Sort of by default, plastic model airplanes have become my life. I'm a child of the sixties, and plastic models were standard entertainment for all the kids back then. You found them anyplace toys were sold. I remember them at the hardware stores, the drug stores, the grocery stores, a local camera store, and of course, hobby shops. My dad built control line flying model planes and plastics on the side. I followed closely in his footsteps. He gave it all up in my early teens, but I passionately plowed ahead with the plastic end of things.
By luck or fate I was raised in the northern Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, only a few miles from the suburb of Hazel Park, where the Squadron military hobby empire began. Besides the kits and books and accessories, the Squadron Shop had beautiful big glass cases that contained finished examples of model planes and tanks and figures.There was how the really big boys did it. Any questions? My goal became to have my stuff get good enough to take up space in those cases too.That happened when I hit 18. In my early 20s, the manager told me somebody was looking to buy a couple of my models. So I virtually gave away a pair of 72nd scale WWII British fighters (who knew what to charge?) and I got a taste of "professional modeling." I liked it.
I knew a guy by the name of Ron Kowalczyk. He created a company called War Eagle that primarily imported vacuform kits. Ron also provided a model building service. If you wanted something built, Ron generally built it, then farmed the model out to one of a few local guys he trusted to paint and finish the thing. I was between jobs in 1983, I think, and approached Ron to see if he needed another model painter and finisher. He said yes, if I was good enough. I would show him "good enough." I became his go-to guy to paint and finish models that would become subjects for magazine ads and become part of his personal collection. (Go back into your FineScale Modeler magazines from the 80s and track down the War Eagle ads. Anything credited to "Major PJ" is mine.)
Ron had dealings with Rick Tyson of Rick's Models. Rick's Models was another import company, primarily, that specialized in the mahogany models from the Philippines. However, they advertised being able to supply all kinds of models to customers, which included built plastic kits. He had a few guys banging out styrene models and was looking for more. Ron suggested me, and I became one of the stable of Rick's builders -- while still doing an occasional paint job for War Eagle. This was truly my apprenticeship. Hard to build vacuform kits, fixed deadlines and low pay is what I remember. I was forced to learn a lot in a hurry. I started keeping track of the time that was going into the models and dividing my pay by the hours. I would be making minimum wage -- in best case scenarios. I needed to eliminate the middle man.
At age 30, I created Hawx Planes and said good-bye to Mr.Tyson. I hoped my modeling would at least pay for itself. I thought I'd be building models of planes flown by dads or uncles, or great uncles. I did do some of that, but a number of serious collecting connoisseurs came along. They had very long wish lists and they thought I was the guy to make their wishes come true. One of these guys entered one of my models (under my name) in a big contest, it won an award, got photographed, and got published in FineScale Modeler magazine. I sent FSM a thank-you note and shortly thereafter was contacted by Paul Boyer. There was a contest coming up near Detroit and would I meet him there? Of course.
Without a lot of arm twisting, he convinced me to try articles for his magazine. It was a perfect way to combine my writing skills, photography skills and modeling skills. And best of all, they paid me for name exposure. (Believe me, magazine ads for a micro-business like mine aren't cheap.) So off I slowly went in that direction. Over time that direction picked up steam. In Dec. of '04 I was invited to visit FSM HQ in Waukesha and interview for an editor's slot. Without any magazine or newspaper experience, I didn't make the cut. I wasn't too surprised. So instead of an editor with a desk and computer and regular pay and benefits in Waukesha, WI, I'm still a living-on-the-edge occasional FSM contributor in way south Michigan.
As I launch this blog, I'm still building models for a couple of my original buyers from 1988. Odd jobs come through now and then. FineScale seems pretty interested in articles I pitch (and occasionally write and submit) to them. So with my wife holding a job that pays the serious money (and at regular intervals!), having no children other than cats and dogs, no extravagant habits, both of us being downright penny pincers, sort of by default, plastic model airplanes have become my life. They absolutely and positively are not my hobby. Not, not, NOT!
“Maybe he really did have a very rich secret life,” I suggested.
“Nah.”
“Nah,” sneered the bartender. “He was just one of those kids who made model airplanes and jerked off all the time.”
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle