Resin/Vacumm/Brass etch

Some more questions on modeling technologies,

1. When did resin kits start to appear on the market?

2. When did vacuum kits start to appear on the market?

3. When did brass etch start to appear on the market?




cam

[JohnMacG]

AFAIK, the first vac-forms appeared in the very early '70s. I remember Rareplanes first (a Seversky P-35) appearing about that time - 1971 would be about right. Airmodels started producing at about the same time (I remember their Go229 coming out then too).

[PeterL]

AFAIK, the first vac-forms appeared in the very early '70s. I remember Rareplanes first (a Seversky P-35) appearing about that time - 1971 would be about right. Airmodels started producing at about the same time (I remember their Go229 coming out then too).

Etched brass was around at about the same time but only ship modelers and the railway crowd latched on to it immediately. Harry Woodman was an early exponent but mostly we aircraft modelers were a bit slow on the uptake and it's the nineties before it's in anything like widespread use.

I first saw resin moulding demonstrated, also in the early seventies, by a dental technician who was a keen WWI modeler. All his models were beautiful, but a hidious shade of pink prior to painting. Resin was used in kraft kits (chess sets etc) for quite a long time before the cottage industry movement opened up the commercial possibilities. I saw a commercial resin kit for the first time at the Model Egineer Exhibition, Wembley '82. The railway crowd again. Ifirst started playing with resin in '88 and there were already aircraft kits available by then, but mostly coversion parts. In '95, when I produced some resin kits myself, it was still just possible to get away with hand poured quality. But things changed rapidly and I certainly couldn't match the quality we see these days. *

Cam,

Are you writing a book on the history of modelling? This is the second post.

But the posts are interesting and I hope they continue.

I think Pete and all the posts on this tread are correct. At least they are the way I remember them. I remember Rareplanes. But even then there were Model airplane mags. I still have them but no covers because my Father had to send the cover back for credit.

Of course one of the oldest, Model Airtplane News, but they never discussed Plastic.

There were so Euro pubs at the time.