Earlier today, a modeler posted a video to a Facebook group. A video of most of his completed builds making a trip into the trash can. He’s moving, see, and wants a fresh start with the new house.
If you’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, you can guess where this went. Pearls were clutched. Virtues were signaled. Butts were hurt.
Look. Most museums don’t want your cast-offs. Most hobby shops – if they’re still around – probably don’t have space to house them. Models are too fragile for kids to play with. Selling completed kits on eBay? I guess. But it’s a pain in the ass.
Look. I have a weird hang-up about giving away your cast-offs. If I’m going to give a kit to a museum, I want it to be the pride of my collection, not something I built years ago that I’ve long since progressed from.
Look. Ultimately, none of that matters. Because what you do with a model that you purchased is your business and yours alone. You don’t get to cast moral aspersions on someone else doing what they will with their own things. Fuck, how many kits never get built? How many only make it to the shelf of doom? At least a completed kit had its time in the sun.
But holding on to every one…for what? It’s like holding on to every picture you ever take, even the blurry ones or the ones that are poorly framed or the ones where you took five of the same damn shot to try to get the toddler to look at the camera at the same time as everyone else.
We cull the herd in almost every other aspect of our life. We even attach a kind of nobility to it. We call it “spring cleaning” or “decluttering”. But you toss a completed build, even one you’ve moved on from, or weren’t that proud of to begin with, and the knives of indignation come out.
Well fuck that. It’s my model and I can do what I want with it. And your model is your model, and you can do what you want with it.
Even if that means smashing the fuck out of them with a rock.
Doogs Models 
I remember back in the day, tossing fire crackers and shooting them with BB guns, now that I’m a so called I guess I can upgrade to .22 or .45, now you got me thinking…….as my wife will tell you, that never ends well.
HOW DARE YOU?!?!
Other than being smashed by a giant bolder what do you think happened to the real thing the model was modeled on?
If the Panzer survived Kharkov and Kursk it was likely ceded over to another division when the LSSAH was redeployed to Italy.
The N1K1 had a massive rock dropped on it.
I’ve always been a fan of destroying the evidence of how much I sucked. I fully support your efforts!
Why not just give them away to the keen youngsters at your local model club?
Youngsters at model clubs dont want someone elses shitty old models, or even the finely crafted new ones.
They want kits.
Someone gave me all his built Monogram models when I was but a youngster. I had a really nice Daisy rifle and a Marlin .22 . . . Thanks Pops!
Classic how that turret just refuses to depart with the hull of that tank 😂
Given that I can spend “beyond time” on a model it’s quite disturbing how much I enjoyed seeing them getting flattened in the videos above.
Igave away some of Modells to Kids arround, what happend was, that they put a ROCK on them. So why didnt I did it myself ??? Heinz Johannsen By the way, most of them I got on Photos. ( See ModelAircraft Photos by Heinz Johannsen
Yeah it’s good to move old builds away. I only have so much shelf space and some just don’t hold up anymore to my standards. Also I ha e weird hang up about repair broken models. It’s like the magic is gone after that. I do some repairs but not multiple repairs so that can also lead to cullling in all but the most expensive and hard fought kits.
When I was a kid I’d thin out my collection once a summer. The planes would be hung from the clothes line. The armor would be placed on the ground. The ships would be put in the round plastic wading pool full of water. Then out would come the B.B. gun. Big fun. If I did that today, my wife would think I was nuts. However she’d love to see my models and the unbuilt kits disappear.
I invest a lot of time and attention to my models. I like them, they a sort of physical representation of memories. So I treasure them, put them in a glass cabinet, dust them off etc. I have my whole journey as a modeller in my glass cabinet.
But do with your models whatever you want. I have no feelings for any of your models.
But someday you’ll run out of space in your glass cabinets (unless you live alone in a huge house) and then what? Something has got to give, then out come the rocks.
Every time a kit got smashed I felt a little physical pain.