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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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! 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?
This reminded me, in the back of my closet is an unbuilt Enterprise A. 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.
My brother-in-law bought himself the Millennium Falcon 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 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.
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?
There just aren’t that many predreadnought ship models around. The two Olympias, 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.
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!
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.
I just looked at eBay and there were a couple in the 10-30 dollar range.
