A potentialist
My new explanation (read, excuse) to give to my wife!
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Welcome. I grew up in Jenkintown, about 3 miles north of Philly where I got my modeling start say around 1960 or so. Left it for about 35 - 40 years but when I retired I came back to it.
My ideas are practice, practice and more practice and please don’t strive for perfection, the damn stuff is made of unobtainium and just leads to frustration, been there, done that BUT you can always get better.
I’m sure you will get plenty of help and good ideas of how to approach things here, I have.
Mr. YouTube can be a very good friend so make use of it.
There are in my opinion few hard and fast rules. One that does comes to mind is keep fire away from styrene as bad things tend to happen.
And most of all have fun and enjoy.
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My Madness is the greatest of them all,
none matches MINE
Muuaaahahahaha!!!
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True words!
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Welcome to the forum!
It’s a friendly group with a lot of diverse talent.
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Welcome aboard Toby! This forum is where you want to be, lots of helpful folks here.
BTW: We’ve got a couple of things in common… I was born in Germany. Crossed the Atlantic by boat and spent roughly 33 years (the first half of my “youth”) in Trenton, NJ — very close to Philly. … and oh yeah, I love model building!
—mike 
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Welcome aboard. Many great folks here to learn from. All are willing to share their knowledge and make suggestions/recommendations.
The best advice I can offer to someone who is just starting is to not try to do too much at one time. Focus on one or two skills at a time. Trying to master too many will mostly lead to poor or at best mediocre results. This will in turn lead to frustration on your part as you will see it as not making progress. Building a good model is not a destination but a journey. I myself have been a modeler since I was 8 years old with some time off for college and grad school. It’s only within the past 10 years that I would consider myself an accomplished modeler. Good luck and I hope to see some of your work soon.
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Welcome, from Bethlehem PA currently. I may be moving to Philly in the near future though…
Damon.
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Good evening folks,
As mentioned and promised, I’ve attached some photos of my current setup. That’s not everything - I have more tools and materials 
, but they’re currently stored in a large container. I believe I mentioned that I’m rearranging things in my basement, and it currently looks like a mess.
Also, for those who associate me with Philly: yes, I did say I live in Philly. I didn’t realize so many people here are from the U.S./East Coast and familiar with the area. To be more precise, I live between Philly and Lancaster.
It also gives me hope that I might meet one or two of you in real life at an event 
Sorry that I can’t reply to every single person - it’s a bit overwhelming how nice everyone has been so far. A big thank you for that!
Back to the topic: I’m probably going to start building the Panther tank. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to start before my trip to Nevis next week, but I’m really excited to begin. Hopefully, with you guys having my back, I’ll be able to overcome my anxiety a bit.
If it’s okay, I’d like to open my own thread and post about my progress, as well as my questions and struggles
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There’s an AMPS club right outside of Lancaster and I believe someone posted a link to DVSMs website, there’s also Central Pa IPMS in Harrisburg.
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Go ahead!
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Ahh, THAT Panther tank. I have two of those, bought when there wasn’t any alternatives. I have built both of them just to get them out of the way.
There are better kits of the Panther but the old Tamiya kit is still useful to practice your skills on.
This is one of mine, couldn’t find the motivation to try and correct it so it became this instead:
Those levitating tracks can be tied down with some black or brown sewing thread through the track and down under the axle of the second or third road wheel pair.
The track should hang like this when not moving or like this,hanging down to barely touch the second road wheel.
When moving forward the track would lift and just barely touch the third road wheel.
The tracks get worn and the track tightness will be different, from wear and from crew adjustments or lack of adjustment
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Welcome Tobi!
The best advice that I can offer is find enjoyment in “the doing” and not in “the done.” By that I mean, enjoy the process of model making without the stress and fear of making mistakes and the disappointment of less than perfect results.
Perfection is a laudable goal, and one worth pursuing, but it’s also impossible to achieve. However, no matter how close you get, you’ll always find room for improvement and mistakes and flaws that you’ve made - no matter how long you’ve been modeling and how good everyone else thinks you are.
There’s a common saying among the model making community: Build for yourself and not the judges. Sure, there is utility to be found in the criticisms of others, things that you can learn and points of view that you might not have considered or never saw before. Still, at the end of the day, it’s YOU sitting at your workbench doing the work and striving to achieve YOUR vision. The better you get, the more skilled, the knowledgeable, the more ability you get and the more experience you gain, the closer you will be able to get to achieving YOUR vision, but you will aways find something that you will want to do differently the next time (and often new ideas for what you can do - expanded visions and points of view for future projects).
So, while you may find the product acceptable, even if it’s not perfect, always enjoy the process of getting there. Don’t let the criticism of others drive your efforts. No matter what you do or how well you do it, you can never satisfy everyone else. Don’t let them get between you and your modeling.
Build because you love building and let each finished model speak to you about how you can find even more enjoyment with your next project - something new to try, something new you’ve learned, something else you can add to your vision.
Oh, and finally… Get started! Sit down. Open the box and start building! Don’t wait. Just like achieving perfect results, you can never know everything before you even start, so don’t wait!
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and learning/experience expands the vision,
it is like sailing to the horizon, it just keeps moving
further & further away …
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I feel like I need to build that model just to say I built that model. Rite of Passage.
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Indeed! That’s exactly what it is …
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Hey Tobi, welcome aboard. My second favourite Rolling Stones album is “Sticky Fingers”….
Looks like you have a pretty good set-up and are ready to rock n roll into some modelling. As mentioned a lot of us here have jumped back into modelling after very long hiatuses.
You have found a great community to ask questions and answers. Someone is always willing to help, and there are some real pros here.
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Again, thanks a lot to everyone for the nice words and all the replies!
I really appreciate it and it’s refreshing to see that good forums with nice people still exist. I think I don’t need to tell you guys how ruff the internet usually is.
I will try to answer some of you below, but please don’t be mad if I don’t mention any one of you in specific.
Thats awesome! Are you still local to the area? I do not live in Philly, it’s in-between Lancaster and Philly, almost exactly in the middle (Chester County).
that isn’t too far from me. In Allentown is a really good German store with really good meat! Idk if you are a military modeler but if so, I guess you are also visiting the big WW2 event in Reading in the summer?
As mentioned, I do not live in Philly, I do live in-between Lancaster and Philly (Chester County).
Looks good! I guess you painted a homage to “pink panther”? And you actually planted a cool idea in my head 
What is your main scale focus? Is that tank 1:35?
You have no idea… I think I am the biggest judge of myself. I do have the big problem that everything needs to be perfect. If it’s not exactly how I want it then I am not happy. A judge or any other person might be liking it but I am still not happy if something isn’t as I wanted it.
But you are totally right about that saying and honestly when I mentioned “contests” I honestly mean it for myself to develop - not for honor, fishing for compliments or awards.
Tank you for your kind and motivational words!
I did not know about this album - I just thought that the name kinda fits me, because I have the talent to get stuff on my hands and messing something up because my hands are sticky
And yes, I am younger but I love listening to 80s music some of my favorite songs are “pictures of you - the cure, don’t stop believin - steel panther, lights - Journey”
And yes, I think my setup is pretty good and for a beginner way above what a beginner usually has. Now I just need to learn the skillset 
And I already started building my fist kit - more about that in a separate Thread soon!
Ok, I tried to answer - without the spelling and grammar correction of a translator. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand everything (and if not I will ask what it means) and I am also able to speak and write in English, I just struggle with grammar and spelling. I do sometimes mix up words with other languages or build my sentences as I would form them in German (typical mistake).
Btw. I will post my progress and thoughts about my first build hopefully later in an own thread.
Happy building and painting!
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Anything 1/35, have to draw the line somewhere …
I do have some 1/72 helicopters, a bunch of ships (mostly 1/72)
and some old timer cars in 1/24 - 1/25,
almost forgot: some modern semi-trailer tractors bought as references
to maybe scratch build copies in 1/35.
Pink Panther indeed,
I am also thinking about painting a JagdPz Elefant in all white …
All non-native users of English tend to make that mistake.
Once upon a time I had the misfortune of reviewing a technical specification, the official company language was US English (Ericsson mobile networks), which was horribly difficult to understand.
After a page or so I realised that the author was Swedish and a bit older than me.
Now it clicked so I started translating every word back to Swedish and suddenly the sentences made sense. He had written the whole document in Swedish and then translated it, one word at the time using a dictionary, to English.
German has a different sentence structure compared to Swedish and English so word for word translations usually don’t work.
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Yes, I mainly build armor, with aviation a distant second, & ship models rarely. My favorite era is Cold War 1965 to 1985.
I’ve gone to the Reading airshow & re-enactment many times. I hope I can go again this summer, but this time with my wife & stepson; hoping that their visas come through by then (they are Ecuadorian; I lived down there for several years, returning a bit over a year ago because of the job situation)
I’d love to know where the German store is in Allentown. Do you have an address?
Damon.
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