Vintage Book Review

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

My friend Ron has an enviable relationship with an amiable fellow across the water. Every year or two, Ron will travel to England to have a look around, as he likes to haunt museums, boot sales, antique stores and auctions. While he’s there, he’ll usually stay at his friend’s house, but will occasionally overnight in a faraway hotel. And in return, his friend will do likewise when he visits the states. They generally stay in each other’s homeland about 10 days, and this arrangement has been working well for them for some years now.

Ron is a generous sort, and he always remembers me by bringing me something from his trip. It’s usually some candy for my sweet tooth and a book or two that I’ve never seen before. A few months ago, Ron presented me with this small volume that he thought I’d like to add to my small paper modeling library. Thanks, Ron.

Gummed Strip and Paper Modeling by Frederick T. Day was first published in Great Britain in 1955. The back cover credits the author with four other books that deal with paper arts as they are practiced in schools. However, this book is aimed at an older audience, as the techniques described require more patience and dexterity than the paper chains and masks of the school books. Long out of print, this book may well have been mentioned in these pages before, but it’s new to me and I though it worth a review.

The book’s Introduction suggests gathering a set of tools that will be quite familiar to today’s paper modeler. The biggest difference in the hobby is the raw material, namely, gummed paper strip tape. This is the old-fashioned paper tape that needs to be moistened for the glue to stick. Rolls of this gummed paper strip are rarely seen today, as modern paper tapes use waterless adhesives with integrated fiberglass webbing to make a stronger, more durable product. However, the plain, old, gummed paper tape is still available, as it is used in the art world for various purposes.

Below, I’m including the Table of Contents to show the alacrity of Mr. Days mind. His list of contents is creative and varied. I’m also attaching a few scans from the book that show some of the suggested paper projects. Among the included texts, find below the entry titled, Holding a Faulty Electric Light Switch. The idea is to slap a piece of wet paper under an old, metal, toggle light switch to hold it in the up (English-off) position. Combining a faulty electric switch with water and England’s famous 230 volt system seems like a sparking good idea to me.

Among the rather pedestrian flower pots and paper crowns, the book’s most interesting entries describe how to build a hollow, lightweight boat hull suitable for electric drive, and a modern jet fighter model. These are complex projects that require the modeler to first fashion a form out of wood, and then build up the model by layering sticky, wet strips of gummed paper around the form. The attached photographic plates show the tedious process, but it should be admitted that I’ve done some far more mind-numbing tasks to get the models I wanted. All part of the fun, yes?

Occasionally, as I sit at my bench working on a modern paper model, I pause and appreciate the beauty and accuracy of the models that are so readily available to us today. And after seeing an old book such as this, I think back to the efforts of our brothers and sisters of six decades ago. And I wonder, maybe we’ve lost something along the way.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Madbrit]

Gummed paper tape is used by some of us traditional water color artists to stretch the paper. It should be available from Blick Art Supplies in several different widths, Utrecht Art Supplies and Daniel Smith.