I gotta say that as a sort of part-time blogger, I’m starting to really admire those guys (and gals) who manage to update their blogs daily, and even weekly. Between work, kids and fighting Weed War II in my lawn, I rarely have time to sit down and catch my breath.
However, as part of my Father’s Day goal to apply butt to couch as much as possible, I find myself with a bit of free time. I thought I might post something to get my creative juices flowing.
Biker Build-Off Inspires an Epiphany
I made a comment about scale modeling awhile back when I said I had maxed out my skills on armor and lost interest in them. I may have also mentioned that I don’t like building model airplanes. Although that’s not to say I don’t like model airplanes themselves, I’ve just always been frustrated by a couple of aspects. The main ones being seam-filling and the paint-job.
I’ve been modelling since about age 10 which would put that around 1979. There weren’t any Hasegawa or Tamiya planes on the shelf of my local hobby shops. My selection was pretty much limited to Revell and Monogram kits and I always found the parts fit on most 1/48 scale planes to be pretty poor. I just never took the time to master the art and quickly turned to 1/35 scale armor which is much more forgiving. Mess something up? Just slap a little mud on it and rock on.
So a couple of weeks ago, I was off work one day and flipping around on cable while I enjoyed a tasty lunch of Chef Boy-R-Dee spaghetti & meatballs when I came across Biker Build-Off. If you’re unfamiliar, the premise revolves around two custom motorcycle builders having 10 days to build a complete bike from the ground up.
I’m not a biker myself, but I’ve always been impressed with the skill and craftmanship these guys exhibit. As I was watching one of the builders put together a gas tank, a thought hit me. The tank in question was basically a bunch of metal plates welded together, then smoothed out (puttied?) and finally painted. There was zero resemblance between the before and after product. And I thought to myself, “if these guys can do that with a big chunk of metal, why can’t I do the same thing with a few square inches of styrene?
Instead of being intimidated by the dreaded wing to fuselage seam, I decided to embrace the challenge and actually build some planes. Towards that end, I have a shiny new Hasegawa 1/32 scale P-47D Thunderbolt sitting on my workbench waiting for me to get on it. Fall can’t get here soon enough.
Copyright 2012 It Came From The Nerd Cave