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Barney Baxter and why I model

How many of you here are old enough to remember Barney Baxter?

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Barney was a favorite of mine when I was a kid and in the Sunday funny pages Frank Miller always included an airplane that wasn't a real airplane, but something of his own design. That appealed to the artist in me and back then I drew and drew airplanes that were variations of existing ones or were my own design. I did a lot of modeling as a kid and sometimes I changed the design of a model.

Today I am 75, an artist and retired art teacher. Also, due to my wife's illness I am a house-husband. I get up at 6 and do art work until 10 or

11, then I tend to my household duties. Evenings are my hobby time.

My primary hobby is restoring pre-World War 2 radios, like the ones I listened to as a kid. I was an Electronics Technician in the Navy back in the vacuum tube days. I can do the electronics, but my joy is in restoring a beat up old cabinet. A restored radio is a more substantial product that I can give to family or friends.

However I can't give up modeling and my reasons are purely selfish. When I have the time I work on my German jet. I've changed the wing design three times and am working on the fourth rudder shape. I'll probably never finish this model and I don't care. "Oh, look what grampa made" has nothing to do with it. I don't need a model to dislay.

I need the time alone, by myself, in an activity I love that shuts out all other concerns. I love the hand work, the cutting, shaping, sanding, gluing. I love the design considerations where I try to create a design that has a Teutonic feel to it.

Anyone can say, "hey, old man, with your radios and your airplane, you must be in your second childhood" and they may be right. No matter! I am very content having my chidhood be the inspiration for my hobbies.

Do any of you care to share your personal reasons for why you model?

I put photos of my model on the binaries page.

Stewart

Reply to
Stewart Schooley
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I'm one of those postwar Whippersnappers but one of my current hobbies is learning about the aviation comics of the war years. I'm even going about assembling a collection of airplane models, each one honoring a comics aviator character.

Baxter's Devil Cat was based largely on the Crusader light twin transport/airliner, but if I were building a model, I'd use a Fokker G4 kit and change the engines to inlines. I'm building a Polish Zubr bomber as Smilin' Jack's "Lady Halitosis", tho' a Fiat BR20 is a better match.

Sometimes people post old comic strips on the binaries forii. I often troll Xusenet in search of old comics.

Stephen "FPilot" Bierce/IPMS #35922 {Sig Quotes Removed on Request}

Reply to
Stephen Bierce

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