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Gordon Stevens, "Mr. Rareplanes," has passed away


SkyKing

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The family has made the following statement:

We are sorry to have to communicate the sad news that Gordon Stevens, ‘Mr Rareplanes’, passed away on 28th October at the age of 88, after a short illness.

We know that Dad really enjoyed corresponding with all his vacform aircraft modelling friends which kept him in the present and in touch with the modelling world. After years of resisting the internet he eventually took the plunge and over the past 10 years has been quite taken aback to discover so many postings relating to Rareplanes Vacforms, not to mention the many emails of appreciation he has been sent from die-hard enthusiasts like all of you.

We’d be grateful if you could please pass message this on to anyone whom you think would like to know and we would like to thank all of you for your friendship with him over the years which we know he has appreciated very much.

With our warm regards
His wife Janet, daughters Claire & Serena
(the Rareplanes family)

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Michael, thank you so very much for passing along this sad news. I knew Gordon for many years. I first met him on a business trip to London in the late '60s. Jerry Campbell was starting to do business with Gordon so he asked me to look him up and buy dinner for him and his wife. As it turned out, I had dinner with Gordon & his wife at their house. Two very gracious people. I remained in contact with Gordon after he & Jerry parted. I continued to get Rareplane kits when I lived in Brazil and Venezuela and in fact, Gordon introduced me to a modeler in Venezuela, Armando Gil who loved building and collecting like we do.

 

Gordon really advanced vacuum formed modeling when he started using female molds to make his models. The plastic is drawn into the mold and all of the surface detail that is built into the mold is imbedded into the outside of the part. Most other vacuum formed models had the plastic being drawn around a male mold, similar to the Mattel toy, with poor surface detail. Gordon would smile when he told me that the models that he built for advertising photos were only finished on one side. He said "I usually don't have time to finish both sides of the model."

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