[Misc] Any Other Old Gits Build Airfix Kits?

[Jack Straw]

As an uninitiated ten-year old, I remember getting very excited when I first saw the transfers of the Flying Fortress. "A bit o' lace."
https://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=13707&manu=airfix

 

[GT49er]

Glue everywhere, especially on my fingers. Bits that were supposed to be moving parts didn't move at all. Bits put together only to find there was a bit that should be connected before those two were glued together. Bits dropping off. Big bits dropping off. Other bits still in the box.................

Boy, was I glad when I became a grown up and could stop!

 

[Publius Ovidius]

I haven’t made any plastic kits for a while now, although I have about 15 kits in my stash and at some time I will go back to building them all.

Although I saw one of those airfix kits that someone had painted the kit on the sprue and put it in a frame and I had a go at that.

I’ll dig up the photo.

 

[Lethargic]

Shops - I seem to recall one on the main road out of Worthing on the left just before the schools?

In regards to soldiers me and younger brother used to do Napoleonic Wargaming with 25mm lead/tin figurines (all properly painted up of course).

Bloody expensive to buy Hinchcliffe figures unless you had access to silicone rubber and lead sheet so you could do 'bootleg' figures. Which we had...

Again seeing what I do for a living these days the exposure to lead fume (in our kitchen!) somehow didn't bother either of us.

We must have made hundreds of them before I got bored with wargaming and discovered kart racing, booze, spliffs and girls in the mid 1970's.

Sussex Models Centre on Broadwater Road.
.
https://www.sussex-model-centre.co.uk/

Sent from my CPH2173 using Tapatalk

 

[zefarelly]

Me and Zefereli were masters of the Tamiya in our day and often supplied free by Gamleys. Still make the odd kit every other year. I have a collection of WW1 bi-planes and a small millennium falcon all painted dark blue hiding on the dark blue ceiling of my summer house. I've got a Battleship Potemkin and a Sunderland flying boat, unmade and waiting for my life as a lonely old man some day in the future.

We had most of the Eastern front circa 1942 . . . And loads of French resistance fighters, mostly hibrid built as allyou could readily get was Germans, more Germans and te odd English toff. . . .Alitalia made a partisan kit and we had several which we mixed up. . . . Then we went desert rats, Pink jeeps!

Rain stopped play there and we painted 20+ Subbuteo teams to play out the whole of the World cup finals 1986.

 

[Comrade Sam]

We had most of the Eastern front circa 1942 . . . And loads of French resistance fighters, mostly hibrid built as allyou could readily get was Germans, more Germans and te odd English toff. . . .Alitalia made a partisan kit and we had several which we mixed up. . . . Then we went desert rats, Pink jeeps!

Rain stopped play there and we painted 20+ Subbuteo teams to play out the whole of the World cup finals 1986.

Those were the days!

 

[US Seagull]

I used to enjoy building kits as a kid, but would get frustrated when I inevitably ended up with the cockpit clouded with glue and then ultimately stepped on the model and broke it a month or two later.

I've often felt like I'd like to really get into it as an adult, but I don't really have the patience.

One thing I have found recently and really enjoyed is the Airfix QUICKBUILD kits. They basically fit together like LEGO, but the end result really doesn't look like it's build of LEGO! And it's quick enough to build, pretty cheap (especially compared to LEGO) and the only potential frustration is lining up the stickers at the end correctly.

I built a Spitfire, ME 109, a P-51D Mustang and a F-22.

I kinda wish they did some bigger aircraft too. I'd love to do a Lancaster or similar.

 

[Boroseagull]

Oh...Airfix kits.......my long lost youth. Used to buy them in Woolies or the Model Airdrome for 2/- (2 shillings for the younger readers). When I had too many for my small bedroom in Greenfield Cres., I would hang them from an apple tree (James Grieve in case you ask) in the garden and shoot them down with my Webley .177 air rifle.

 

[spongy]

Oh...Airfix kits.......my long lost youth. Used to buy them in Woolies or the Model Airdrome for 2/- (2 shillings for the younger readers). When I had too many for my small bedroom in Greenfield Cres., I would hang them from an apple tree (James Grieve in case you ask) in the garden and shoot them down with my Webley .177 air rifle.

I made loads as a kid, even painted them, so ****ing annoying when you realised you were supposed to paint inside the cockpit before gluing the screen on.

All of mine succumbed to a BSA Meteor .177 between 1989-1994 when I sold it to a mate.

Wish I hadn't now, brings back many memories of fishing with my Dad (RIP sept 1st 2021) up Barcombe Mills and had permission from The Browns to shoot any rats and mink we came across.

God I miss that rifle, on the rare occasion I head into Lewes I ALWAYS have a nosey in the fishing shop behind Harvey's near their outlet on Cliffe High St and drool over the air rifles.

I was sitting here dreaming of spunking a few hundred on Lego but am now thinking I'd rather go buy a new rifle.......

 

[JamesAndTheGiantHead]

I mostly do Tamiya tanks in 1:35 scale, but have got plans for a Lanc diorama.

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

As an uninitiated ten-year old, I remember getting very excited when I first saw the transfers of the Flying Fortress. "A bit o' lace."
https://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=13707&manu=airfix

Mmmm the artwork on some of box lids is superb and goes a long way towards actually selling the model, particularly the case if a kid is buying it.

In fact there are collectors just of the boxes, and the contents are left unmade. As for the decals with that Fort, they will be all but useless with a circa sixty year old kit!

 

[Fignon's Ponytail]

My best mate has got into modelling the last year, and recently completed this Bf110c. Hes a paramedic, & studying for his next qualification, so finds it incredibly relaxing to do in his "down time



I love the look of model kits when they're finished, but never really got into building them myself - I just dont have the patience. I did used to collect the small scale soldier figure sets, but never painted them...just used them in battle setups when I was a kid. Used to love collecting them and had dozens of sets, but it had to be the 1:32 Airfix type...no others would do. They were superb, even left unpainted.



Until recently my company produced a lot of the Airfix packaging, so I was always getting jobs through with all the new artwork to work on - and still have a few stored away in the factory next door.

 

[Norman Potting]

I loved Airfix kits as a child/teenager and it is definitely on my "to do" list to start up again, used to love making them and hope to get a bit more free time in the near future to start back up my collection and hope to revisit the models I made. Thanks for reminding me!!

I recall when Airfix series 1 kits (Spitfire, Stuka etc.) came in small plastic bags with header stapled on with the instructions.

 

[Hampden Park]

used to do this when i was a sprog, couldn't be bothered to paint them though

 

[maltaseagull]

used to do this when i was a sprog, couldn't be bothered to paint them though

I couldn't ever get the painting right so ended up converting the single seaters to night fighters

 

[m20gull]

Glue everywhere, especially on my fingers. Bits that were supposed to be moving parts didn't move at all. Bits put together only to find there was a bit that should be connected before those two were glued together. Bits dropping off. Big bits dropping off. Other bits still in the box.................

Boy, was I glad when I became a grown up and could stop!

That sounds like me now! I must grow up.

 

[rippleman]

As a kid I built airfix planes and had them "flying" from my bedroom ceiling fron bits of cotton. In my early teens I switched to Tamiya models - mostly tanks and similar.

Then a long gap before I bought my son a Warhammer 40K starter set from Games Workshop. Turned out he had no interest but my daughter did and I built up a huge army (of now discontinued metal figures) and I have more crap now than I know what to do with. I stopped playing many years ago but I still have a lot of stuff to paint and dip in now and again.

As most will know, Airfix is now owned by Hornby. Great series on tv shows the tech that they now use to develop and build new models. Well worth a watch. Some of those model railway layouts have me dribbling!

https://uktvplay.co.uk/shows/hornby-a-model-world/watch-online

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

Planes when a kid, then Napoleonic wargames with Esci and Airfix 20mm soldiers until I discovered boobs and beer. Thirty years later I play ancient wargames with 15mm metal figures that I paint myself.

What might interest some is there are now games you can play with model aircraft like https://uk.airfix.com/products/airfix-blood-red-skies-battle-britain-a1500. There is a smaller scale version that you can play on a 3' square table too - https://www.blood-red-skies.com/

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Yep, another Airfix kit boy here - early 1970's with dog-fight enactments hanging down from cotton off my bedroom ceiling
Painting and fixing the transfers was always fiddly and never ended up looking anything like the picture on the box.

My mid to later teens I found motorbikes and so all my flying beauties all crashed and burned - the thick, black, acrid smoke appearing very realistic in the back garden.

 

[wunt be druv]

I recall when Airfix series 1 kits (Spitfire, Stuka etc.) came in small plastic bags with header stapled on with the instructions.

Absolutely...blimey that rings some very distant bells!! ..and "Dogfight doubles where you bought a Spitfire & ME109 or Corsair and a Zero to pit their wits against each other..great times.