Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:43 pm
tom d. friedman wrote:oops went through the old thread for kicks, already told those stories. at least i'm not senial for 45, or full of crap changing the details. on the other hand...... i'm full of crap anyway!!!
lol, you STARTED the thread.
I tried to launch a 1/72 scale F-4 with matchhead rockets. It didn't fly as much as arc'd into the ground, where it shattered, allowing a rocket to fly across the yard, luckily only lit for a second. Fun days.... where's my matches?
Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:05 pm
I always enjoyed blowing up the infamous "LINDBERG" kits...
They were cheap & total junk to begin with, so I never regretted it. Target practice was all they were really good for....
I grew up in a Haunted Funeral Home & really enjoyed the "AURORA" Monster Kits. Especially on a cold rainy night...
Sometimes I'd actually "Build" Life-Sized Monsters out of leftover dead peoples clothes & old Halloween Masks. Ha! Ha! They were so cool...
Ugh, I distinctly remember blowing up several "ROMMELS ROD" Hot Rod kits.
http://www.showrods.com/showrod_pages/rommels_rod.html
Stacks & Stacks of them for just $2.00 each at the local "Ben Franklin" 5 & 10 Store.
Worth Hundreds of Dollars each on E Bay today...
My GREATEST achievement ever was spending all summer long building the LINDBERG "Blue Devil Destroyer". Ha! Ha! Ha!
Only to be PACKED with explosives & set sail on the local lake with a Time Delay Fuse... BOOOOOOOOOOM!! .... God it was beautiful ....
A fitting tribute to LINDBERG'S incredible dedication to authenticity & detail.
Here's another interesting story about Modeling Memories. Check it Out:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1640994/posts
Digger
They were cheap & total junk to begin with, so I never regretted it. Target practice was all they were really good for....
I grew up in a Haunted Funeral Home & really enjoyed the "AURORA" Monster Kits. Especially on a cold rainy night...
Sometimes I'd actually "Build" Life-Sized Monsters out of leftover dead peoples clothes & old Halloween Masks. Ha! Ha! They were so cool...
Ugh, I distinctly remember blowing up several "ROMMELS ROD" Hot Rod kits.
http://www.showrods.com/showrod_pages/rommels_rod.html
Stacks & Stacks of them for just $2.00 each at the local "Ben Franklin" 5 & 10 Store.
Worth Hundreds of Dollars each on E Bay today...
My GREATEST achievement ever was spending all summer long building the LINDBERG "Blue Devil Destroyer". Ha! Ha! Ha!
Only to be PACKED with explosives & set sail on the local lake with a Time Delay Fuse... BOOOOOOOOOOM!! .... God it was beautiful ....
A fitting tribute to LINDBERG'S incredible dedication to authenticity & detail.
Here's another interesting story about Modeling Memories. Check it Out:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1640994/posts
Digger
Last edited by DiggerWW2 on Tue Aug 29, 2006 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:07 am
It all sounds soooo familier!
I was a juvenile delinquent too!
My most elaborate was the sinking of the Revell Battleship USS Pennsylvania in an old fish tank. I didn't want the model to just blow to smithereens, I wanted and explosion, fire on the deck and a slow sinking, all visible above and below the water line by virtue of the 20 Gallon fish tank.
I taped two firecrackers in different spots inside on the bottom of the hull.
Covered and taped down over each explosive was a piece of cardborad to deflect the blast downward, not up into the superstructure. This would allow water to enter the hull, and with some fishing wieghts glued stratiegically, the plan was for it to take a slow trip to the bottom of the tank. On deck were two other firecrackers with a small plastic bag of gasoline placed on top of each. Under this demolition package was another piece of cardboard so it would blow up, not down.
The two deck explosives were fused to go off before the hull explosives, so we could watch it burn a little before she sank. The hull explosives came out the boiler stack and hung over the side to the deck. When the deck went up, it would eventually light the hull fuses. To make sure, and to give the fires a little more visual impact, we but gobs of rubber cement all over the deck. We had practiced this before and knew the firecracker would set off the gas 75% of the time and that's why we used two deck set ups.
I have to say that it worked like a charm!
Blew up, burned a bit, the hull went, and as it burned some more, it slowly turned turtle and went to the bottom!
IT WAS SO COOL!!!!
I really miss those days!
Thanks for bringing me back!
Jerry
I was a juvenile delinquent too!
My most elaborate was the sinking of the Revell Battleship USS Pennsylvania in an old fish tank. I didn't want the model to just blow to smithereens, I wanted and explosion, fire on the deck and a slow sinking, all visible above and below the water line by virtue of the 20 Gallon fish tank.
I taped two firecrackers in different spots inside on the bottom of the hull.
Covered and taped down over each explosive was a piece of cardborad to deflect the blast downward, not up into the superstructure. This would allow water to enter the hull, and with some fishing wieghts glued stratiegically, the plan was for it to take a slow trip to the bottom of the tank. On deck were two other firecrackers with a small plastic bag of gasoline placed on top of each. Under this demolition package was another piece of cardboard so it would blow up, not down.
The two deck explosives were fused to go off before the hull explosives, so we could watch it burn a little before she sank. The hull explosives came out the boiler stack and hung over the side to the deck. When the deck went up, it would eventually light the hull fuses. To make sure, and to give the fires a little more visual impact, we but gobs of rubber cement all over the deck. We had practiced this before and knew the firecracker would set off the gas 75% of the time and that's why we used two deck set ups.
I have to say that it worked like a charm!
Blew up, burned a bit, the hull went, and as it burned some more, it slowly turned turtle and went to the bottom!
IT WAS SO COOL!!!!
I really miss those days!
Thanks for bringing me back!
Jerry
Tue Aug 29, 2006 6:41 pm
As a kid, I DREAMED about Fireworks. Even more than WW2....
I don't know why, as I could care less about them now. Fireworks were illegal in PA when I was growing up. Thus making them more desirable. I still remember what remains today, as one of the STRANGEST things that's ever happened to Me:
I was 11 years old & "snooping" around in My Grandmother's garage one hot summer afternoon. Suddenly, I was shocked to find a shopping bag PACKED FULL of Firecrackers!! Wow!! I hit the childhood lottery. Words cannot describe how I felt when I found them. It was better than a stack of Playboy magazines. At that specific moment in time, I found out what Heaven must be like....
To say the least, it was one incredible summer....
My favorite Firecrackers were "Thunderbombs". They Rocked!! My least favorite were "Black Cats". They were weak, lots of duds & just didn't seem to have enough blasting power. Here's a Website that will bring back lots of old Modeling Memories. It's a Vintage Fircracker Lable Museum. You can check out Your generation's lables by clicking on the years You grew up. Pretty Cool, Check it Out:
http://www.crackerpacks.com/
Anyway, several years later, I asked My Grandmother about the big bag of Firecrackers. It was 1977 & many of them had 1950's lables on them. She had no idea what I was talking about & never knew they were there!!
I'm still working on this case & collecting DNA samples....
Digger
I don't know why, as I could care less about them now. Fireworks were illegal in PA when I was growing up. Thus making them more desirable. I still remember what remains today, as one of the STRANGEST things that's ever happened to Me:
I was 11 years old & "snooping" around in My Grandmother's garage one hot summer afternoon. Suddenly, I was shocked to find a shopping bag PACKED FULL of Firecrackers!! Wow!! I hit the childhood lottery. Words cannot describe how I felt when I found them. It was better than a stack of Playboy magazines. At that specific moment in time, I found out what Heaven must be like....
To say the least, it was one incredible summer....
My favorite Firecrackers were "Thunderbombs". They Rocked!! My least favorite were "Black Cats". They were weak, lots of duds & just didn't seem to have enough blasting power. Here's a Website that will bring back lots of old Modeling Memories. It's a Vintage Fircracker Lable Museum. You can check out Your generation's lables by clicking on the years You grew up. Pretty Cool, Check it Out:
http://www.crackerpacks.com/
Anyway, several years later, I asked My Grandmother about the big bag of Firecrackers. It was 1977 & many of them had 1950's lables on them. She had no idea what I was talking about & never knew they were there!!
I'm still working on this case & collecting DNA samples....
Digger
Models...
Mon Nov 06, 2006 6:03 am
When I was 19, I helped a friend film a Godzilla movie with a lot of special effects. This gave me the idea to make my own Pearl Harbor movie based on Walter Lord's book Day of Infamy. Over the next couple years I did a lot of research and built a few dozen miniatures to blow up and burn, mostly aircraft, and was ready to start filming... then I moved to California and the project got sidetracked. 25 years later, I visited my folks and dug some of the planes up, put new batteries in some of the little motors to spin the props, and took pictures:
So the film never got shot; just as well, as I still have the models!
So the film never got shot; just as well, as I still have the models!
Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:25 pm
it's never to late......... i'll get the boom booms!!!!!
Models...
Tue Nov 07, 2006 2:47 am
it's never too late......... i'll get the boom booms!!!!!
Nah... they're like old friends now!
Also built but not shown: 1/32 Wildcat in VMF-211 markings from Ewa, 1/32 Revell Zero modified to A6M2, 1/48 Revell B-17 modified to B-17E, and 1/72 B-17D, B-18, Kate, A-12 Shrike, A-20, B-24, C-33, Martin B-12 and the beginnings of a 1/144 battleship Arizona. None of 'em IPMS quality of course - just enough to look good on screen!
Tue Nov 07, 2006 11:36 pm
*raises hand* I've got a pretty good one, and I was old enough to know better!
Senior year of high school a friend (a year behind) wanted to make a home-movie about the Battle of Britain for his World History class. So naturally he put me in charge of the special effects. I'd been watching the movie since I was five, so I had pictures of exploding Spitfires and Hurricanes during the bombing raids.
We 'borrowed' his mother's back patio and lined up about a dozen die-cast Spitfires with M-80s placed under them (not very bright). Then I poured gas over the area with the idea that tossing a lit M-80 would set the whole chain reaction off. It didn't work.
Enter bright idea number 2: hold my Zippo and toss gas out of a cup onto the whole mess. Brilliant, Beavis.
Cameras rolling.....and true to form, the gas lit up but it was in the cup! Instead of filming a great airstrike scene, they got footage of me jumping around the backyard doing the funky chicken trying to put the fire out.
Oh yeah, good times.
Senior year of high school a friend (a year behind) wanted to make a home-movie about the Battle of Britain for his World History class. So naturally he put me in charge of the special effects. I'd been watching the movie since I was five, so I had pictures of exploding Spitfires and Hurricanes during the bombing raids.
We 'borrowed' his mother's back patio and lined up about a dozen die-cast Spitfires with M-80s placed under them (not very bright). Then I poured gas over the area with the idea that tossing a lit M-80 would set the whole chain reaction off. It didn't work.
Enter bright idea number 2: hold my Zippo and toss gas out of a cup onto the whole mess. Brilliant, Beavis.
Cameras rolling.....and true to form, the gas lit up but it was in the cup! Instead of filming a great airstrike scene, they got footage of me jumping around the backyard doing the funky chicken trying to put the fire out.
Oh yeah, good times.
Sun Nov 12, 2006 3:16 pm
Heheheeeee, yes Sir! Very good times.
Here's a few me and my brother and my friend used to do.
Hang airplanes on a tree branch. Then two guys would shoot at each others planes with pellet guns. When all of your aircraft are shot down, you lose.
There was a big sand pile/cat toilet nearby. We would set up fortifications and put our army men, tanks, artillery, everything in them. Then stand back about 20, 30 feet and lob rocks into each others fortifications, kinda like an artillery strike. When you got a hit on something that should burn, time to break out the charcoal lighter, and doushe down the affected vehicle/fortification, and torch it. This would always degenerate into, torch everything. Yeah baby. There is nothing like the smell of burning plastic and cat sh1t on a summer afternoon. It smells like,,like,,,,burning plastic and cat sh1t......heheeeeeee
Our grandpa gave us these things called pest controllers once. They came in an old white box that had a rat running down a tunnel with a big explosion behing him and the words "Pest Controllers" on the top. He said "These are pretty big, I don't want you boys holding these in your hands when you light them." That was it. Then he gave me and my brother two handfulls of them each. We had about ten apiece.
When we got home, we decided to light one off. We thought grandpa was full of it. They looked like those cherry bomb smoke bombs, only they were made of particle wood. We didn't want to waste the explosion, if there was one, so we put a car model on top of one and lit it. Holy Moly Jesus! That was a big explosion! It vaporised the model and made a mushroom cloud thirty feet high. I had two big boxes of car models. The only thing left of them by the end of the day was no bigger than your fingernail. We were blowing them up eight and ten at a time.
One pest controller no-no, we found a really big ant hole. So we buried a pest controller a couple of inches from it with just the fuse sticking out. We lit it and stood back about twenty feet. It blew up and in the mushroom cloud funnel it pushed up a lot of dirt and p1ssed off ants. It started raining dirt and ants and those little mothers were biting us.We were covered in them. That thing blew a two foot crater in the ground.
Other fond memories,
A lighter and a can of zippo lighter fliud. It looks exactly like a miniature flamethrower. A lot of plastic got melted with that.
A lighter and mom's aqua net. OK for flamethrower attacks on the fortifications, a lot better on ants and spiders. She must have thought something was up at some time or another. We must have burned through a can a week for awhile there.
A bic lighter covered in model glue. That will be the most beautiful blue ball of fire you will ever see.
Estes rocket motors and 5 feet of pvc pipe. We weren't as inventive as you guys. We just put it in the bottom of the pipe, stuffed in the "Guns and Ammo" waterproof fuse, and lit it. Under a huge fir tree no less. The motor went about 30 feet up in the tree and started banging around. Then it stopped. We heard it dropping through the branches, and thats when I remembered it was a second stage D. We started running, heeheeee
A picolo pete and a match. A picolo pete is a firework on a little base that just sits there and sparkles and lets out a loud whistle. A "safe" one. heheeehee. One of the geniuses figured out if you smash it flat with a rubber mallet, then light it, it explodes pretty big. That degenerated into stuffing the smashed picolo pete into one end of a one inch pipe, and small rocks into the other. Them d@mn rocks sting man....
I shouldn't say anymore, I don't want anyone getting any ideas
Ahhhhhh, good times, good times....
Here's a few me and my brother and my friend used to do.
Hang airplanes on a tree branch. Then two guys would shoot at each others planes with pellet guns. When all of your aircraft are shot down, you lose.
There was a big sand pile/cat toilet nearby. We would set up fortifications and put our army men, tanks, artillery, everything in them. Then stand back about 20, 30 feet and lob rocks into each others fortifications, kinda like an artillery strike. When you got a hit on something that should burn, time to break out the charcoal lighter, and doushe down the affected vehicle/fortification, and torch it. This would always degenerate into, torch everything. Yeah baby. There is nothing like the smell of burning plastic and cat sh1t on a summer afternoon. It smells like,,like,,,,burning plastic and cat sh1t......heheeeeeee
Our grandpa gave us these things called pest controllers once. They came in an old white box that had a rat running down a tunnel with a big explosion behing him and the words "Pest Controllers" on the top. He said "These are pretty big, I don't want you boys holding these in your hands when you light them." That was it. Then he gave me and my brother two handfulls of them each. We had about ten apiece.
When we got home, we decided to light one off. We thought grandpa was full of it. They looked like those cherry bomb smoke bombs, only they were made of particle wood. We didn't want to waste the explosion, if there was one, so we put a car model on top of one and lit it. Holy Moly Jesus! That was a big explosion! It vaporised the model and made a mushroom cloud thirty feet high. I had two big boxes of car models. The only thing left of them by the end of the day was no bigger than your fingernail. We were blowing them up eight and ten at a time.
One pest controller no-no, we found a really big ant hole. So we buried a pest controller a couple of inches from it with just the fuse sticking out. We lit it and stood back about twenty feet. It blew up and in the mushroom cloud funnel it pushed up a lot of dirt and p1ssed off ants. It started raining dirt and ants and those little mothers were biting us.We were covered in them. That thing blew a two foot crater in the ground.
Other fond memories,
A lighter and a can of zippo lighter fliud. It looks exactly like a miniature flamethrower. A lot of plastic got melted with that.
A lighter and mom's aqua net. OK for flamethrower attacks on the fortifications, a lot better on ants and spiders. She must have thought something was up at some time or another. We must have burned through a can a week for awhile there.
A bic lighter covered in model glue. That will be the most beautiful blue ball of fire you will ever see.
Estes rocket motors and 5 feet of pvc pipe. We weren't as inventive as you guys. We just put it in the bottom of the pipe, stuffed in the "Guns and Ammo" waterproof fuse, and lit it. Under a huge fir tree no less. The motor went about 30 feet up in the tree and started banging around. Then it stopped. We heard it dropping through the branches, and thats when I remembered it was a second stage D. We started running, heeheeee
A picolo pete and a match. A picolo pete is a firework on a little base that just sits there and sparkles and lets out a loud whistle. A "safe" one. heheeehee. One of the geniuses figured out if you smash it flat with a rubber mallet, then light it, it explodes pretty big. That degenerated into stuffing the smashed picolo pete into one end of a one inch pipe, and small rocks into the other. Them d@mn rocks sting man....
I shouldn't say anymore, I don't want anyone getting any ideas
Ahhhhhh, good times, good times....
Sun Nov 12, 2006 5:15 pm
I'm just amazed any of us are still alive. 
Sun Nov 12, 2006 6:43 pm
ahhhh delinquency 30 to 35 years ago!!!!! it was hardly even that!!! it was all innocent fun then. today, if kids pull that kind of crap they are considered mentally depraved & warped. glad this is a popular thread!!!!
Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:10 am
You guys are all mental! 
Mind you, I do remember having one of the old KeilKraft F/F Spitfire models and, having not long seen "Battle of Britain", decided to remove the canopy and stuff some of those little cap things (the kind you put in toy guns, whatever the hell they're called!) inside the cockpit.
Couldn't figure out how to remotely fire the darn things, so I just lit a candle beneath the cockpit floor while the model sat on the pavement, then got the hell out of the way!!
Didn't quite have the explosive results I'd hoped for, more of a FFFZZZ!!
Mind you, I do remember having one of the old KeilKraft F/F Spitfire models and, having not long seen "Battle of Britain", decided to remove the canopy and stuff some of those little cap things (the kind you put in toy guns, whatever the hell they're called!) inside the cockpit.
Couldn't figure out how to remotely fire the darn things, so I just lit a candle beneath the cockpit floor while the model sat on the pavement, then got the hell out of the way!!
Didn't quite have the explosive results I'd hoped for, more of a FFFZZZ!!
Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:46 pm
a true non mental juvenile delinquent would have used an m-80!! 
Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:29 pm
Bump!!!!
What the heck, maybe someone else has something to relate?
What the heck, maybe someone else has something to relate?
Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:10 am
My freinds and I used to line up all our models in the driveway and have "air shows." The ones that were junk became the victims of firey "crashes" or "midairs."
I actually have a friend who got so frustrated with an Accurate Miniatures Sturmovik that he launched it from his second-floor dorm window. Fortunately, it landed in a snowdrift, and he was able to recover and finish it after both he and the model "cooled down." The real kicker: it was a ski-equipped version in winter camo!
Great models, Chris! Are those Revell PBY-5s back-dated to -2s? Were the B-18 and A-12 conversions, scratchbuilts, or vacu-forms?
Cheers!
Steve
I actually have a friend who got so frustrated with an Accurate Miniatures Sturmovik that he launched it from his second-floor dorm window. Fortunately, it landed in a snowdrift, and he was able to recover and finish it after both he and the model "cooled down." The real kicker: it was a ski-equipped version in winter camo!
Great models, Chris! Are those Revell PBY-5s back-dated to -2s? Were the B-18 and A-12 conversions, scratchbuilts, or vacu-forms?
Cheers!
Steve