When I was a kid, I used my paper-round money to buy Airfix kits, and I carefully used my nail-clippers (never used for clipping nails) to cut the parts from the sprues, raid one of my sisters make-up bags for nail-files (for filing the tabs, duh).
I bought a sheet of wet-and-dry emery paper from the DIY shop and would carefully sand away as much polystyrene cement cobwebbing (of which there was a lot) from the model before slapping (tut) carefully applying paint (enamel, there was only enamel available) then decals, which, for some reason, had curled up into a ball as soon as they hit the boiling water!
That was then.
Now. You guys. Craftsmen. Modelling has moved on to another dimension, even standard home building kits are treated like works of art, and you are all thoroughly enjoying it. It's fantastic to see.
I love it! 
Forum: General Chat