Who was building in the 60s?

[Wickersham Humble]

Craig,

Began my paper route in 1956 at age 11, but my bro was a full partner, and only 9 years old!  The Klamath Falls OR 'Herald & News' delivered every evening M-S, than early morning on Sunday.  We had half a mountain/desert town of three-thousand, two other bros had all the other side of Hwy 395, or Main St.  Sounds not too bad, but consider we had frost seven months of the year, and the burg was spread out over about six square miles; bad streets, often deep snow, and very short days, it seemed!  After school, I typically had to practice my trombone one-half hour, do homework, often Little League or elementary basketball practice, and help with dinner.  Oh, and ride my bike a mile to the bus station, get my bundle of papers, roll them, and take my route.  Saturdays once a month we included the dreaded 'collecting' from the subscribers, some of whom wouldn't answer their doors to us!  Lumbering town, men usually laid-off on UI all winter. If they didn't pay, the paper still charged us for their product; our profits making up the deficit.  Admittedly, some nights Dad would take us on both route loops in the '56 Dodge Sierra two-door wagon.  And yep, we were capitalists among our crowd; but Dad made us put a high percentage into our savings accounts; 'College; you don't want to dig ditches for a living, do you?'  Nor be involved with the newspaper game, either!  Besides, we both got very strong leg muscles, pedaling 24-in. American bikes all those incredible miles per week, and eventually new 3-speed 'racing' bikes -- though those big, thin tires sure didn't have any traction or flotation on snow!  When I graduated to become a city employee at age 15 in '60, our youngest bro took over my territory.  He was savvier than we; he paid out sister to do his collections, and she was hard to refuse!  I worked for the manager of the local airport on weekends as line-boy, fuelling airplanes, cutting weeds, washing window (plane and office) and reading 'Flying Magazine' instead of doing my algebra work.  Occasionally on stormy winter days, we had no business at all, so I made model cars at his desk, and kept the old oil stove going so as not to freeze up entirely.  It enabled me to buy a '55 Chevy Delray 'post' with hot 265/floor stick/4.11 gears, and dual pipes.  It was dechromed, lowered, pinstriped, and had red rims with 'Hollywood Moon' wheelcovers over red stock rims -- oh yeah, and full lakes pipes!  Lovely money pit!  I used to baby-sit, and parked the rod blocks away from my jobs so pals wouldn't catch on! But, it got me another job; one dad was local Forest District Ranger, and in '64 I got on a fire crew, and worked my way through college for five fire seasons!  That, and playing bass in our family band.  'Louie-Louie' all the way!  But that's another story...  Check out my nostalgia adventure books on Kindle (search Wick Humble, or A Place on Mars series) for a slice of teen life, 1959-64!  Ole' Wick

 

[TonyK]

Always enjoy reading young life stories. We all have them. Got to think kids nowadays don't have interesting childhood experiences like we did.

[richslocum]

What… no one stole moms nail polish for pearl and metal ‘flake’ paint jobs?

[Dave G.]

16 hours ago, TonyK said:

Always enjoy reading young life stories. We all have them. Got to think kids nowadays don't have interesting childhood experiences like we did.

Today around here kids can't work till 16. I think it's at 14 they can get a paper location, like standing in front of a bakery or drug store selling what they can at certain hours of the day only. Gone are the routes in our degenerate society today. It's soccer mom and now Dad era. Families pay out big money to have their kids going nuts in league competitions, taken more seriously that God Himself. Where weekends and even many early week day evenings whole families eaten up with that BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. Then those stupid computer games. Homework is an exercise in how best to operate in google, download, print, done. Now wit AI, it can all be done for you, more time for games.

Sorry for the attitude, but it's something that irks me.

[bobss396]

I got working papers when I turned 14. It was through the school district office. Most of my jobs were cash and carry. I sold flowers by the side of the road for a neighbor. Mainly spring holidays, up through Mother's Day.

I cut lawns, I had a garbage picked mower that I fixed up, towed behind my bike with 1 hand.

It was a junkies mentality, get enough money for the next fix, aka another model. We did chores for a disabled vet my dad knew from the Masonic lodge.

At 50 cents an hour... but at age 10, we were mixing concrete and doing painting. For BIG jobs, he wrote up a formal contract that I had to sign. I signed up to scrape the rust off his front porch railing and paint it for $3.

[TooOld]

On 1/31/2025 at 12:14 AM, CabDriver said:

Ok, winding the clock back even FURTHER…I’m about to start work on a Monogram Midget - their first car kit, from the early 50s

Anyone here ‘experienced’ enough to have been building 70 years back?  I’m interested in learning some more about the paint products back then in particular…I’m guessing Pactra enamels were the hot ticket - but what about products for metal finishes?  I’m guessing the model railroad guys had some solutions figured out already but what were the car guys using?

Not quite that far back , I started in the early 60's and was "allowed" to start painting my models by '62 .  Definitely remember using only Pactra 'Namel in both the small bottles and spray cans . No primer with the spray cans , they went on very very smooth even for a 7-8 year old .

As for metal finishes "Rub-N-Buff" was recommended by the magazines back then and my Mom used it on her ceramics so I definitely tried it on my models . The gold and silver looked great !

[Dave G.]

Testers enamels came out in 1929, fwiw. I personally started building models in 1958, I was 8. The first paints I used was Testor's, since in our area everyone sold that line. Pactra enamels showed up later around us, and had some great color options and great finish.

[Bainford]

1 hour ago, Dave G. said:

Testers enamels came out in 1929,

Wow! That's very interesting, I never would have thought they were around that long ago. I suppose the target market was balsa plane builders. Were their first products airplane dope?

[Dave G.]

1 hour ago, Bainford said:

Wow! That's very interesting, I never would have thought they were around that long ago. I suppose the target market was balsa plane builders. Were their first products airplane dope?

Oh ya, airplane dope was around for models and also real aircraft which were fabric covered. Like the bi planes and Piper Cubs or Aeronca aiircraft.

Rubber band free flight models were popular. As were control line glow engine powered models.

[Musclecarbuilder]

This is a really cool thread! I love reading everybody's stories on how their modeling career was started! 

[Bucky]

I started in '63 with a snap together '62 Studebaker Lark in 1/32 scale. Rubber band powered, no less! I was around 8 years old at the time. Fast forward a few years and I remember building the '63 Ford F-100 kit, painting it with a brush and a small bottle of Testors red enamel. I have given thought to building the current issue of the F-100 in the same fashion, along with another using my current methods. (Which may not be any better.) A lot of the models I built back then were unpainted, but they had enough Testors tube glue to be considered indestructible!!!

[Oliver77]

I started with Hawk airplane kits and Bachmann Birds! Man I wish Atlantis could get those tools.

Then the 63 Corvette came out and I just had to have one. It was built and rebuilt, added felt upholstery, brush paint, woodburning pen to melt-weld plastic (those fumes omg) and conversion to slot car body.

I have a bunch of parts from early kits, ( those that escaped firecrackers!)

Regards,

Jeff Oliver

[Old Buckaroo]

Jeff that box is super cool, that is the first time I had seen that art !!

[Wickersham Humble]

Quote

"Learn only what is in a lesson: don't be like the cat who sits on a hot stove lid -- she'll never sit on a hot one again, but she won't sit on a cold one either!"  Mark Twain

I've been slowing 'restoring' my old kit that deserve it, so time consuming.  Among the hot rods, it amazing how many of the frames have become toast, whereas the rest is often fixable, or good to go.  I save nice looking sprue material, so that and Evergreen/Plastruct let me make replacements.  Also, any old kit that struggled by with plastic axles/spindles is usually responsive to conversion to metal (so old skool!) axles, which are stronger -- and harder to glue solid to the wheel.  I often replace the front hub with short pieces of plastic tubing, and make short axles of brads that have the same diameter.  Sometimes the old rims, like 1/24 Monogram (or whatever scale some of their OLD cars were: 1/20 is sometimes noted in magazines) the tubing can reduce the size of the axle/spindle to be compatible without being obvious.  At my age, I've made a hierarchy list of kits to finish, based on degree of completion and desirability; sad to note ones that I may never live to finish, especially when I've 'been working on them' for 60+ years.  Had two '62 Styline kits that I began that year in the IPMS Dragonlady (YC, CA) Show last month!   Ole' Wick

BTW: anybody having trouble getting these posted "Can't find that page" msg comes up under MCM heading page?!