Modeling 2023 – The Year in Review. So what did I actually model this past year?.

From a modeling standpoint, this year proved to be a lot less prolific than I had hoped. Medical and family issues consumed a lot of my time and the models that I chose to build ended up taking considerably more building time than I had initially anticipated. As a result, I didn’t get anywhere near the number of models built that I had planned but I did have some successful builds nonetheless. What follows is a recap of those models that did make it onto and off of my modeling bench in 2023.

Plastics

I started the year by focusing my building efforts on trying to develop my plastic scale modeling skills. To that end, I built 3 vintage plastic model kits that were all of different scales. There were quality and age issues with each of these kits that I felt would make them good candidates for not being overly concerned with making modeling mistakes while trying to develop my skill set. By and large, they all came out ‘OK’ and served their purpose in that I learned a lot about building plastic kits. These builds accomplished the goal of reintroducing me back into the world of plastic kit modeling and I have since increased my inventory of new plastic kits that I’m looking forward to building.

(Click on photos to zoom in on them)

Airplanes

I then decided to take a crack at building a pre-plastic scale kit from 1947. I built a StromBecker Convair Flagship wood model and it was a fairly unique experience for me. Solid wood model kits were very popular before the widespread proliferation of plastic injection molded kits. Sanding, and lots of it, was the predominant skill needed to build a good-looking wooden kit. I was pretty pleased with the way mine finally came out. The build of this model plane is detailed in a previous FlyBoyz post and video.

My one unplanned build this year was a Guillow’s Cessna O-1E Bird-Dog free flight model which I recently wrote about in a previous FlyBoyz post. This build was in response to a Facebook group contest build and proved to be one of my longer and more frustrating builds of the past year. But it is now complete and waiting for some nice gentle spring grass to make its maiden flight over. Whenever that happens, there will be a FlyBoyz video published to document it.

On and off throughout the year, I made slow progress on my build of a Cox .049-powered Berkeley P-40 control line model. For various reasons, this build has ended up consuming ridiculous amounts of building hours thus it was an on-again off-again build around my other model builds. I had decided to add an extended tank to the Cox .049 engine which has necessitated the scratch building of a modified engine cowling. This has proven to chew up even more building hours but is almost complete as can be seen in the below photo. The model will be entering the doping and finishing phase shortly and I hope to complete it before the end of 2023. We’ll see about that.

The Final Analysis & Future Plans

So by my count, that is 5 projects I brought to completion this past year plus 1 almost complete model.

So, what’s in store for 2024? To start with, I intend to complete the Berkeley P-40. Then there are 4 partially completed models staring at me from my workbenches so I want to focus on completing some of them. I will be starting with the continuation of the B-10 twin-engine bomber build. I have been building a lot of ‘small’ models which I’m finding frustrating so I am looking forward to dealing with the much larger size of the B-10.

Then there are no less than 8 models that I have ‘inherited’ that all require some amount of restoration and/or completion so I’d like to work through some of them. And in January, I will be starting work on my decades-long delayed HO Model Railroad. First up on it in January/February will be the benchwork. Maybe by the end of March, I’ll actually have some tracks laid so that I can actually run a train after all these years of collecting them!

And then there are the shelves of Guillows balsa kits, plastic scale kits, rockets, and railroad craftsman structure kits to begin working on! There will never be a lack of great modeling subjects for me to keep busy with. I’m looking forward to the 2024 modeling year!