Obviously I’ll build and paint it. He will get to have the finished item on his bed room book case. He’s very good with “ornaments” (apart from the wooden owl incident) so I don’t think it will get smashed to bits.
If he shows any interest I’ll get him a 1/72 one for about a fiver and let him have a go himself. The long term aim is to build a Tamiya RC car together, but I’m not letting either of us loose on £150 worth until we’ve both proved we have da skilz.
I remember doing the same thing with my dad at about the same age. We both had Hawker Hurricanes. His looked brilliant. Mine was a mess, but who cares. I still remember it almost 40 years later and went on to make dozens of them over the next 10 years.
I still have this one to build:
I bought this as it comes with everything you need, paints, glue, etc. Oh and it’s Concorde I have a soft spot for Concorde 😳
the first one i remember making was a lancaster bomber. my dad basically just supervised me glueing and painting it myself, and it looked bloody rubbish but was proudly displayed in our house for years.
subsequent things i made (and can remember):
1st one for the lad HAS to be a Spitfire, nothing else will do. Just make sure you explain a bit of about it as well (but don’t forget the Hurricane either cos it shot down more aircraft)
Definitely a Spitfire.
But let him make it himself – and paint it too.
Pass him the bits to be glued – and help with cutting (although scissors are good enough).
For paint – just do the fuselage and don’t worry about the fiddly bits.
Result = one very proud lad!
i sort of agree with the spitfire comments, but tbh if hes not interested in planes there may be better out there.
(i honestly cant imagine any little boy not being interested in planes, but that may be because im an old fart)
do what hes interested in, whatever that is, tamiya do some models of their rc cars iirc.
i sort of agree with the spitfire comments, but tbh if hes not interested in planes there may be better out there.
If he’s not interested in planes then I think Harry will have far more pressing issues to deal with than which model to choose. Like when gay marriage is all legal, how do you define who is the ‘bride’ and the ‘groom’ with regard to who pays 😀
My dad gave me the kit but left me to get on with it, but it was like “I used to do this- here’s a thing to have in common” Not an airfix thing specifically but just a shared experience, if I had kids I could do the same with lego… So much changes from generation to generation, so it’s nice to have things that are so completely the same.
My dad used to buy them for me, but I made them on my own. Sat at one of those fold down desks… can’t remember the first, but the last was a Sea King helicopter. Kit was rubbish, so I threw it across the room and never touched another Airfix kit.
Wonder if my lad would be interested…
Spitfire for sure but it’s got to be the 1/72 scale. Then as binners said, the 109. Maybe a Hurricane, Typhoon, Focke Wolf 190, Stuka to follow. Progress to the Mosquito and Messerschimdt 110 then culminating in a Lancaster. There’s a good few months mapped out there.
Let him build it himself with you “helping” then let him paint it. My lad did his first earlier this year aged 8. Really caught his imagination. It was followed by a bit of Internet research, cutting and pasting and printing and before you know it a full “Show and Tell” which went down very well.
Did Airfix do a 1/12th or 1/8th Spitfire? I remember my dad and I did my 1st model together on my 6th birthday (Harrier GR3 1:72) and I started doing loads. Then woke up Christmas day to find a monster Airfix box. I remember the wingspan was about 2 feet (or seemed that big).
I think I may have to look at doing another model….: 1:24 Harrier
The Vulcan is a pig of a kit, by the way. The 1/48 Spitfire you’ve pictured up there is probably OK.
If you don’t have a pile of paints and things already then look for one of the starter or gift sets, which come with glue and the main paints you’ll need for the kit. Airfix did do a Douglas Bader themed 1:48 gift set but I can’t see it on their web site anymore.
More seriously, can’t you take your lad to the local model shop and let him pick a kit, something that fires his imagination. I’m not sure that WWII aircraft will stir the same emotions in someone born this millennium as they do in someone brought up on war films and commando comics. I might be very wrong on this but if you let him pick his own he starts with a sense of ownership which would be no bad thing.
Airfix used to do a 1:24 Spitfire, I had one (I nmy 20s!_)
My dad and I used to paint those Airfix army figures and then have battles. Our favourites were the 8th Army and Africa Corps. We had tanks, too. And field guns. And jeeps ……
We’ve (my boy and me)built a few Airfix and Revell kits, but for a good starter for a six or seven year old, try Armourfast tanks, really easy and he can do them himself, once I’ve cut the bits from the sprues.
Can’t remember my first but can recall getting an Airfix F111A. We had gone to Cardiff over the Severn Bridge the day after it was opened. For some reason I was allowed a day off school on the premise that it was educational to go over the bridge and wasn’t I lucky to have the chance….and so on.
I had (dry) built it several times on the way back to Gloucester.
Tamiya made probably the best, most detailed 1:48 model kit for the A-10 Thunderbolt II ever.
I’d wanted one for ages because A-10s were always flying over where I grew up and got one for a a 30-something’th birthday present. I started it then gave to a friend on the condition that I got a new one back. He never replaced it and I feel a sense of loss to this day.