The Little World

I once completed a very nice build of a very bad kit. It was not the worst one I had attempted, nor the best job I’d ever done, but it did bring into focus what has become my guiding principles. I hasten to add that these are not virtues or glories…just realisations about the hobby. Here goes:

1. It is a hobby. I do not make money by doing it. I do not save lives or defend the nation or grow food or advance the general intellect of mankind through assembling plastic model airplanes. The most good I do is to stay off the roads in peak hour.
2. It is as expensive or as cheap a hobby as I care to make it. If I adhere to the Roosevelt principle of doing what I can with what I have, where I am, something good generally happens. I can push the boat out occasionally when holidays or birthdays top up the hobby cash but most times it is a modest affair.
3. Not all kits are good kits. Not all kits are bad kits. But they all have a certain potential – it was built into them when they were moulded and packaged in the factory. I had no hand in the research, mould making, decal printing, or general handling until the kit got to my Little Workshop. So I’m not responsible if it is good or culpable if it is bad. It is what it is.
4. All kits have a certain potential in themselves. If they are crude, the potential is low. If they are complex, it is high. My measure of success and, to a degree satisfaction, is if I can achieve the potential of the kit.
5. Harken back to No.2…the potential of the thing as it is received is the thing I build to. Not the potential of every resin or brass home builder who puts out a special package of parts to supplant the ones in the kit. That is too many people to satisfy at too high a price.
6. Do I build to satisfy a contest judge? I do not. Let them lead their lives with the Czar’s Blessing.
7. Sometimes I cannot do as well as the kit requires. My own skills may not be developed yet to the extent that does what the designers ask of it. In this case I must be content at the end to have built the kit to the limit of my capability, and be proud of it on that basis.
8. If I have a choice of building something imaginary or something actual I will always choose actual…even if this actuality is distorted by other’s mistakes. The museum aircraft that has been repainted in slightly wrong modern colours is the prime example. If I cannot make a model of something that existed then, I am perfectly satisfied to make it of something that exists now.

This takes a lot of the pressure out of the business and lets pleasure flow in to fill the void. It is close to the joy and wonder that I experienced as a child with plastic model kits. I suspect I would also enjoy days spent with large model building sets of the Meccano or Erector style. However, these have been turned into disciplines and I shy away from that now.