my stash are started/part-built to some degree or other...

....and I'm not talking single figures, or even double, either - I have approximately 300 kits on the shelves, so it'll be about 150...

....some were started 30+ years ago, either as individual builds or as parts of 'themes' or 'projects' that I was 'into' at the time...

....one that springs to mind is a Hasegawa 1/72 F-14A that I started immediately after going aboard USS America in Sept 1986...

....I do occasionally pull out an 'old' started build and finally complete it - like this 1/72 RNZAF Huey, started 1988, finished 2020:

NZUH-1-01.thumb.JPG.2665d9208ecbd28cbbfde4c09b4b1028.JPGNZUH-1-11.thumb.JPG.45838337e03ccf97657ea137f496f6d5.JPG

Andy,

To quote the Saturday night drunk when talking to the policeman, "You look like I feel!" 

I am with you brother.  As a youngun, I would take my paprer route proceeds on Friday afternoon down to the local five & dime store and buy a kit, maybe a bottle of paint and have the thing built, painted & decalled by Saturday afternoon. When in the service, I found / subscribed to FineScale Modeler and bought my first airbrush. Then I would build "production line" style starting five or six 1/72 USAF or USN/USMC F-4 Phantoms at the same time; do all the cockpits, landing gear, ordnance, etc.... together; paint all the different camouflage colors on all six airframes at the same time, then finish them off individually with any special markings or decals.  Now, after ~35 years of marriage, five grown kids, six grandkids, umpteen moves, the stash has grown to 500+ with another 1000+ accessories and decals. I am downsizing, but still find it difficult to spend more than a few hours a week on modelling. Like Dave Roof, I have a few commission builds for friends and co-workers, but I recently counted 55 started projects, some dating back to the mid 1980s, like yourself.  So yes, "You look like I feel!"

K/r,

Dutch

 

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If I am going to actually finish a model I need to stick with it. I can have a couple in process at a time, but so far I have never completed one I had previously set aside to start something. I have hope I can actually get around to finishing the Tamiya Mosquito IV being converted to a IX that I set aside early this year. I fear the Airfix Ju 87B will never get finished and the ones I set aside at least a year or more ago, some sitting there since 2001 and earlier, will never get pulled back out. Too many new kits grab my attention to think about the oldies. I had good intentions when each was started but…

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I currently have around 60 started builds.  The average work completed on those builds is around 65%  Most are from after I came back into the hobby in 2017.  I could have probably average 15 completed builds a year if I quit starting new projects.  This isn't a new problem for me.  Most of what I've completed since coming back into the hobby were builds started between 1988 and 2004.

 

 

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Like many I built when I was younger, then after a years-long layoff got back into the hobby somewhere around 2000-2001. At that time, I'd build one, possibly two models at a time and would not start something new until a project was finished. But in the last decade or so....that all flew out the window. 

 

Now, I have around 15-20 kits started...with more getting started all the time. I really enjoy the researching and starting of a new project, and the feeling of finishing a kit is pretty cool. It's the part in the middle that most times bogs me down. At first, this all kind of bothered me. But soon I realized that this is my hobby...not my job, not my family, not my other personal relationships. I can make all the rules with regard to my hobby, and break them if I change my mind.  I engage my hobby to better put myself in a the frame of mind I need to be in to be successful at those other things. Once I came to that realization, I became a serial Build Hopper, and I now embrace it. 

 

In the last month, I've started researching or building: A 72nd Tu-22, a 32nd A-26A Counter Invader, a 32nd P-40E, a 32nd F-51D....and most likely something I've already forgotten about. These are all in addition to the herd of other projects anywhere from 1%-75%complete. My Shelf Of Delay is pretty well-kept. 

 

Welcome to the club!

 

John

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60% of my kits have been started. The only issue I have with this is when I open a kit that I worked on five years ago and don't like the quality of the work. I have taken to writing down paint colors on the instruction sheet so I can remember what I used. Modeling is aspirational, which means I buy a kit when I already have 100 and I open one up when another is already open. I treat my stash like a library and take things off the shelf at will to look at or work on.

 

Love this hobby!

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On 9/27/2022 at 7:20 PM, Bsin said:

It's nice to see, I'm not the only one that has this condition.

L0L

Clearly not!!!  It is very nice to know that others are similarly afflicted, no?  

 

@johncrow and andrew.deboer, I am 100% in agreement with all you both wrote.  I especially like andrew's idea of writing down any relevant info and keeping it with the kit that's been set aside.  My memory has gotten so horrendously poor that while I used to think I'd remember any relevant stuff related to a kit, I can't be assured of that at all.  Notes for the future is a GREAT idea!

 

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my thread thus far.  I'm glad to learn, as Bsin wrote, that others are in the same boat as we are.   Since this is, for most of us, a hobby, no reason to feel guilty, or somehow think less of ourselves, because we are addressing our hobby in our own way.  There aren't any rules when you're doing things for fun, right?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 9/21/2022 at 8:57 PM, okthree said:

I call it modeler’s ADD. 

I too am afflicted with modelers ADD.   

I can't tell you how many kits I have in the stash and that are started.  Too many to count.  I have so many kits I could open my own hobby store.  

Like others, I work a little at a time when I can get the chance.   If I have a bunch of time, I'll break out the airbrush and do some paint work.   Otherwise, it's work on whatever I'm currently interested in at the time.

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