Where have all the scale modelers gone?

While it would be nice to have younger people in the hobby, it is not essential. My best examples are model railroading and wooden sailing ship modeling. These both have always been primarily adult hobbies. Sure, there were a few teenagers in each (I was one of the few) they have been primarily adult. Yet, the hobbies are as strong today as ever.

When I was a kid, certainly there were many other kids building models. But what we built were Revell and Monogram kits that were pretty basic. They were ALL styrene. There was virtually NO aftermarket business. Then, for decades there were aftermarket decal sources.

Now, for so many kits we can buy extra photoetch accessories, resin detail parts, conversions, etc. Scale modelers have never had it so good.

I suspect mail order and internet sales are taking a toll of ALL forms of retailers, not just hobby shops.

So enjoy the golden era of scale modeling (the present). Don't long for the good old days when if you wanted an obscure model you scratched it, and if you didn't want to scratch-build or heavily modify kits, you had little to pick from. You painted models with hardware store enamel 'cause model airplane DOPE attacked plastic and no one was selling plastic model paints. All paints were glossy. If you wanted a flat finish you added talcum powder to the paint.

While it would be nice to have younger people in the hobby, it is not essential. My best examples are model railroading and wooden sailing ship modeling. These both have always been primarily adult hobbies. Sure, there were a few teenagers in each (I was one of the few) they have been primarily adult. Yet, the hobbies are as strong today as ever.

When I was a kid, certainly there were many other kids building models. But what we built were Revell and Monogram kits that were pretty basic. They were ALL styrene. There was virtually NO aftermarket business. Then, for decades there were aftermarket decal sources.

Now, for so many kits we can buy extra photoetch accessories, resin detail parts, conversions, etc. Scale modelers have never had it so good.

I suspect mail order and internet sales are taking a toll of ALL forms of retailers, not just hobby shops.

So enjoy the golden era of scale modeling (the present). Don't long for the good old days when if you wanted an obscure model you scratched it, and if you didn't want to scratch-build or heavily modify kits, you had little to pick from. You painted models with hardware store enamel 'cause model airplane DOPE attacked plastic and no one was selling plastic model paints. All paints were glossy. If you wanted a flat finish you added talcum powder to the paint.

When my daughter was young, she wanted an HO train set. She had always liked Matchbox cars and we would buy them for her until she had about

100 of them. She would play for hours with the cars on a 3x3' piece of sheetrock with hand drawn roads. When we bought the HO set for her one Christmas, we let her play with them for a while on the supplied track. I then built a layout for her on a 4x8 plywood table with added track, buildings, trees, roads and crossings, and landscaping. I decided that the train cars looked too clean, so I weathered them all. :-)

Most of the "older modelers" I know started out very young. If young people are not building models then as the population ages things are bound to die out. I wonder how many of the folks on this board started out modeling as an adult. I'll bet very few.

I am lucky to be in Colorado as we have many Hobby Lobby's, Colpar Hobbies has 2 very large well stocked stores in Denver as well as Caboose Hobbies which is know all across the USA for their estensive inventory. There is even a store in Colorado Springs that specializes in out of production stuff models.

Did you add grafitti to the cars like 90% of the rolling stock nowadays? There is someone out there selling decals for that. I was aghast. If I'm spending time building nice cars that have prototypical lettering and weathering why would I want to deface them that way? I can't stand it on the real thing. ;]

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

I know the one you are talking about Count. Complete Hobbies on Tejon. I made it a habit to thank the owner everytime I was there and to make sure they knew that I was giving them first crack on a new model before going to an online source. Great staff too. They also list in Fine Scale every month.