RE: Absolutley OT: Growing Up
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:38 am
I was aware of Airfix before the 1980s. Well stocked model shops would carry a few of their kits, but being imports, the US made kits of the same subjects were usually cheaper.
I think it was 1978 or 1979 that General Mills bought Airfix and created the MPC brand which were Airfix kits molded and re-released here. The markings of the American editions usually only had decals for one version rather than the wider range usually provided in the Airfix versions.
I always liked larger scale kits and got most of the Airfix 1/24 scale aircraft reboxed as MPC. They had these points you could collect from the side of the box and get free kits from the points (you did have to pay postage). I managed to cobble together enough points for one 1/24 scale smaller plane like the Spitfire and one 1/24 scale Harrier or Stuka. I sent in my points and they must have screwed up somewhere. They sent me three Harriers and three Spitfires. I was in hog heaven. I later sold a couple of them unbuilt on Ebay, but I still have a complete set of the Airfix 1/24 scale aircraft and a few duplicates.
My now ex brother-in-law gave me a few more 1/24 scale kits when he divorced my sister and sort of walked away from everything. He was prone to dramatic gestures like that. At that point she was just sort of "whatever".
I never built much 1/72 scale and that was Airfix's primary aircraft scale. Some of those early Airfix kits really went overboard on the rivet detail. You could file your nails with the rivet detail on some of them. I was more into Monogram which had a wide range of 1/48 scale kits. I lusted after my father's 1/32 scale Hasegawa kits, but those were really expensive. I'd get some Revell 1/32 scale kits from time to time.
In ship kits the Europeans standardized before the US did. A lot of the American made ship kits out there are still old "box scale" kits originally released in the 1950s. You see Revell-Monogram kits with listed scales like 1/437 scale. That's because the kit was scaled to fit into a standard box size instead of to a standard scale.
A lot of the European ship kits are 1/400 scale, but the Japanese and Chinese have kind of established the two major ship scales at 1/700 and 1/350 which makes the European scale a bit of an odd duck these days. I did get an Airfix Ark Royal in 1/400 scale. She was probably one of the nicest looking pre-war carriers.
And then Tamiya set the scale standard for armor at 1/35 scale. Many others followed their lead. Before that Airfix and Monogram released a few armor models in 1/32 scale which is close, but I think Tamiya eclipsed them. In the US we had Aurora with 1/48 scale armor and some companies did 1/72 or 1/76 scale armor (Airfix, ESCI, and Fujimi primarily), but 1/72 scale armor today is a sort of also ran scale.
I started building models at three and I went through a lot of them. Thinking back I don't know what my parents were thinking letting a three year old use liquid glue for styrene. I never spilled it, but I did flick it into my eyes a few times. I learned very early how to wash out my eyes. After the first couple of times I also learned not to say anything about it. My mother was a worry wart.
Most of my early modeling was aircraft. They have always been my favorite and it was my father's interest too. Though I did branch out into armor and ships. I remember obsessively building a 1/48 scale Churchill from Aurora in my room pretty late at night. I may have snuck out of bed. All those small wheels were doing my head in.
Bill
I think it was 1978 or 1979 that General Mills bought Airfix and created the MPC brand which were Airfix kits molded and re-released here. The markings of the American editions usually only had decals for one version rather than the wider range usually provided in the Airfix versions.
I always liked larger scale kits and got most of the Airfix 1/24 scale aircraft reboxed as MPC. They had these points you could collect from the side of the box and get free kits from the points (you did have to pay postage). I managed to cobble together enough points for one 1/24 scale smaller plane like the Spitfire and one 1/24 scale Harrier or Stuka. I sent in my points and they must have screwed up somewhere. They sent me three Harriers and three Spitfires. I was in hog heaven. I later sold a couple of them unbuilt on Ebay, but I still have a complete set of the Airfix 1/24 scale aircraft and a few duplicates.
My now ex brother-in-law gave me a few more 1/24 scale kits when he divorced my sister and sort of walked away from everything. He was prone to dramatic gestures like that. At that point she was just sort of "whatever".
I never built much 1/72 scale and that was Airfix's primary aircraft scale. Some of those early Airfix kits really went overboard on the rivet detail. You could file your nails with the rivet detail on some of them. I was more into Monogram which had a wide range of 1/48 scale kits. I lusted after my father's 1/32 scale Hasegawa kits, but those were really expensive. I'd get some Revell 1/32 scale kits from time to time.
In ship kits the Europeans standardized before the US did. A lot of the American made ship kits out there are still old "box scale" kits originally released in the 1950s. You see Revell-Monogram kits with listed scales like 1/437 scale. That's because the kit was scaled to fit into a standard box size instead of to a standard scale.
A lot of the European ship kits are 1/400 scale, but the Japanese and Chinese have kind of established the two major ship scales at 1/700 and 1/350 which makes the European scale a bit of an odd duck these days. I did get an Airfix Ark Royal in 1/400 scale. She was probably one of the nicest looking pre-war carriers.
And then Tamiya set the scale standard for armor at 1/35 scale. Many others followed their lead. Before that Airfix and Monogram released a few armor models in 1/32 scale which is close, but I think Tamiya eclipsed them. In the US we had Aurora with 1/48 scale armor and some companies did 1/72 or 1/76 scale armor (Airfix, ESCI, and Fujimi primarily), but 1/72 scale armor today is a sort of also ran scale.
I started building models at three and I went through a lot of them. Thinking back I don't know what my parents were thinking letting a three year old use liquid glue for styrene. I never spilled it, but I did flick it into my eyes a few times. I learned very early how to wash out my eyes. After the first couple of times I also learned not to say anything about it. My mother was a worry wart.
Most of my early modeling was aircraft. They have always been my favorite and it was my father's interest too. Though I did branch out into armor and ships. I remember obsessively building a 1/48 scale Churchill from Aurora in my room pretty late at night. I may have snuck out of bed. All those small wheels were doing my head in.
Bill
