The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Chuck E wrote: Would a Revell GB model be acceptable ?

I shall be very interested in the answer to that one. I still think we need to have a SIG discussion on the Revell GB topic, as two for sure were tooled in Great Britain. If the feeling is that a CBK has to have been tooled in Britain to qualify, then obviously none of the current Airfix output will ever qualify as classic will they?
Good luck with your builds Chuck, look forward to seeing them.

Cheers
Al.

I'm inclined to say if the kit was issued by Revell GB, in a Revell GB box, then it can be a CBK. I just don't want to spread the remit to "anything sold in the UK in the classic period", so we start counting imported Heller, Monogram or Revell US kits as CBKs...

IMHO, obviously...

bestest,
M.

Revell GB has always got in 'on a technicality' in previous displays (GEMS, Box Art II) so I have no problem with them on this one either.

Matt, Chuck E, I look forward to seeing (and hearing more about) your builds soon.

As for the rest of you who haven't posted their intended builds yet I'll be knocking on doors shortly

Some recent PMs raised the issue of "my first CBK" was the same as someone else's what should I do? Well build it! The point of the display is rebuilding your first kit and telling us about your memories of it. If we end up with 15 BTKs then so be it because that shows what an important kit it was to lots of people, a shared history and a gateway kit into this addictive hobby of ours.

Ok, since I am planning on making the trip to my first SMW (and therefore my first CBK display, among a couple others) I will have to try and get something done to support this.

Been racking my brain (ouch) trying to think of my first CBKs but not having much luck.

Use to sit and watch my Dad build models when I was 5 (would be early 1966) when we lived in Biloxi, MS. I finally got to build when I turned 6, later that year, and actually don't remember Dad building anything after I started. My first kits were probably Revell 72nd scale WWII fighters with Revell and Aurora probably being my main stays, pretty much all aircraft at that time. Most were probably bought at the T, G, and Y 5 and 10 store, a little grocery store near my house or, on rare occasions, the hobby shop at the Edgewater Mall.

After I was 10, we moved to Duluth, MN and I found a little hobby shop downtown that carried all kinds of kits. I also found an issue of Scale Modeler (the US mag) and I was hooked. An actual magazine about models. I started a small scale armor phase and built, Hasaga, Fujimi, Nitto, Matchbox and Airfix but the one I can distinctly remember buying was the 88mm and halftrack. I was big on the North African Campaign and that was a must have. I have picked another one of these up and will be trying that for my first CBK Armor.

A lot of my Airfix kits were actually rereleases under the MPC brand here in the US and I bought all kinds of them. They even put out a bunch of diorama kits (like the Stalingrad kit mentioned above) and I had all of the D-Day sets (another battle I studied a lot).

Also still have my first CBK Airliner. Easy to remember because it is still the only airliner kit I ever built. The 1/144th scale DC-9. The story here is a little different. I found a build article in and old Scale Modeler where this guy used 2 of the Aurora 72nd scale kits to make Big Bunny, Hugh Hefner's private plane. We were in Montana at this time and I was old enough to look at a Hugh's popular magazine without catching too much flak from my Mom (hey, that is my story and I am sticking to it) and one of the issues had more info on the plane including some interior shots (think I still have those pages in my reference stash). Anyway, it just looked fun and would be different so I picked up the kit and went at it. This one is still in my junk pile missing the landing gear but think the rest of the kit is there. May need a bit more work as filling in some of the windows to match my references was not all together successful. If anyone has the landing gear from this plane in their stash and wouldn't mind parting with them, I can rebuild her.

Both of these should fit in the luggage without causing too much fuss (along with something for the What If tables, the Sci-Fi tables and maybe Britmodeler) so put me down for them.

Had a bit of a stroke of luck this week as I had asked my folks to have a search at the family home to see if they could locate mine and my Dad's first attempt at the 1/48th Airfix Mosquito. Well they found it and its all intact (minus the Browning gun barrels!) and they've sent it down to me.

It does need a lot of dust removing but would you like it as part of the display James? I was thinking of putting it next to my current re-build of the kit as part of the back story element.

Regards

Tom

TomW wrote:It does need a lot of dust removing but would you like it as part of the display James? I was thinking of putting it next to my current re-build of the kit as part of the back story element.

A then and now pair of builds fits in perfectly Tom.

I'll get my Hoover out and deal with 20 years of dust then James!

Regards

Tom

I feel that the Victory might be a build too far for me this year, my moulding is quite warped in places and in trying to straighten things out I've split a hull half slightly also all that rigging is putting me off something chronic.

If it is permissable I'd like to make a substitution for one of my other earliest CBK ship builds in the form of the Airfix 1/600th Queen Elizabeth 2, I bought this aged 9 after going on a cross-channel ferry for the first time and it was the only passenger ship my LMS had to satisfy my desire to build something similar. I remember it didn't float well in the bath but liked to turn turtle

Regards

Tom