# Models you have, but haven't built **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 5, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398 "2013-08-05T15:03:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/21 "2013-08-06T01:39:59Z")
I’ve got a bunch of 1/48 and 1/72 scale aircraft, mostly civil types, including a Cessna 172, a Lear Jet, DH Dragon Rapide, DH 88 Comet and Tiger Moth, AN-2 Colt, Beech C-45, and Cierva Autogyro, among others. The more modern types I intend someday to go into a diorama of the ramp at DW Hooks airport, which is about 20 minutes drive from my home. The older, mostly pre-war types, just 'cause I like the designs. > [@Rocketeer](#): > > Lots of cars, including several JoHan Turbine Cars, a spectacular kit… Word. I built one of those back in the day. That thing was a freakin’ work of art just sitting on the sprues, neatly stacked up in the box. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/22 "2013-08-06T02:18:56Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Speaking of which, does anyone remember those aircraft models from the early-'70s (probably existed in the late-'60s) that had extra parts so you could build a ‘battle damaged’ version? Yep, I had an F4, a F-105 and a F-100. I remember I had to wait a week to buy one of them because my allowance wouldn’t cover all three. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/23 "2013-08-06T02:22:11Z")
I have several paper-model plans which I know I will never actually build. I occasionally look at them with much longing. My favorite – the one I really wish I could get off my duff and make – is the “Mark Twain” stern-paddle steamship, a la Disneyland. Beautiful! In my youth, I had several of the ones in the OP’s list. I still have the Geminii Capsule! Some years ago, I had a lovely plastic kit model of a “Maine” era U.S. Battleship – the “Great White Fleet” variety of ship, of the Spanish American War vintage. Doggone, I wish I still had that one! I do an internet search for it every so often, but can never find it. (The fact that I can’t remember the ship’s name is a handicap.) The most recent ship model I built was a 10-inch-long kit of the U.S.S. Midway – which I bought at the U.S.S. Midway museum gift shop (“gift ship?”) here in San Diego. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/24 "2013-08-06T02:58:23Z")
> [@Two\_Dollar\_Tallboy](#): > > My Voyager model met its fate by BBs. Seems to be a common hazard in space travel. > . My spaceships were a little more hard wearing as a kid. I used automotive wheel bearings. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/25 "2013-08-06T03:05:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Some years ago, I had a lovely plastic kit model of a “Maine” era U.S. Battleship – the “Great White Fleet” variety of ship, of the Spanish American War vintage. Doggone, I wish I still had that one! I do an internet search for it every so often, but can never find it. (The fact that I can’t remember the ship’s name is a handicap.) Probably Dewey’s flagship _Olympia_; there are models of it by Revell and Pyro (now Lindberg). I’ve built the Revell, and it’s a lovely kit; it’s about 16-20 inches long when finished. The Pyro is not quite as nice. Pyro, back in the day, actually did offer a _Maine_ which was their _Olympia_, lightly reworked. Absolutely and totally inaccurate. Very rare now. I’ve got one and have often thought it might be fun to do an absolutely straight-faced superdetailed buildup of it–photoetched railings, careful weathering and everything. Give those obsessive-accuracy types at IPMS the fits. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/26 "2013-08-06T03:32:35Z")
**Rocketeer** : That’s the one! I just looked on ebay: $150. Amazon has some for $80 or so. Woo! [But here is a lovely set of pics where a guy scratch-built one!](http://www.building-model-boats.com/uss-olympia.html) Ah, I wish I had hands steady enough to follow that example! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/27 "2013-08-06T03:34:50Z")
Ooh, another good one: years and years ago, I had a model kit of the “Jolly Roger,” Captain Hook’s ship from Disney’s animated Peter Pan. (Also based on the “Chicken of the Sea” restaurant ship at Disneyland.) Not too long ago, I found a re-release of the same kit, re-titled as “Glow in the Dark Pirate Ship.” Very same ship, but the Disney tie-in was gone. Still, much fun to build: I painted it in the Disney color scheme, not the black-and-white glow-in-the-dark scheme. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/28 "2013-08-06T04:07:47Z")
Nice model, I agree, but the _Olympia_ wasn’t actually part of the Great White Fleet: [Great White Fleet - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet#Ships) ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/29 "2013-08-06T04:19:10Z")
['55 Chevy Pick Up](http://www.carhobby.com/55c6004ae.JPG). I dig it out every now and again with renewed intentions but it’s still in the box. I think the best one I ever built was the [Munsters Dragster](http://images52.fotki.com/v1563/photos/7/749451/2720487/dragula-vi.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/30 "2013-08-06T04:21:01Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > Also bought a model of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, but in the form of a rectangle of cardboard cut into 1000 pieces. What on earth was I thinking! There are something like 800 bits of colour on each piece. Just doing the edge took me nearly a month to the exclusion of all else. By the end of a year I had 5 - yes 5 - non-edge pieces joined. Well, 4 and a maybe. What a wuss! I’ve been known to do 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles _face-down._ You have to accept the fact that no two pieces are exactly the same shape. Yours would be easier face-down than face-up, since the colors would be a distraction. Anyway . . . a few years ago I ordered a kit to make an “orrery” (an electric working scale model of the solar system). The kit had a kazillion tiny parts, with each tiny sphere having its own gear assembly, so they can rotate at different speeds. At one point I dropped a tiny screw, like the ones that hold eyeglasses together, but different. I searched the area with a fine-toothed comb, and was unable to find the screw. The damn thing won’t work if even a screw is missing, and the company wouldn’t replace it unless I bought another kit. So the model sits in my dining room, eternally unfinished. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/31 "2013-08-06T04:29:57Z")
Now who’s a wuss!? My tale of shame is a working model of a clock. You had to cut it out of paper and glue the cogs together. I gave up about half way through. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/32 "2013-08-06T05:38:46Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Nice model, I agree, but the _Olympia_ wasn’t actually part of the Great White Fleet: [Great White Fleet - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_White_Fleet#Ships) No, that was just my bad memory and my attempt to describe the ship. I’d remembered it as a Battleship, but it seems to be only a Cruiser. I couldn’t remember the name, or any details. My thrashing about was enough to prompt **Rocketeer** to supply the right model. Another really cool one I had in my youth: I believe it was an Atlas Missile launching installation. [AHA! Here it is!](http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/rm/kit_rm_1833.shtml) The cool part was the launching facility, heavy with pipelines and conduits and technical gumbo. Truly a delight. I was too young, at the time, to paint the parts, and so the result was lackluster. Ah, what I would give (well, okay, not $125) for a second chance at that one! ETA: **Panache45** : do you have a link to the orrery thingie? I’d love to have one of those; are they still in production? ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/33 "2013-08-06T06:58:04Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > I bought a scale model of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701D) with fiber-optic lighting, in 1995. It’s still in the box. :smack: This reminded me, in the back of my closet is an unbuilt [Enterprise A](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DZ00YC/ref=asc_df_B001DZ00YC2635407?smid=A3CUV2WFAVHNM&tag=dealtmp5137-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395105&creativeASIN=B001DZ00YC). I really still want to do that one someday. I think I’ve got a Robby the Robot around here someplace as well. I think I gave my nephew the half-done battle mechs… I don’t actually finish much apparently. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/34 "2013-08-06T07:30:17Z")
My brother-in-law bought himself the [Millennium Falcon](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6BDNhqReQ60/UZwishj7ihI/AAAAAAAAF_Y/-ApHGymyQSc/s1600/Falcon.jpg) model from ERTL a long time ago and I helped him put it together, and then managed to paint it very poorly for him, and he was so excited by the finished model he bought me the [X-Wing](http://www.popscreen.com/p/MTY0MjUyMjc4/STAR-WARS-XWing-Fighter-Snap-Fix-Kit-MPC-ERTL-OVP-in-Folie-f%C3%BCr) from the same set a year later, for my birthday. I never even opened it. I am completely incompetent when it comes to making model kits, no dexterity or finesse whatsoever, and he was somewhat disappointed in my lack of interest in his gift. And I was embarrassed by his disappointment. In the end I gave it back to him, where he presumably built it himself. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/35 "2013-08-06T11:05:09Z")
I humble myself before your shape matching skills, Pan ache. Truly you are as a god among men. However, I did think about turning the pieces over, but decided the challenge was Blue Poles rather than grey cardboard. But back to the Airfix tank models - they eventually went to a good home - two teenage boys with access to fireworks and a video camera. Perhaps this should go in the 'Most realistic war movie thread? ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/36 "2013-08-06T13:04:11Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > No, that was just my bad memory and my attempt to describe the ship. I’d remembered it as a Battleship, but it seems to be only a Cruiser. I couldn’t remember the name, or any details. My thrashing about was enough to prompt **Rocketeer** to supply the right model. There just aren’t that many predreadnought ship models around. The two _Olympia_s, the “_Maine_”, and just recently some outfit released one of a German predreadnought (The _Grosser Kurfurst_, I think?) So it didn’t take much thought to realize you were talking about the _Olympia_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/37 "2013-08-06T13:13:21Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **Rocketeer** : That’s the one! I just looked on ebay: $150. Amazon has some for $80 or so. Woo! Look for a more recent issue; the plastic’s the same. 😉 I just looked at eBay and there were a couple in the 10-30 dollar range. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/38 "2013-08-06T13:59:03Z")
Just looked in the closet and realized I have this, too. Set of 4 F-4s in Thunderbird trim, 1/72 scale. I remember both my sister and I got these kits (why she got one, I’ll never understand. Never built a model in her life!) I built mine 35 years ago, and still have hers new in a box! > **[USAF Thunderbirds, Revell H-195 (1978)](https://www.scalemates.com/products/product.php?id=194926)** > > Revell model kit in scale 1:72, H-195 is a rebox released in 1978 | Contents, Previews, Reviews, History + Marketplace | McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/39 "2013-08-06T14:20:05Z")
I have one of those 3D jigsaw puzzles of the Millennium Falcon. It’s been sitting in a closet for years, and about a year ago I pulled it out and started working on it. It took me a couple months to get all the sections completed, but I have not finished the final assembly. It’s one of those things where you need about four or five hands to hold everything in place without falling apart while you try to fit the sections together. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398/40 "2013-08-06T14:35:54Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Just looked in the closet and realized I have this, too. Set of 4 F-4s in Thunderbird trim, 1/72 scale… I long ago did a 1/72 scale T-38 Thunderbird like this - it was sweet!: [http://richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Aircraft/Displays/UsTeams/ThunderbirdsTalon.jpg](http://richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Aircraft/Displays/UsTeams/ThunderbirdsTalon.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/models-you-have-but-havent-built/665398.md?page=3)