# Know the warning signs of scale modeling.



## BWolfe (Sep 24, 2013)

Hopefully some will enjoy the humor in this:


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

I was encouraged as a teen to do it, so I would not be tempted by drugs, alcohol, tobacco and sex.It worked. But, now as an adult, to break the habit, I need to take up drugs, alcohol, tobacco and sex.....go figure.


----------



## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I stared so young - it's hopeless for me now.


----------



## veedubb67 (Jul 11, 2003)

We had this printed on a poster and hung at our local hobby store. Many of these were inside jokes related to the local model builders, but I'm sure everyone can sympathize:

*ADVANCED MODELERS SYNDROME (AMS)* 

A chronic malady that strikes most modelers eventually.

Symptoms Include:

1. Not being able to build anything straight out of the box.
2. Spending more money on aftermarket parts and accessories than the cost of the original kit.
3. Opening a box and your first thought is: How can I light this? 
4. You super-detail the cockpit or engine compartment only to close it up inside the fuselage or hull and hide your work. 
5. Never display finished pieces, possibly because you've never actually finished one.
6. You have more opened and half-built kits than you do unopened kits.
7. You’re long past the point where the opened, half-built, and unopened kits are sufficient to insulate your attic, garage, and the shed you built next to the garage to store all your previously acquired opened, half-built, and unopened kits. 
8. You bought that new uber-kit because it was on sale, even though you knew that the only way you’d complete it (to say nothing of actually displaying the bloody thing!) at home would involve rearranging one or more large pieces of furniture—and only after the inevitable discussion with your spouse/significant other on the subject of: you want to put that thing where in my home?
9. The surgical operating suites at Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic are shabbily equipped compared to your modeling area.
10. You are heavily restricted in your modeling activities because you cannot get to your modeling table or tools due to the kit boxes piled up around that area and any adjacent areas - so you have to go browse for more kits online as that’s the closest you will get to actual modeling for the foreseeable future.
11. When you see half walls, closets, shelves, flat furniture tops, tables, etc., in your home that are not otherwise occupied, you automatically view them as potential kit storage space--subject to terms of item 8, above.
12. You use vital parts from forty-seven different kits to make a unique, original model (or to reproduce a starship from your favorite screen epic exactly the way the original was made).
13. Conversely, the remainder of those same forty-seven kits go into your spares ‘box’, which by this time is larger than the chest-type freezer in your basement.
14. Your modeling bookshelves contain more reference works than the local public library.


Rob
Iwata Padawan


----------



## BWolfe (Sep 24, 2013)

veedubb67 said:


> We had this printed on a poster and hung at our local hobby store. Many of these were inside jokes related to the local model builders, but I'm sure everyone can sympathize:
> 
> *ADVANCED MODELERS SYNDROME (AMS)*
> 
> ...


1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 all definitely apply to me and to a lesser degree 12 and 13 (I have 4 AMT Man In Space Kits that have been scavenged to some degree for parts on at least 3 different models, a Hawk, a DY-50 and the Moon Hopper).



krl


----------



## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

1-4 definitely apply to me. 

Another one you could add would be...

15. Going to the dollar or hardware store and and instead of seeing toys, booklights, office supplies, tools, or whatever, you see objects that you can adapt for use in a model.


----------



## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

That's a good enough epitaph for any modeler.


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

Trekkriffic said:


> 1-4 definitely apply to me.
> 
> Another one you could add would be...
> 
> 15. Going to the dollar or hardware store and and instead of seeing toys, booklights, office supplies, tools, or whatever, you see objects that you can adapt for use in a model.


I am a witness to the truths stated above.

No. 6 is my worst offense, so to speak. I do try to finish models, really I do....


----------



## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I'm coming disturbingly close to # 10. :freak:


----------



## btbrush (Sep 20, 2010)

Yeah, when I started, we were drawing outlines of our hands on the cave walls.


----------



## Mark McGovern (Apr 25, 1999)

Over more than fifty years at it, I've suffered with all the symptoms of AMS at one time or another. It gets so annoying when I show even a close friend what's on my workbench and he shakes his head, smirks, and mutters "neeeever out of the box." he doesn't know the suffering that those of us with AMS go through!


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

I'm sure if you go to a Doctor about your symptoms, the Doctor has a pill for it, they always have a pill for everything.....pill pushers.


----------



## RogueJ (Oct 29, 2000)

I too have a plastic monkey on my back. As hard as I try and can't shake him. Going through AMS myself. Reference!! I must have reference!! (Sigh) I didn't notice it was happening, first it was small Aurora kits, later the Monogram big B-52!! Then came Star Wars, I couldn't shake it... Now I'm hard core, Garage Kit Figure Modeling. There's no hope for me, but maybe you still have a chance. My name is John and I am a modelholic. BTW I went to the doctor and tried that pill. Made me want to vote democrat. God have mercy!


----------



## Owen E Oulton (Jan 6, 2012)

I have that most tragic of modelling backstories - my father got me involved in scale modelling when I was only 10!


----------



## scooke123 (Apr 11, 2008)

Damn those parent junkies!!!! And then they hook their kids on modelling!!!


----------



## BatToys (Feb 4, 2002)

2, 4, 6, 14 for me. If model collecting makes life happier, nothing wrong with it.

I know a ccollector who literally had every car model ever made. His house and garage were wallpaper floor to ceiling with kits. When he started to sell them, it was amazing to get any car kit you wanted no matter how obscure.


----------



## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

scooke123 said:


> Damn those parent junkies!!!! And then they hook their kids on modelling!!!


You know your child is hooked when instead of sniffing glue, he actually uses the stuff to build models!


----------



## Zathros (Dec 21, 2000)

* I have been hopelessly addicted since 1968..Its far too late for me to change..

Z*


----------



## stryker (May 29, 2012)

After reading this post, I have a problem.


----------



## btbrush (Sep 20, 2010)

Hello, my name is Bruce and I'm addicted to model building. My Dad started me when I was 5, then spent the rest of my life at home trying to get me out of the basement. He said I'd never amount to anything. It was gratifying when I became a model kit designer and flew all over the USA taking pictures of airplanes. I also found a useful hobby stacking up my stash, throwing a cover over them and voila furniture.


----------



## markcan (Jan 28, 2013)

RogueJ said:


> I too have a plastic monkey on my back. As hard as I try and can't shake him. Going through AMS myself. Reference!! I must have reference!! (Sigh) I didn't notice it was happening, first it was small Aurora kits, later the Monogram big B-52!! Then came Star Wars, I couldn't shake it... Now I'm hard core, Garage Kit Figure Modeling. There's no hope for me, but maybe you still have a chance. My name is John and I am a modelholic. BTW I went to the doctor and tried that pill. Made me want to vote democrat. God have mercy!


I had a plastic model on my back. Now he's resin, and getting a little too heavy to carry.


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

I like to build models because of the glue......bRiGhT CoLoRs.....my figures are moovving....


----------



## eradicator178 (Sep 3, 2008)

*30 Years*

I have been building and collecting models for over 30 years now. I have probably 23 projects in different stages of construction. But occasionally I do get one finished!! :thumbsup:


----------



## Owen E Oulton (Jan 6, 2012)

markcan said:


> I had a plastic model on my back. Now he's resin, and getting a little too heavy to carry.


That's what happens when the monkey on your back turns out to be King Kong.


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)




----------



## markcan (Jan 28, 2013)

Owen E Oulton said:


> That's what happens when the monkey on your back turns out to be King Kong.


Wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't been 1:1 scale.


----------



## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

Does watching NASA films and building model rockets at the same time count as an addiction?


----------



## robn1 (Nov 17, 2012)

That depends on what you "do" with the rockets once completed.


----------



## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

My Dad there for a while also rode me hard because all I wanted to do was 'build models', he kept telling me I wouldn't amount to anything. Later on though after I was driven to push hard to understand engines and such by reading, I began to design custom engines for people and Dad was proud to sell the new setups at the family garage, we did a lot of drag racing. Later I became a head pressman leading crews on those super big newspaper presses you see in the movies and did so well the company gave me pretty much whatever I wanted. I had no problem understanding complicated working assemblies at all and Dad apologized to me after I told him the plastic models were the start of it. 

Modeling somehow taught me to not be intimidated by the larger view that scares many, rather that all of it is composed of much smaller pieces and to simply bite those off in an organized logical fashion until the larger picture is complete. Modeling skills also help to prioritize things in proper order out of a confused mess. That worked well in printing financial where I had to have thinking set up for hours and hours ahead to still be able to dump all those plans and priorities upon sudden changes in conditions during the working day. In that business you didn't last 5 minutes if you weren't a master of that. Those guys would walk up and destroy your next 12 hours of planning in seconds then walk away and when they came back in ten minutes you had to have a new plan already and a damn good one at that. Time, the enemy was always time. We made our entire years' profit in only 3 months of the year and in the print group we (Dallas) were the top profit makers out of 7 other sites. The Wall Street site in New York was always upset at us over our efficiency levels stomping them into the ground. I feel good at having had a pretty big hand in that. 

Tearing into a press assembly with 5000 parts is no different from opening a model kit if it's one you've never been into before and I did it all the time. The same goes with the latest 5 or 10 speed PCM controlled electronic automatic car transmissions, they are just new big freakin' kits to me now.

Modeling since around '59 or '60. I certainly remember when the glue would get you high if you didn't walk away from it sometimes. Dad shouldn't be mad, he was the one that started me doing it. I think later he was just getting scared that I seemed to have no direction. I really didn't and sort of fell into the later things but I ran with them once I realized where I was.

So, you see, you CAN pull the rabbit out of the hat.


----------



## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

Definately #3 for me!
I had to give up modeling, but the instinct is still there.
I now look at my furniture, and the apartment, and try to figure
out how to light it all!


----------

