Model Making - Work or Play?

[Smithy]

I find it interesting that we refer to our hobby as work. When I first began to build models (aged eight), did I talk of work benches and tasks and progress? I don’t think so. I think I simply ‘played with my Airfix kits’.

After school I went to work in a factory. I hated it and definitely had to be paid to go there. Work, I discovered, was something unpleasant and compulsory (if I wanted to eat!).

Work = unpleasant. So why do we speak of this hobby as work?

I read a lot. I don’t work on a book. I just read it. I enjoy cooking so I don’t work in the kitchen, I cook there.

All the the things I like to do are by my definition of the word - not work. Except modelling. Why is that?

Perhaps it’s because I’m retired. I have no real work to do and maybe I miss having the status of a working man so I elevate my hobby of playing with toy boats, planes and tanks into ‘work’ to fill that empty place in my self-image? If I do, it’s not something I’m conscious of. I’m rather proud of my status as a retired bookseller, airman etc etc etc.

Perhaps calling our hobby ‘work’ is something that modellers of a certain age all do because we unconsciously feel this need to still have the dignity of a job and copy each others’ use of the W word to make it so.

Or perhaps it’s because a lot of time spent in the hobby is actually unpleasant and boring. Sanding the char comes to mind.

Work and play - two little words that we hardly notice coming out of our mouths and once you start to notice them they raise so many questions.

But that’s just my ruminations after a rather fine home made dinner and what do I know about anything?

Not much.

 

[DennisP]

Interesting seeing your post, it looks to have been posted at 08.31 this morning, a strange time by English standards for a “rather fine home made dinner”.
Good job we are all different.
For me, work was what I did before I retired to earn a living even though I loved my job and my play consists of my social interests like exercise, hobbies and the like.
Just my little thought.
Having discovered your posts quite a few posts ago, I love your contributions, you are interesting and knowledgeable to say the least, oh and very helpful.
This topic is not Model related but interesting. Thanks

 

[Smithy]

Interesting seeing your post, it looks to have been posted at 08.31 this morning, a strange time by English standards for a “rather fine home made dinner”.
Good job we are all different.

We dined late and there were many courses.

 

[AllanKP69]

Work = unpleasant.

Hope we can agree to disagree. Maybe I was just lucky, but after about 15 years of schooling and "work" I finally admitted to myself that I was a lousy engineer because I hated the jobs and I went into a career in sales and marketing the things I was working on as an engineer and loved it for over 35 years. I can't think of 10 days in those 35 years where I did not look forward to going to the office or travel to see a customer or supplier and I never once called it going to work. I truly believe if one does what they love for a living they will never call it work and they will succeed. To waste 30 or 40 years having to go to work at something we do not care for is a shame.

The same goes for a hobby. If it feels like work, maybe find a new one or at least go on vacation from it, be it a few days or a year or more. How we earn a living and what we choose for a hobby can both be fun and at the least should never be work.

Allan

 

[Smithy]

Hope we can agree to disagree

You aren’t disagreeing Allan. You make the same point as me, that doing things you love isn’t ‘work’ but pleasure, even playing as I used to ‘play’ with the full sized aircraft of the RAF.

I enjoy our hobby and have done for years and years, like most of us here. Yet we constantly use the word ‘work’ to describe our activities. Actually I try to avoid it but it does creep into my posts from time to time.

 

[Jack Sparrow]

Hope we can agree to disagree. Maybe I was just lucky, but after about 15 years of schooling and "work" I finally admitted to myself that I was a lousy engineer because I hated the jobs and I went into a career in sales and marketing the things I was working on as an engineer and loved it for over 35 years. I can't think of 10 days in those 35 years where I did not look forward to going to the office or travel to see a customer or supplier and I never once called it going to work. I truly believe if one does what they love for a living they will never call it work and they will succeed. To waste 30 or 40 years having to go to work at something we do not care for is a shame.

The same goes for a hobby. If it feels like work, maybe find a new one or at least go on vacation from it, be it a few days or a year or more. How we earn a living and what we choose for a hobby can both be fun and at the least should never be work.

Allan

I too was an engineer and hated it with a passion. I turned to IT, and it was like a lightbulb went on. I had found my place. Unfortunately because of my health I had to retire early, and well here I am. The modelship process is absolutley fascinating for me and keeps me going in my retired life. I have even found an aspect of the hobby which allows me to use computers to do certain automated tasks and I am able to tinker with micromachinery.

 

[Jimsky]

Model making is play for grown-ups who still love to build worlds with their hands.

Model making straddles that strange line between work and play better than almost any hobby I can think of. It feels like work sometimes—tedious sanding, fussy alignments, tiny parts that vanish into the carpeted void—but it’s done in the spirit of play. The kind of play adults rarely allow themselves. Focused. Absorbing. Quietly joyful.
When you're immersed in shaping a hull, detailing a deck, or painting fine trim, you're not doing it because you have to—to-you’re doing it because you want to. That alone puts it in the “play” column. But because it requires discipline, patience, and problem-solving, it can masquerade as work. We use the word “work” because it gives the time we spend a kind of legitimacy. Maybe we feel we need to justify how many hours we sink into “just playing with boats.
But here’s the thing - when you're done and you step back to admire what you've made, you're not thinking, “That was a good day at the shipyard.” You're thinking, “That was fun. Let’s do more.”

So, yes, it has elements of work, but at its heart?

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

i could say i never worked a day in my life from early on for me i loved to draw and art was a passion. Out of school i became a "commercial graphic artist" Wow i got paid to do what i loved doing. You could say i worked for a living as a graphic artist and a side hobby of playing around with model ships. I left the world of working for agencies, commercial design studios etc then mucked around with my brother in the tree service business and finally landed in doing model ships creating the Lumberyard for Model Shipwrights.
when my play time hobby became work was when i realized as a play time hobby it was on my time and if i did not feel like doing anything i didn't. When it became a business i had customers waiting on me for their wood orders. So i had to go to "work" to get orders done whether i felt like it or not.
bottom line it is play when you do it by choice work when you have to do it.

but in the end even working in model ships is not work to me it is a creative adventure. still love doing it.

 

[Smithy]

Model making straddles that strange line between work and play better than almost any hobby I can think of. It feels like work sometimes—tedious sanding, fussy alignments, tiny parts that vanish into the carpeted void—but it’s done in the spirit of play. The kind of play adults rarely allow themselves. Focused. Absorbing. Quietly joyful.

Jim, you’ve found it! The hobby is “work in the spirit of play”. What a brilliant way to express what I was struggling to understand. Building a model requires me to concentrate, persevere, even do hard physical labour but since I want to do it all, those difficult and sometimes unpleasant things count as playing.

My time servicing Vulcans was also work in the spirit of play.

My concepts of work = unpleasant and play = pleasure were both too simplistic. Sometimes, if we are lucky, work = play!

 

[Smithy]

to build worlds with their hands.

That phrase speaks to me too.

I open the kit box and it’s chaos in there. Over time I build order and sometimes beauty on my workbench, building little worlds with my hands.

 

[Bill-R]

Hello everyone,
I have always felt that I was blessed to have one of the most interesting careers. I spent my career in the electrical generation industry. It was both highly rewarding and it could also be extremely stressful. I worked in operations and the Electrical/IC departments. It was both exhilarating and terrifying when operations would call and say “we just lost the unit and we have no idea why”. Then it was our job to get the unit back on line. I find that I miss it tremendously. In forty years I never once dreaded going into work.

Model building is part of who I am. I started when I was six and have never stopped. Plastic or wood, cars, airplanes, ships I enjoy doing them all. I tend to be a very competitive person, so now that I am retired and I have the time, I have been looking into the IPMS for future competitions. I have never thought of myself as a good builder. Just an enthusiastic builder.

Bill

 

[Rob444]

Model making is play for grown-ups who still love to build worlds with their hands.

Model making straddles that strange line between work and play better than almost any hobby I can think of. It feels like work sometimes—tedious sanding, fussy alignments, tiny parts that vanish into the carpeted void—but it’s done in the spirit of play. The kind of play adults rarely allow themselves. Focused. Absorbing. Quietly joyful.
When you're immersed in shaping a hull, detailing a deck, or painting fine trim, you're not doing it because you have to—to-you’re doing it because you want to. That alone puts it in the “play” column. But because it requires discipline, patience, and problem-solving, it can masquerade as work. We use the word “work” because it gives the time we spend a kind of legitimacy. Maybe we feel we need to justify how many hours we sink into “just playing with boats.
But here’s the thing - when you're done and you step back to admire what you've made, you're not thinking, “That was a good day at the shipyard.” You're thinking, “That was fun. Let’s do more.”

So, yes, it has elements of work, but at its heart?

"Model making straddles that strange line between work and play better than almost any hobby I can think of. It feels like work sometimes—tedious sanding, fussy alignments, tiny parts that vanish into the carpeted void" But it is somehow also beyond play. Often I will be be at the bench for a few hours of fairly intense concentration and I would have sworn that I was only there for 15-20 minutes. In almost nothing else that I do, do I get "lost" in the activity.

 

[Roger Pellett]

My work/play relationship closely mirrors that of both Bill-R and Allan I enjoyed both.

Engineering is in my DNA. My father was an engineer as is my son. My career involved shop fabrication of the massive high pressure steam piping used in electric generating stations. As part of informal management training for the company, I spent time in the estimating department. As our sales force’s principal responsibility was entertaining customers, I discovered that “estimating” also involved customer contract negotiations. I never tired of unrolling a set of drawings and trying to figure out a strategy to beat the competition in a highly competitive industry. Plus it paid well.

Ship modeling is also an all consuming activity that I take seriously. It is satisfying rather than fun. Research and figuring out how to fabricate small scale parts is a major part of the enjoyment.

Roger

 

[Smithy]

Often I will be be at the bench for a few hours of fairly intense concentration and I would have sworn that I was only there for 15-20 minutes. In almost nothing else that I do, do I get "lost" in the activity.

That's called 'flow state', not only does time pass unnoticed but often the work seems effortless and the results are usually very good. I get it too, it's almost like meditation.

 

[Donnie]

I am only saying this in a joking manner. Lately, when I have been _____ on my Constitution, I swear it feels like ____ . (Work)

 

[Peter Gutterman]

If and when asked, I tell people, with ironic honesty, that "I retired in 1978 and did my hobby for a living" restoring (really fine historic period) antique furniture and wood objet d'art. I believe that Providence opens doors for us, but it is up to us to recognize when that happens and is our choice to walk through when it does, or not. Providence will not do it for us. In a magazine article, years ago, a person hoping to make a career as a craftsman asked a craftsman " How do you make a living as a craftsman?" To which the craftsman replied, "Marry well." True story. That's another one of those doors that opened for me that I had the good fortune and sense to walk through.
I never could work successfully for anyone else (except my customers, who I loved).
"If you do what you love to do for a living, you won't have to work a day in your life." True, for us lucky deletants.
Thanks to Smithy for broaching this subject.

Pete

 

[bradjensen]

I find it interesting that we refer to our hobby as work. When I first began to build models (aged eight), did I talk of work benches and tasks and progress? I don’t think so. I think I simply ‘played with my Airfix kits’.

After school I went to work in a factory. I hated it and definitely had to be paid to go there. Work, I discovered, was something unpleasant and compulsory (if I wanted to eat!).

Later, in the RAF I was allowed to service and repair my country’s aircraft. I’m quite sure I never said “I work in the Royal Air Force” or I work on IX Sqn.” It didn’t feel like work at all. Sometimes it was unpleasant in those Lincolnshire winter winds and it was definitely compulsory but to be honest, I’d have paid them for the privilege of being a member and playing with those fabulous machines.

It became work much later when I was lumbered with staff type jobs in pleasant heated offices. Something I didn’t enjoy but was forced into by military discipline and financial need.

After demob I was a bookseller in a large bookshop. I didn’t ‘work in a bookshop’; I was a bookseller. It was another job that I loved to do and I took most of my wages home in paperbacks.

I won’t bore you with my entire CV because it’s a long and varied one but I think you are probably getting my point already. Work = unpleasant. So why do we speak of this hobby as work?

I have other hobbies. I like to walk the hills with my dog. I can’t think of a plausible way to describe owning a dog as work. I play with him. I train him. I care for him. I never work on him.

I’m learning to play the guitar. Sometimes it’s a bit boring. I suppose I might say I’m working on my scales but usually I’d say “I’m playing guitar” or “ I’m practicing”

I read a lot. I don’t work on a book. I just read it. I enjoy cooking so I don’t work in the kitchen, I cook there.

All the the things I like to do are by my definition of the word - not work. Except modelling. Why is that?

Perhaps it’s because I’m retired. I have no real work to do and maybe I miss having the status of a working man so I elevate my hobby of playing with toy boats, planes and tanks into ‘work’ to fill that empty place in my self-image? If I do, it’s not something I’m conscious of. I’m rather proud of my status as a retired bookseller, airman etc etc etc.

Perhaps calling our hobby ‘work’ is something that modellers of a certain age all do because we all unconsciously feel this need to still have the dignity of a job and copy each others’ use of the W word to make it so.

Or perhaps it’s because a lot of time spent in the hobby is actually unpleasant and boring. Sanding the char comes to mind.

Work and play - two little words that we hardly notice coming out of our mouths and once you start to notice them they raise so many questions.

But that’s just my ruminations after a rather fine home made dinner and what do I know about anything?

Not much.

I find it interesting that we refer to our hobby as work. When I first began to build models (aged eight), did I talk of work benches and tasks and progress? I don’t think so. I think I simply ‘played with my Airfix kits’.

After school I went to work in a factory. I hated it and definitely had to be paid to go there. Work, I discovered, was something unpleasant and compulsory (if I wanted to eat!).

Later, in the RAF I was allowed to service and repair my country’s aircraft. I’m quite sure I never said “I work in the Royal Air Force” or I work on IX Sqn.” It didn’t feel like work at all. Sometimes it was unpleasant in those Lincolnshire winter winds and it was definitely compulsory but to be honest, I’d have paid them for the privilege of being a member and playing with those fabulous machines.

It became work much later when I was lumbered with staff type jobs in pleasant heated offices. Something I didn’t enjoy but was forced into by military discipline and financial need.

After demob I was a bookseller in a large bookshop. I didn’t ‘work in a bookshop’; I was a bookseller. It was another job that I loved to do and I took most of my wages home in paperbacks.

I won’t bore you with my entire CV because it’s a long and varied one but I think you are probably getting my point already. Work = unpleasant. So why do we speak of this hobby as work?

I have other hobbies. I like to walk the hills with my dog. I can’t think of a plausible way to describe owning a dog as work. I play with him. I train him. I care for him. I never work on him.

I’m learning to play the guitar. Sometimes it’s a bit boring. I suppose I might say I’m working on my scales but usually I’d say “I’m playing guitar” or “ I’m practicing”

I read a lot. I don’t work on a book. I just read it. I enjoy cooking so I don’t work in the kitchen, I cook there.

All the the things I like to do are by my definition of the word - not work. Except modelling. Why is that?

Perhaps it’s because I’m retired. I have no real work to do and maybe I miss having the status of a working man so I elevate my hobby of playing with toy boats, planes and tanks into ‘work’ to fill that empty place in my self-image? If I do, it’s not something I’m conscious of. I’m rather proud of my status as a retired bookseller, airman etc etc etc.

Perhaps calling our hobby ‘work’ is something that modellers of a certain age all do because we all unconsciously feel this need to still have the dignity of a job and copy each others’ use of the W word to make it so.

Or perhaps it’s because a lot of time spent in the hobby is actually unpleasant and boring. Sanding the char comes to mind.

Work and play - two little words that we hardly notice coming out of our mouths and once you start to notice them they raise so many questions.

But that’s just my ruminations after a rather fine home made dinner and what do I know about anything?

Not much.

As a fellow retiree, I understand the conundrum we face about our hobbies and work. Being a composite hobbyist, I paint (art), make model ships and boats, and presently I am in the process of building a model railroad/railway that occupies 12 by 26 feet under my home. Fear of dementia was the motivation for all of my creative pastimes. Having lost my mother in 2022 to the dreaded dementia, I was determined to stay active during these precious work-free years. It is clear to me that one must be engaged in a worthwhile pursuit to maintain balance in this gift we call life. I have witnessed co-workers who dreamed of the day when work would cease and the good life would begin, only to pass away soon after parting from "the job". Not having their time occupied with rewarding activity seems to be the reason so many slide into boredom and wasted time in front of the box. Death seems to follow for lack of anything worthwhile in their lives. Maybe I am guilty of observing things from a contrasting viewpoint, but having worked since I was 13 in a trade I inherited from a family of tradesmen, work was ingrained in my ethic as a good, worthwhile endeavor. After 57 years of doing the grind, I retired at 70 and found that I have been busy ever since doing what I had dreamed of for so long. At times, it is a process of repetitive hand movements that tries one's patience. But when it all comes together and you have a finished work on the bench, or easel, the reward of satisfaction can't be compared to work.

 

[Chelseafan]

I find it interesting that we refer to our hobby as work. When I first began to build models (aged eight), did I talk of work benches and tasks and progress? I don’t think so. I think I simply ‘played with my Airfix kits’.

After school I went to work in a factory. I hated it and definitely had to be paid to go there. Work, I discovered, was something unpleasant and compulsory (if I wanted to eat!).

Later, in the RAF I was allowed to service and repair my country’s aircraft. I’m quite sure I never said “I work in the Royal Air Force” or I work on IX Sqn.” It didn’t feel like work at all. Sometimes it was unpleasant in those Lincolnshire winter winds and it was definitely compulsory but to be honest, I’d have paid them for the privilege of being a member and playing with those fabulous machines.

It became work much later when I was lumbered with staff type jobs in pleasant heated offices. Something I didn’t enjoy but was forced into by military discipline and financial need.

After demob I was a bookseller in a large bookshop. I didn’t ‘work in a bookshop’; I was a bookseller. It was another job that I loved to do and I took most of my wages home in paperbacks.

I won’t bore you with my entire CV because it’s a long and varied one but I think you are probably getting my point already. Work = unpleasant. So why do we speak of this hobby as work?

I have other hobbies. I like to walk the hills with my dog. I can’t think of a plausible way to describe owning a dog as work. I play with him. I train him. I care for him. I never work on him.

I’m learning to play the guitar. Sometimes it’s a bit boring. I suppose I might say I’m working on my scales but usually I’d say “I’m playing guitar” or “ I’m practicing”

I read a lot. I don’t work on a book. I just read it. I enjoy cooking so I don’t work in the kitchen, I cook there.

All the the things I like to do are by my definition of the word - not work. Except modelling. Why is that?

Perhaps it’s because I’m retired. I have no real work to do and maybe I miss having the status of a working man so I elevate my hobby of playing with toy boats, planes and tanks into ‘work’ to fill that empty place in my self-image? If I do, it’s not something I’m conscious of. I’m rather proud of my status as a retired bookseller, airman etc etc etc.

Perhaps calling our hobby ‘work’ is something that modellers of a certain age all do because we all unconsciously feel this need to still have the dignity of a job and copy each others’ use of the W word to make it so.

Or perhaps it’s because a lot of time spent in the hobby is actually unpleasant and boring. Sanding the char comes to mind.

Work and play - two little words that we hardly notice coming out of our mouths and once you start to notice them they raise so many questions.

But that’s just my ruminations after a rather fine home made dinner and what do I know about anything?

Not much.

Very well put, my friend. I too worked around aircraft for 40 years a career that took me to the boardroom and around the world. Retures at 58 and as much as I enjoyed my work, and I di, I really don't miss it. I tool the view that nobody lies on their death bed wishing they'd spent more time in the office. So I okay guitar, build ships, collect books and guitars, keep in shape, and take lucrative consulting work as it comes up. I always think that going back to work because someone can't think of things to do is a failure of imagination. That said, if you love your work, keep doing it,but if it's a chore find something else to do.....we're a long time dead.
But like you, I hate sanding char! But I suppose it is a small price to pay for the beautiful results that suddenly become easy to achieve.
IX squadron.......Vulcans!? Aaaah.

 

[jbradford]

I finally got my model out of the mothball fleet to continue building it. I thought I might restart with rigging up the gun carriages, but after trying to sieze all those tiny lines, I am feeling like this may be work and take a lot of time.

It's a good thing I have lots of it now.

 

[Chelseafan]

Hope we can agree to disagree. Maybe I was just lucky, but after about 15 years of schooling and "work" I finally admitted to myself that I was a lousy engineer because I hated the jobs and I went into a career in sales and marketing the things I was working on as an engineer and loved it for over 35 years. I can't think of 10 days in those 35 years where I did not look forward to going to the office or travel to see a customer or supplier and I never once called it going to work. I truly believe if one does what they love for a living they will never call it work and they will succeed. To waste 30 or 40 years having to go to work at something we do not care for is a shame.

The same goes for a hobby. If it feels like work, maybe find a new one or at least go on vacation from it, be it a few days or a year or more. How we earn a living and what we choose for a hobby can both be fun and at the least should never be work.

Allan

I did the same. I was a very average engineer surrounded by very gifted ones so I went into business development and never looked back! was my true calling.