Most of them got involved as young boys working with their dads, back before computer games and pop music and television came along to occupy a boy's time. Back when gluing and sticking and painting were an acceptable way to spend an evening, especially in the winter when summer's bats and balls had been put away.
Some let their involvement lapse before getting back into it; others have kept at it all this time. But now, they find camaraderie and fellowship with those who share similar interests. They introduce their sons to the field. Now they are dentists and doctors and engineers and highway patrolmen and retired military personnel and more, but they still approach the hobby with boyish delight. Now, precision and accuracy and history have become more important; now they take tremendous pride in details. But the results are still the same: some of life's bigger objects, built to scale.
Aircraft, cars, motorcycles, ships, armor, figures, dioramas, science fiction; the past, the present and the future — these are the wide-ranging interests of today's model builders. And building these scale models has never been more popular.
The Salt Lake chapter of the International Plastic Modelers Society was founded in 1970. "We had three guys," says Clay Boyd, who was one of them. Since then the club has grown and split into Salt Lake and Ogden groups, and between them have about 200 modeler members. Both groups hold monthly meetings.
"We have a lot of fun," says Boyd, at a recent meeting when members were asked to bring the models they have enjoyed the most. "And some of the best guys I've ever met are in this club. They're creative, intelligent. Some of them are real artists. That's what this is: three-dimensional art."
And Boyd, who served as a Marine from 1945-1949, loves the history angle. He's lived around many of the planes that he now makes models of. "What I really like to do is make models of the planes that people I knew flew in and then give them a model. A lot of us do that."
For example, a 1930s Grumman biplane was flown by a man named John Galor. "He had to ditch it off the coast of San Diego. Years later they brought it up out of the water. And this is an exact replica," he says of his small model. Galor went on to fly at Guadalcanal and was awarded a Medal of Honor.
Another of Boyd's friends was a lieutenant returning from an air raid when the pilot of the plane was wounded, and he had to fly the plane from the back seat to get back to the base. "He got a Distinguished Flying Cross. I gave him a model of that plane."
Modelers often go to great lengths to get accurate details. Don Evett lived in Germany for seven years and spent a lot of time trying to track down former Luftwaffe pilots. He finally found one who would talk to him. "I wrote to him — in German (I had to get some German-speaking friends to help me) — and told him I wanted to build a replica of his plane. He wrote back and told me all about it." One thing Evett learned was that only the tips of the propellers should be painted red, not the whole plane as he first thought. "I sent him a picture, and he said it was just like his plane."
Aircraft are the most popular subjects among this group, although some do cars, motorcycles, military objects and other things as well. "The guys who build model railroads tend to have their own groups," says Dick Engar. "The rest of us get along pretty well."
Model-building involves both creativity and accuracy, he says. Of great importance, however, is the scale, which can vary greatly — 1:48 (where one inch in the model equals 48 inches, or 4 feet, in the real thing), 1:72, 1:124. But whatever the scale, everything will conform exactly.
Many of the models completed by members of the society are museum-quality, and well they should be, says Raleigh Davis; many of them end up in museums. "We've done displays for museums in Star Valley, Wyo., and for the Call Air Museum in Afton, Wyo. There's a display at the Ogden Airport. We've done things for Hill Field and for libraries — Sandy, Whitmore, West Jordan."
Currently, the group is working with Fort Douglas to do a diorama honoring the Korean War. "They are paying for the kits, and we're putting them together," says Dick Engar.
While some of the modelers build their objects from scratch, they also use a lot of kits. And there are some high-quality kits out there. In fact, says Engar, it was when manufacturers realized that this was not just a kid's hobby and began making more realistic, better quality kits that the hobby really took off.
Still, he says, the quality and ease of construction can vary. "That's one thing the group does — model kit reviews, to let others know how good new ones are."
Most kits these days range from $5 to $50 — although, like anything else, there are high-end products available. And the average time spent on a kit can vary from 40 to 200 hours.
So many kits; so little time, says Engar. "Most of us have a stack of unbuilt kits at home." He has about 400 of them in his crawl space, he confesses. "Then when a contest is coming up or I feel like doing a particular kind of project, I go down and pull one out."
But probably no one has more unbuilt kits sitting around than Rob Humphrey. "About 7,000," he admits, somewhat sheepishly. But maybe that isn't so strange when you know that Humphrey may also have the largest collection of built model aircraft in the world.
He has 1,643 models (and going up all the time) — all different, all handmade, all airplanes; some made from kits, some his own designs. The man currently listed in the Guinness Book of World Records lives in Bahrain and has 1,105. Humphrey has sent in the documentation, and the Guinness folks are in the process of checking it out.
Humphrey started building model airplanes when he was 6. "My dad would bring home a model, and we'd use a tube of glue and a bottle of paint. Sometimes I'd use my mother's fingernail polish so I'd have some red.
"I got started and just kept going. I'd keep the best ones and shoot down the others with my BB gun."
His work with models lead him into art and design, which he majored in, he says. But his fascination with flight took him into ROTC, where he got his pilot's license. "But at that time, with the Vietnam War ending, they were overstaffed with pilots. Rather than take a desk job, I got out of the military and became a police officer instead."
Now with the Utah Highway Patrol, he finds model building not only fun but therapeutic as well. "It's a great relaxer, working with your hands," he says. "I can come home from a nasty accident, and I can sit and do something constructive, produce something of beauty."
Relaxation, history, art, camaraderie: it sounds like the model of a perfect hobby.
Monthly meetings
The Salt Lake chapter of the International Plastic Modelers' Society meets the last Tuesday of every month at 8 p.m. at the Boy Scout Service Center, 525 Foothill Drive. For more information, contact Pat Gilmore at 298-8597, or feel free to drop by a meeting.
The Utah Scale Modelers Association meets the first Tuesday of every month at the Hinckley Airport, west of Ogden. For more information, contact Mike Smith, 451-0739, or attend a meeting.
Meetings provide an opportunity for members to learn latest news, share talents and build common interests and camaraderie with fellow modelers.
Each year the groups sponsor a major gathering the fourth weekend in September at Union Station in Ogden, which draws modelers from all over the Intermountain West and Canada. Prizes are awarded for best models in a wide variety of categories, and vendors show off their latest wares.
E-MAIL: carma@desnews.com