The Little World

I was thinking of this question while visiting the local hobby shop – Hobbytech. A Sunday afternoon and just the time one runs out of khaki-coloured paint. No good sitting there and wishing that it would appear in the paint rack – you just have to go out and get it.

The hobby shop was uncharacteristically empty – I was the only customer. Good for me, as I got to talk to the owner and get first-hand advice about paint selection, but he probably wanted more customers lined up at the till.

It’s not just you time at the shop…it’s when do you actually get to do your modelling? DO you have a set pattern, or is it a random thing that you fit into a busy schedule?

I was a student once, and the only time for modelling was after dinner, after homework. If there was a lot of that there was only a small window of opportunity before the bath and bed. It tended to stretch out thee build time and value from a kit beyond what an adult might tolerate. I didn’t know any different so I was happy. Summer times and school vacations were more than welcome and the house rang with paint fumes as I made up for lost time. In the years when we lived in a house trailer and I painted with Humbrol enamels, my mother must have had nerves of steel and the nose of a sea slug to have put up with it.

Now I’m retired and the house is in reasonable trim so I get a chance to spend more time at the hobbies. The chemical darkroom has long gone – to the relief of the local sewage board I daresay. The neighbours have to put up with the sound of the air compressor during the day but I give them some respite at night. This may change if I go get a silent one, though winter nights are not that conducive to shop paint work as the temperature can drop as the rains come on.

Timing otherwise is pretty flexible – though I must say that the rhythm forced upon a keen painter by the necessity to wait for coats to dry and harden is sometimes a little nuisance. It’s one of the reasons I am going to try to develop more dependence upon acrylic paints with lacquer thinners in the future – the acceleration in the drying time. I note that the price of the Tamiya alcohol thinner and lacquer thinner is identical in the hobby shop so that is not a factor. And I am also going to investigate the provision of other lacquer thinners in bulk from pro spray shops to see if they can be compatible.

Is one time of the day better for the actual doing? Yes – mornings are better for most of us – at least for most of us who go to bed at a decent hour and do not get up with hangovers. Our eyes are sharper and our hands steadier than in the afternoon or evening when we may have become tired. There is less dust in the air – either from the general street or from our own bustling about the workshop – and our blood sugar levels are better.

Can there be too much hobby time? Yes there can – and particularly when one has fallen into the traps of the thing:

a. The trap of thinking you are going to make money out of a hobby. You never will. It may become a business that you make money from – or a business that you lose money pursuing – but once you have crossed the line to a business you will lose that hobby. And you’ll never take it up again. Keep your business a business and your hobby a hobby.

b. The trap of doing your hobby for someone else – particularly if the someone else is a judging committee for a hobby club or association. Once you start doing for them you’re not doing for yourself, and when they stop approving of you, you’ll stop too.

c. The trap of doing the hobby to get away from the family. Get away from your employer, workmates, and customers – get away from the neighbours or the council by all means. But don’t do it to get away from your family.

Do it so that your family gets away from you.

You can manage this by producing enough sound, smell, or danger to make them want to flee. You’ll know you’ve achieved success when they take separate vacations and then have to loaded back aboard the Boeing in restraints.

d. Just kidding. Involve the family as much as you can. They’ll regulate the amount of time they want to spend with you when you start to talk hobby and as long as the gift certificates to the hobby shop keep on coming, you are on a winner.

Wise hobbyists make provision for something productive to do under any atmospheric or social condition:

Too hot for the workshop? Come inside and draw decals on the computer. You’d be surprised what you can do with the simplest editing programs – as long as you can see a clear example of a unit marking or insignia, you can generally make a decal of it. How do you think they do it in Prague? And fortunately most air forces have to make simple insignia for their planes so that they can be seen quickly in the air.

Too cold in the workshop? Get a small space heater or take a separate mini-modelling tray inside and put yourself in a smaller, warmer space. it’s not hard to do sub-assemblies off a tray in the lounge room or kitchen and then when you gt back into the main erection shop you just clap ’em together.

Too dusty to paint? Well, you might as well join the sport. Time to cut strip wood, sand filler, weather models, or remove old paint. If the place is a mess, make more of a mess and get it over with. Or clean up the place. That’ll be useful too.

Too rainy? Perfect time to vacuum, sweep, dust and clean the place – the rain will settle the dust and you can wipe it away.

Too poor to afford a new kit? Weather an old build. Scratchbuild a building out of cardboard and paper. Lighten the stash.

Wife’s relatives expected for the day? Be extra nice and helpful the day before and five’ll get you ten that you’ll be able to slip away when the tea party starts and hit the workbench.

Everyone gone out of town for the weekend? House deserted? Football final tying up traffic for two days? This is the time to get out the new 4-engined bomber and wash the sprue trees in the sink. Take the phone off the hook until it is time to dial up the pizza joint. Resist the temptation to leave the bed unmade, but do not spend the weekend cleaning the bathrooms. You have better things to do.