Photo Credit: Hugo90
Planes, trains, automobiles and more can become an obsession for nominally sane adults who don’t mind the smell of glue. A lot of plastic and other materials are expended on miniature versions of the equipment that we use to get from point A to point B.
The concept of having a hobby was confined to the upper class up until the last few hundred years. I think people who have a surplus of time and a crafty mentality would do better to find an activity that is sustainable and might even benefit the earth. Gardening is the first thing that comes to mind. There’s no airplane glue involved, but manure can be almost as overpowering.
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April 11th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Very cool!
May 19th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I see a number of items in the pic I can use, how much?
(You must have known that was coming)
May 19th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Is that a Halibrand 15 inch about midway down ???
May 20th, 2009 at 1:52 am
On the more serious side, the hobby has died down considerably in the last few years, not only due to all the diecast being sold, but the fact the kids do not build unless their fathers lead them into it, so the number of builders are smaller than years gone by, and dwindling.
Not only that but the larger part of the ‘buidler’ population are either somewhat limited to quite handicapped and also disabled (and some are disabled veterans) in some way shape or form, limiting their abilities.
There is also money to be had in spare plastic parts such as those shown and are quite coveted. Very few of them end up in landfills, I am sure. Most builders have many boxes of spare parts stored away that they will never use, and they will be passed on as the plastic kit manufacturers cut back on production, as the hobby dies out.
Most plastic in landfills nowadays are water bottles, engine oil containers and plastic used in packing our store bought products, surely very few of them are model car parts!!!
May 20th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Point taken, Don. I wrote a post a year ago about a guy who made a hobby out of collecting Super Soakers. My argument was that while he found joy and value in this, future generations might not and that EVENTUALLY his plastic collection would end up being disposed of in some way. With model building, the enduring community of interested people might reuse and collect a lot of stuff. What about all the trim that comes with small parts? Does it have a recycling code number on it?
May 21st, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Maybe not, that I am aware of, but who’s fault is that?
Not that all that gets used, but some do use the ‘trees’, as we call them, for rollbars in the model race cars and for other structures and other items. You just don’t know the resourcefulness of this ‘crowd’ of people, especially when so many are disabled and on limited/fixed incomes. Then there are the amateurs that hit on an idea, and sometimes use the ‘trees’ for ‘filler’ in their ‘makeshift’ prototypes they come up with.
My main concern with your ‘hitting’ on the model building ‘community’ is that it has got to be so minute that it wouldn’t EVEN count, though I understand when you’re ‘green’, you have to be ALL the way, or nothing.