Introduced my 12 year old son to the joys of plastic model building this weekend. Seems like kids nowadays are not interested in the things we were as kids, especially working with their hands or building things. I used to spend hours in my room building plastic models, my ceiling should have collasped with all the aircraft hanging from it!

Well here she is, my sons AH64. It was a snap-together kit for his first, he did the assembly and major painting, Dad drew upon his crusty old memory from working on Apaches 12 years ago to paint the details.

Some details include: added seat belts, detailed instrument panels, NVG position lights that actually glow at night, detailed panel lines and some weathering.


Here she is!

That is sweet! I used to build alot of models. I never did paint any though!

Nice looking model!
I used to build armor dioramas and still have many boxes of kits in the closet and garage that I hope to build one day (wishful thinking). Model building is largely a forgotten art these days since kids are more interested in playing video games or watching TV than sitting at a desk and gluing small pieces of plastic together. And then there is the prohibitive cost of scale models; kits that we used to spend five bucks on are now going for $60 bucks and higher. If a kid has that kind of money to spend, he will spend it on video games before he uses it for a model.

That's a great job!  Most importantly, it is a model of something that flies......copter, plane, rocket...if it flies it's cool.  Kudos to you for involving your son in such a great hobby.

You did an excellent job on those Hellfires.  I love to see detail like that.

My twin girls (almost 4 years old) and I built each of them a "Barbie Rocket" last week, painted them Barbie pink w/ some strange Krylon that I found on the clearance shelf at Wal-Mart.  

build a couple more then get him a model rocket kit, but don't let him know they can blast off, play it like it's just another model. then suprise him with the engines and blast off kit, launch it on a calm day, and watch the smiles.

cool, when you gonna blow it up or burn it. Thats part of growing up

Quoted: build a couple more then get him a model rocket kit, but don't let him know they can blast off, play it like it's just another model. then suprise him with the engines and blast off kit, launch it on a calm day, and watch the smiles.

I second that emotion.    After all, I AM the Arkansas Rocketman.

BTW, QUIB, if you'll IM me your mailing address I'll send you a scale kit of the Hellfire missile that really flies.....it's 2.6" diameter, flies on "D" or "E" size rocket engines, I bet the kid would get a kick out of that too.

SWEET, I used to build models when I was kid, lots of them.

Everything from Star Trek, to planes to naval ships, carriers were my favorite ships.

BUT what I loved building more than anything, was MONSTER MODELS, I had Dracula, the Mummy, frankenstien, and a bunch of others, GODZILLA, and they had glow in the dark pieces on them, hands and faces, tombstones.....

Ahhhhhhh youth, and the nights I laid awake looking at all the glowing hands reaching out for me to KILL ME,

Quoted: build a couple more then get him a model rocket kit, but don't let him know they can blast off, play it like it's just another model. then suprise him with the engines and blast off kit, launch it on a calm day, and watch the smiles.

Ha-ha! Too late for that! He all ready knows about Estes rockets, we went through that phase! There's just no place close by to launch them. Plus, Dad keeps having these visions of tube launching them horizontally from the shoulder!