It is the old Nichimo 1/200 scale kit that I built as a kid back in the 1970s. Being a kid, I built it up using the electric motor power option. I actually ran it in the pool a lot, but could never get the battery cover to seal up properly, so it sank a lot. Eventually the motor seized up tight and it just would not go any more. So I installed a firecracker in the battery compartment and “depth charged” it in the neighbor’s pool. BOOM! It was quite spectacular! Some pieces even landed on the roof. I collected all the parts I could find, glued them back together, put everything in a plastic baggy, and forgot about it.
Many years (decades) later, I found it while cleaning stuff out of my mother’s house. I decided to keep it; and ended up using it as a practice mule for painting something very rusty. I liked how it was coming out, so I added a base to create a vignette showing it at the bottom of the ocean. I added a shark from the old Revell Calypso kit and a brass plaque stating that it was on it’s “last patrol.”
Firecrackers and models were made for each other during a well rounded misspent youth. Lindberg ships in the creek built with the fireworks already in them model rocket engines in jet plane models were always fun …
Firecrackers, lighter fluid, BBs, so many of my models meant such fates. Then I decided I wanted to try to make the explosions a little more realistic, and began sneaking gunpowder out of my dad’s shotgun shell reloading machine. The powder flared nicely like a Hollywood bomb hit, and sometimes would not even set the bottle on fire. Really cool.
Never played with gasoline. But lighter fluid - in elementary school I ended up having to wear a cotton bandage full of burn cream up to my elbow because a model was not burning well enough, and I said I would relight it but my friend said he would spray more lighter fluid on it, and he did, while I was reaching in with a lit match…
It is a phase most of us went through! My favorite was the time (I was in junior high) I completed a Monogram F-105 to my highest standard at the time and was very proud of it. Unfortunately, I had seen a program on TV about “performance art” and decided to try it out. Placed it on a scale airfield base in the back yard with real dirt and lichen bushes, I had taped a firecracker under the fuselage and attached a concealed wire leading to my model rocket launch controller. I still remember my dad’s smile when I showed him my masterpiece and explained how I had upgraded the cockpit, painted the camouflage… and then, you guessed it… I pressed the button on the controller and blew the whole thing apart! After a stunned silence (a piece of the plane had actually hit him), dad’s smile was gone, and, without a word, he went back in the house.
Years later my mother told me how he was convinced I needed counseling and that she had narrowly talked him out of sending me to military boarding school…
Military Boarding School was the ultimate threat for wayward sons back in the day, I remember my older brother being out of hand when he was 17 and was given the same warning, a week later he his draft number bracket came up and everything got real peaceful around the house, thankfully he escaped the call to duty. As far as my models and ballistic charges of destruction I was never inclined, I liked my Pacific Carrier Fleet aircraft way too much to trash them, a friend suggested the firecracker scenario to me once and that was the last time he came over to hang out.
My parents used to threaten me with sending me to Israel and living on a kibbutz… I think if I went at a younger age I’d have thanked them for getting me a bunch of hotties … but I got here on my own in 77 and I didn’t have to thank them I just patted myself on the back… lol
Wow, I really seem to have touched on something. So many people with memories of plastic destruction using firecrackers, BB guns, and other methods.
Lots of tanks, planes, and even cars were gleefully destroyed during summer camping trips and backyard battles. I also sank a number of ships in various lakes and rivers using the afore mentioned weapons. When the BB gun wouldn’t work on some of the bigger ships, a .22LR did the job.
Ken
The .22LR must have been like thew Yamato attacking!
I did a K-7 Space Station from the old Star Trek when I was 15. I wanted to show off the LEDs I’d put in it, but burnt them out because I didn’t know about adding resistors. So naturally my friends helped with put the useless model to some use with small firecrackers.
My chemistry teacher in high school wanted to make sodium torpedoes…
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