PARIS (AP) – He’s crying at the dinner table, putting the finishing touches on his miniature World War II tank. Deep in concentration, he keeps his hand steady as he works to make the scaled-down plastic model look as realistic as possible.
And while he does so, Maxime Fannoy – imprisoned husband and father who is spreading the coronavirus with his family in Belgium – happily feels the unrelenting pandemic nightmare of the outside world out of focus.
“It’s an escape. When you build a kit or scene, you really dive into it ”, says Fannoy. “Everything else loses its importance, and in the current context that really helps.”
Rejuvenated by quarantines and lockdowns, enjoy the old-fashioned pastime of creating miniature worlds by assembling and decorating scaled-down models or driving mini-trains on mini-tracks, enjoy a revival – plastic therapy against the pandemic blues.
Sales are now on the rise for families stripped of their social lives, engaging inactive hands and minds by making models and dusting train sets. British brand Airfix saw a run on plastic kits for Spitfires, the iconic WWII fighter plane. Hornby, who owns Airfix and also makes a range of model trains and cars under other brands, has returned to profitability with increasing sales.
The analogous joys of gluing and painting, repairing and fiddling, also draw some members of the digital generation away from their screens. Teens catch the modeling bug from parents and grandparents who suddenly have time again to indulge in hobbies that many have been too busy to pursue since childhood.
In France, 70-year-old retired Guy Warein says his renovation to a model train set that had accumulated dust in his attic helped him connect with his grandchildren who play video games during lockdown time, leaving them ‘of the virtual world were drawn to reality. “
When school was out, the eldest, 16 years old, said during a visit, ‘Come grandpa, let’s go see the trains and make them work. “So we brought them together and did things together,” says Warein. “It’s a coming together of generations, and that can only be beneficial.”
So he fixed the HO-scale locomotives and rolling stock he inherited from his father-in-law, and set up the room where he wants them to run on a U-shaped track he’s designing. The activity helped Warein, a former educator and city councilor, allay the pandemic and his fears.
“You fill your time and forget what’s going on around you,” he says. “Turning on the radio or television is like being hit with a baton because they talk systematically about the virus and the setbacks it brings. … When I have a hobby, I can think of other things. ”
Manufacturers are struggling to cope with rising global interest. Hornby’s CEO, Lyndon Davies, says he had to ship 10,000 Spitfire kits from a factory in India when Airfix’s stocks ran dry for the first time in the company’s 71-year history.
‘What you don’t want from your kids, your grandchildren, is that they watch TV or stare at phones all the time. This pandemic has really brought families together in the home, ”he says. “They used the kind of products we make to try to forget what was going on in the outside world.”
Another UK manufacturer, Peco, has hired additional staff to meet rising orders – up 50% in some markets – for its miniature trains, rails and modeling accessories.
“This is happening everywhere: our markets in the UK, in Europe, in Australia, North America, in China,” said Steve Haynes, the sales manager. “People are making much more use of their free time, their free time, their forced time spent at home to deal with boredom, tackle isolation and do something creative.”
In Belgium, Fannoy calls himself a ‘model maker made from lockdown’. He had long bought plastic construction kits because they reminded him of his childhood, but he never had time to build them. Instead, he kept them in a wardrobe.
When the pandemic ended his busy life and forced him to do his job as a business developer from home, he got to work with his stock, stocking up on brushes and paint in the last days before closing.
He completed a series of 1/24 scale rally cars for the first time. A World War II Tiger tank followed in late 2020, painted to look weathered and mounted in a winter scene with troops and a jeep. He posted pictures of the diorama, the fruit of 50 hours of craftsmanship, on Facebook.
“Usually I start around 8 PM in the evening and stop around 11 PM to midnight,” says Fannoy. “I can no longer do the things I normally would. So what am I supposed to do? I open a kit and work on it. In fact, it is my wife who comes to take me out of this mini world in which I live. “
The hours fly by. It’s a form of meditation, ”he says. “It has helped me a lot to get through the past year.”
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