[TGT]

This topic came up in another website and really reminded me how I miss those old-school hobby shops. I still remember the smell of the balsa, and can hear guys chatting while the florescent bulbs gently buzzed in the background. I'm sure some of you guys can relate.

 

[Glockdude1]

Me!!!

I used to go a model/hobby shop in Corpus Christi. Right next door was a model railroad shop. It was great back in the 80's.

:thumbsup:

 

[PBCounty]

Oh yeah, I, like probably most of us, had my favorite dusty old neighborhood hobby shop. Half the fun was just digging through the piles of disorganized stuff on the shelves and finding something cool stashed back there. My hobby shop was right in between the pizza joint and the comic book shop - so bicycles got ridden up there quite often.

 

[orangejeep06]

Timely thread. I enjoyed building models when i was young and within the past couple years i’ve gotten back into it again. I recently purchased an airbrush and a good magnifying lamp. I enjoy doing models in the winter evenings up here when it’s too dark and cold to be outside. I have more patience now as well and find putting WW1 bi-planes and those Aurora movie monster figures that have re-released alot of fun. It’s kind of like reliving my childhood again but now i have enough money to indulge whereas before i relied on b-days and xmas in hopes of getting something to build.What are your favorite models to build OP?

 

[Mister Clean]

Yes. I remember.

My favorite thing to buy was the "3-n-1" model car kit.

The mfg gave you enough parts to build one car. But you could build it in 3 different ways:
- As if it came straight off the factory floor as a "family car" with no options.
- As if it was customized as a hot rod, "jalopy" or street racer.
- As if it was customized for a professional stock car race.

But if you bought several kits and saved all of the spare (extra) parts . . . eventually you would have enough parts to be able to build a completely original, one-of-a-kind, custom car! For FREE!!!

I would even use the injection mold "runners" that the parts were attached to, to build custom frames, suspension and steering systems and roll-cages.

(I am referring to the extra pieces of "throw-away" plastic that came in the kits from the injection mold machine at the factory that you snapped the parts off of.)

 

[Redeemed]

I do!! There was one in the shopping center. Maybe once a month when we went into town we’d get to go in and walk around. Always a treat! there was also a guy nearby that had an r/c business out of his house. Sometimes he’d have things outside he was flying around. Pretty cool for a plane buff like me.

 

[Tone Deaf]

These were two of my favorites in the 50's

 

[Sherlock913]

I'm fortunate enough to have a couple nearby.

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=hobbyshops&find_loc=Kansas+City,+MO

 

[syntaxerrorsix]

Yep, plastic scale models, rocket kits and engines and the cool electronic kits similar to Radio Shack and all manner of RC stuff.

 

[Kawabuggy]

Or the smaller mom & pop fishing supply shops.. I had one local to me that we could walk into and find out who was catching what, and at what locations, and what the fish were hitting as well (lure wise). All of those small shops-including the hobby shops which were my second favorite location-gone before the dawn of the 90's..

 

[Taz]

I do!! There was one in the shopping center. Maybe once a month when we went into town we’d get to go in and walk around. Always a treat! there was also a guy nearby that had an r/c business out of his house. Sometimes he’d have things outside he was flying around. Pretty cool for a plane buff like me.

Me too. Had a huge one in the mall that I AKWAYS dragged my mom to whenever we went.

I have a small one in my neck of the woods that I go to regularly. Nothing like the OP has pictured. Still fun to look around.

I’ve recently gotten back into model building. Used to love it as a kid. Now that I’m a busted up old “geezer” and have time it’s nice to lock myself in the garage and decompress


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[deputy tom]

Oh yeah, I, like probably most of us, had my favorite dusty old neighborhood hobby shop. Half the fun was just digging through the piles of disorganized stuff on the shelves and finding something cool stashed back there. My hobby shop was right in between the pizza joint and the comic book shop - so bicycles got ridden up there quite often.

Yep, I rode my bike to the next Borough over on Saturday mornings to pick out the next model car kit project. 1.7 miles each way. It was a wonderful experience sixty years ago. tom. :fred:

 

[AK_Stick]

Friend of mine owns the largest one in AK.

makes for a handy friend to have.

 

[snerd]

Or the smaller mom & pop fishing supply shops.. I had one local to me that we could walk into and find out who was catching what, and at what locations, and what the fish were hitting as well (lure wise). All of those small shops-including the hobby shops which were my second favorite location-gone before the dawn of the 90's..

Yep! Ours was called Wimples Bait Shop!!

 

[TheDud]

I miss the old Radio Shack, back when it was an actual electronics components/projects store.

Shame we've lost so much of our past

 

[Borg Warner]

I built model cars in junior high and high school back in the 60's and my last year of high school I used to race slot cars but not the kind of cars that ran on a round track. For a while in southern California there were 1/24th scale drag strips that were black Formica and about 50 feet long. ET's were measured in seconds and tenths of a second and good qualifying time was about 1.25 seconds. at the end of the drag strip the about ten more feet covered with a loose silk parachute for the cars to run into and slow down after the timer was tripped and the power shut off.

There were no commercial slot car dragsters ore even kits made back then and you had to make your own car ftom scratch.

We made the frames out of sheets of 1/8th thick magnesium and bolted the frame pieces to the sides of a big square DC motor with a re-wound armature, and at the front of the frame was an aluminum axle with two small narrow skinny tires made of O-rings mounted on narrow aluminum wheels.

The rear tires were originally foam rubber airplane tires for gas-powered balsa wood planes and were round tires that had to be turned on a lathe so that they were teh same size and had a flat surface like racing slicks. Cutting them down also made them more like 1 24th scale size from what they were originally.

A good friend and I started mounting 1/24th scale model car bodies on our dragsters and turning them into funny cars. My friend had a 1965 Chevelle el Camino body that was super lightweight because it had no windshield or rear "glass" and the bed of the truck was covered with a "tarp" that was made out of paper.

My car was made by some company that made cars out of very thin clear plastic that you could paint on the inside and the paint job would look perfect but you'd have to mask the windows. They came with an interior but I left that out and "tinted' the windows black. I happened to find a 1965 dodge and painted it to look like Landy's 1965 Dodge funny car. That same year, we used to see Landy run that car at Lions drag strip in Long Beach, Ca.

 

[G26-Has-my-6]

How about old fashioned bakeries? and butcher shops? No, I don't want to go back to landlines, newspaper/magazines, and tube TV's, but I do miss some of the things that we had back in the day...

 

[Gauss Rifle]

This topic came up in another website and really reminded me how I miss those old-school hobby shops. I still remember the smell of the balsa, and can hear guys chatting while the florescent bulbs gently buzzed in the background. I'm sure some of you guys can relate.

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Oh hell YES!!!

 

[MrGlock21]

:mememe:

Not many left in DFW

 

[G19Tony]

I do. There is one in Iowa, that I try to stop at when I get back that way. Nothing in Vegas.