A MODELMAKER’S LIFE: BUILDING MODELS IS FUN, RIGHT?

I’m sure it will look great once done, but I am now wondering if the work, long-winded and tedious as it is, is really worth it.

27th August 2025

Look, I enjoy building models, I really do. If I didn’t, I doubt I would have stuck with it for the last 50 years, but boy, there are days when it can be a real drag. Days when fun is the last thing I experience. Days when the work is just, well, boring!

Much of what I do I really enjoy. But occasionally, like today, I start on something that ends up taking hours for very little benefit.

At the moment I’m building a new jet. I decided as part of the project to drop the flaps to add a little more dynamism. It’s a simple enough project on paper. Single point of articulation, remove the flap, clean up the edges, glue it back into place. Like I say: simple. That is until I tried to clean it all up to create a perfect joint.

I’ve now been working on this for hours and still only done one wing. The other wing is partially complete, held up by what I can only assume is a will to live that is ebbing away with every passing stroke of the file.

I’m sure it will look great once done, but I am now wondering if the work, long-winded and tedious as it is, is really worth it. I doubt it would have looked that much worse with the flaps in their neutral position, so dropping them might have been more a flex than an actual benefit.

So tomorrow l will complete the other wing and that will be that. Job done, so I can move on to more interesting, shall we say fun areas. I have the cockpit to paint and some wheel bays to detail, all of which will allow me to get back into the groove of detailed work and away from hours of swarf, dust and shameful periods of bad language. Still, it’s all fun, right?

See you tomorrow.