Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

Blame model railroaders. PE existed there almost a decade before they started coming along for plastic models.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Blame model railroaders. PE existed there almost a decade before they started coming along for plastic models.

Bill

And yet model railroad kits that you can construct are almost extinct now.

Although an aerospace engineer, my dad's first love has always been trains. Growing up, we watched TV to the smell of Ambroid glue, as he built his kits in our TV room (the garage smelled of Floquil paints and Dysol solvent). Two of my brothers followed him into model railroading, while I fell in love with the aerodynamic beauty of airplanes. However, over the years I noticed that he built fewer kits and instead bought ready-made models. I asked him why he didn't build the kits anymore and he said that they are impossible to find. My brothers confirmed that the old kit manufacturers, like Athearn, primarily sell ready-made models today. They're just as accurate and detailed as the old kits you put together and you can add more details if you wish, but my dad and brothers now spend most of their time tinkering with the electrics on the locomotive models.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Blame model railroaders. PE existed there almost a decade before they started coming along for plastic models.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy
And yet model railroad kits that you can construct are almost extinct now.

Although an aerospace engineer, my dad's first love has always been trains. Growing up, we watched TV to the smell of Ambroid glue, as he built his kits in our TV room (the garage smelled of Floquil paints and Dysol solvent). Two of my brothers followed him into model railroading, while I fell in love with the aerodynamic beauty of airplanes. However, over the years I noticed that he built fewer kits and instead bought ready-made models. I asked him why he didn't build the kits anymore and he said that they are impossible to find. My brothers confirmed that the old kit manufacturers, like Athearn, primarily sell ready-made models today. They're just as accurate and detailed as the old kits you put together and you can add more details if you wish, but my dad and brothers now spend most of their time tinkering with the electrics on the locomotive models.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Blame model railroaders. PE existed there almost a decade before they started coming along for plastic models.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy
And yet model railroad kits that you can construct are almost extinct now.

Although an aerospace engineer, my dad's first love has always been trains. Growing up, we watched TV to the smell of Ambroid glue, as he built his kits in our TV room (the garage smelled of Floquil paints and Dysol solvent). Two of my brothers followed him into model railroading, while I fell in love with the aerodynamic beauty of airplanes. However, over the years I noticed that he built fewer kits and instead bought ready-made models. I asked him why he didn't build the kits anymore and he said that they are impossible to find. My brothers confirmed that the old kit manufacturers, like Athearn, primarily sell ready-made models today. They're just as accurate and detailed as the old kits you put together and you can add more details if you wish, but my dad and brothers now spend most of their time tinkering with the electrics on the locomotive models.

My father got into model railroading in the 50s. He built some brass locomotives that had to be soldered together. I don't know if they still are available, but back when I was a bit interested in the 80s there were a lot of detail aftermarket sets available for people who wanted to dress up their ready to run cars and engines. The parts were usually etched brass or lost wax brass castings. I believe the guy who pioneered the photo etch products was someone who made electronics printed circuit boards for a living.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Blame model railroaders. PE existed there almost a decade before they started coming along for plastic models.

Bill

And yet model railroad kits that you can construct are almost extinct now.

Although an aerospace engineer, my dad's first love has always been trains. Growing up, we watched TV to the smell of Ambroid glue, as he built his kits in our TV room (the garage smelled of Floquil paints and Dysol solvent). Two of my brothers followed him into model railroading, while I fell in love with the aerodynamic beauty of airplanes. However, over the years I noticed that he built fewer kits and instead bought ready-made models. I asked him why he didn't build the kits anymore and he said that they are impossible to find. My brothers confirmed that the old kit manufacturers, like Athearn, primarily sell ready-made models today. They're just as accurate and detailed as the old kits you put together and you can add more details if you wish, but my dad and brothers now spend most of their time tinkering with the electrics on the locomotive models.

Depends on if you are talking about kits that make functional trains or just display models.

I have built several small scale Karls and my former employer built a 1/35 Dora.

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

I think brass locomotives are still around, except I believe their prices are approaching $1,000. My Dad's brass locomotives were like his second set of children -- the rest of us could look, but not touch. He even bought a brass bar in the '70s and machined his own add-on details for the locomotives.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

To get back to ships, does anyone have examples of 1/700 ships that they haven't thoroughly painted, just performed a wash to bring out details? I got back into building airplanes a few years ago, but now live in a small condo complex where I can't airbrush without disturbing my neighbors. To my eye, brush-painted planes just don't look right (unless you're depicting the Spitfires delivered by the Wasp to Malta -- they were apparently painted blue by Wasp crew members using floor brooms). But a 1/700 scale subject would seem to be small enough, when viewed from a normal distance, to look "right" without every little item painted, just highlighted for contrast. Just want to get some opinions before spending bucks on a ship then hating how it looked when completed.

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

They must be more than that. Back when I was in high school in the 80s the RMRA convention came to Pasadena, CA which was very close to home, so my father and I went. On the last day they had a business meeting and as an incentive they gave out door prizes. Everyone got two tickets and doing a mental calculation of what was on the table, there were almost 2 prizes per person, though most of the items were dreck. The two grand prizes were a brass Pensy locomotive in HO and a brass switcher engine in G scale.

As they went through the prizes, I was the only person in the room not winning anything, when the grand prizes came around, I was the only person left with two tickets. I won the Pensy locomotive and missed winning the other one by one digit. When we checked what the Pensy locomotive was worth, it was around $800 then. Something similar would have to be worth a lot more than that now. That was 30 years ago.

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ORIGINAL: DanSez

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

To get back to ships, does anyone have examples of 1/700 ships that they haven't thoroughly painted, just performed a wash to bring out details? I got back into building airplanes a few years ago, but now live in a small condo complex where I can't airbrush without disturbing my neighbors. To my eye, brush-painted planes just don't look right (unless you're depicting the Spitfires delivered by the Wasp to Malta -- they were apparently painted blue by Wasp crew members using floor brooms). But a 1/700 scale subject would seem to be small enough, when viewed from a normal distance, to look "right" without every little item painted, just highlighted for contrast. Just want to get some opinions before spending bucks on a ship then hating how it looked when completed.

Check into getting a compressed air tank, filled with CO2 - you don't get the compressor noise and it works great. Then you just have the whisper of the air brush.

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy
You're right - I saw my dad yesterday and asked. He's been seeing them starting at $1,500 in HO. Speaking of Pasadena, he and my brothers used to frequent the Whistle Stop on Colorado Blvd. He remembers seeing G scale (I think) display-only locomotives listing for $20k there and at another shop in eastern LA County in the 80s and 90s (we grew up in Whittier). The owners told him that collectors who worked in the entertainment industry would usually buy them within a few months of the store getting them.

I'm sorry to hear how age and the passing of your mother has affected your dad. Mine has been slowly losing his fine motor skills, so that he can't paint and work with small details like he used to. He seems to accept it as a normal part of the aging process. A few years ago, he purchased a Hasegawa A-3 Skywarrior and we bought him a Hasegawa F4D Skyray, both 1/72 scale. As he was building them, he acknowledged that he had trouble painting the canopy framing and that some details ended up sloppier than he would have liked. But they were icons of his Douglas career and he had always wanted to display them in his living room.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: wdolson

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy
You're right - I saw my dad yesterday and asked. He's been seeing them starting at $1,500 in HO. Speaking of Pasadena, he and my brothers used to frequent the Whistle Stop on Colorado Blvd. He remembers seeing G scale (I think) display-only locomotives listing for $20k there and at another shop in eastern LA County in the 80s and 90s (we grew up in Whittier). The owners told him that collectors who worked in the entertainment industry would usually buy them within a few months of the store getting them.

I'm sorry to hear how age and the passing of your mother has affected your dad. Mine has been slowly losing his fine motor skills, so that he can't paint and work with small details like he used to. He seems to accept it as a normal part of the aging process. A few years ago, he purchased a Hasegawa A-3 Skywarrior and we bought him a Hasegawa F4D Skyray, both 1/72 scale. As he was building them, he acknowledged that he had trouble painting the canopy framing and that some details ended up sloppier than he would have liked. But they were icons of his Douglas career and he had always wanted to display them in his living room.

We're from the same stomping grounds. I grew up in Monterey Park right on the edge of East LA (two blocks from East LA city college). We went out to Chino several times a year, that was much better than Disneyland.

I remember the Whistle Stop, I was in there a number of times with my father. There was another big hobby store on Colorado Blvd, but I forget its name. We used to go to a hobby shop in Alhambra that was also a Schwinn bicycle shop and there was a smaller shop on Garvey in Monterey Park. Back when my father was serious about model railroading, he used to hang out at a shop called Troxles near downtown Los Angeles. That was before he got married and moved to the suburbs.

My father's scale in aircraft was 1/32. He has a bunch of them that are mostly finished in his layout room that I will probably take and finish when he's gone. I'm also going to try and take apart the layout and move it. That might proove too tricky though.

Bill

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ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

I've lived in Southern California for 50 of my 52 years and haven't been out to Chino yet. As kids, my dad would drive us past there and continue up to Cajon Pass -- where we could have sat for hours as he photographed trains, if my mom hadn't objected. As an adult, I've been too busy with work to find a day to go out to Chino. I've always wanted to see the P-26 or A6M5 flying, although I understand they're too valuable to operate more than once a year, if that.

The Whistle Stop is still open. Since my dad stopped driving a few years ago (his peculiar diabetes results in huge and very rapid swings in his blood sugar with little notice) he rarely gets out there anymore, but orders most all of his items online. I don't remember if it was the Whistle Stop or another shop, but the late actor Gary Coleman used to frequent the shop so often in the 90s that he would sometimes ring up customer purchases. Since my dad didn't watch much TV besides crime dramas or movies, he didn't know who Gary was, until my brothers told him.

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

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ORIGINAL: dave sindel

I would say the cost of a "decent" air brush depends on your intended use. A Paasche single action basic airbrush would be around $60.00. A double action would be $120 or so. Check out the site Micromark for some examples. www.micromark.com