Vintage Model Retrospective

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

And hi, Tom. Please pass along my compliments to Alexandra for her build of La Forge. The model looks as complex as the Goat Cart with the added (and troublesome) ingredient of free flowing sand.

I think your model represent a Finery Forge, something I had never heard of until I looked it up. Though much older in China, these forges date back to the 15th century in Europe and employed a rudimentary waterwheel-powered blast furnace to liquefy pig iron, and through the elimination of carbon, ultimately produce wrought iron.

The trip hammer, powered by the same waterwheel, could serve two purposes. First, it could crush the raw ore into finer particles fit for the furnace, and secondly, it could form the bloom into plate iron, and at a later date, steel. These forges were often built on hillsides adjacent to fast-moving streams to power the wheel.

A better New Year to you both, Tom and Alexandra.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Philip]

Fascinating model.

[rockpaperscissor]

I too am a proud owner of your book on Card Modeling. It was inspiring and helpful to me when I was first attracted to the hobby.

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

And hi, Don. I’m so glad to hear my book was helpful in your early efforts in our hobby. It’s rewarding to hear that I played a small part in your years-long interest in paper modeling. Your comments, and the others I have received regarding my old book have meant a lot to me.

Thank you.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

For over one hundred years, we have been promised a sky full of flying cars. Ever since Glenn Curtiss developed his Autoplane in 1917, the dream of strapping a set of wings to our earth-bound sedans has never really died.

While Curtiss’ invention could only leave the ground for a few meters at a time, there have been rare instances of flying cars that have actually flown. These unique machines share a number of things in common; they are expensive, complex, uncomfortable and dangerous. And as a bonus, they possess the twin attributes of being both lousy cars and terrifying airplanes, all in the same package. Where do I sign?

For those who would like to own a flying car, but are not inclined to go into debt and risk life itself, why not do as I do…sit back and build a paper model. Today’s vintage entry is a Polish model of the best-known flying car, the American-made, 1949 Taylor Aerocar.

Collected by Tom Greensfelder, the model’s bound pages start with a rather romantic painting showing the Aerocar in flight. The text on the cover roughly translates as, Adolf Jarczyk, A Flying Car, Cardboard Model, Publishing House of the Ministries of National Defense. All is calm inside the tiny cabin as the pilot and passenger white-knuckle their way over the impressionist countryside. Once inside the booklet, we find a collection of clearly drawn and brightly colored parts that build into the model shown below.

After a quick cleanup on the computer and a printout onto 110 lb. cardstock, the build was simple enough. Thankfully, there was no real need to refer to the written Polish instructions. After a bit of quiet effort, the drawings builds into a fairly accurate model of the mid-century flying car. This is even more impressive considering that the designer’s sole source material was most likely the descriptions and small photographs found in our Popular Science/Mechanics magazines of the day. The colorful, butterfly-tailed beauty brings a lot of pop to the model shelf, but a noteworthy disappointment is the lack of grill and headlights at the front of the car-slash-plane. These parts are shown in the cover painting, but they didn’t make it onto the model. I think Adolf owes me a front clip.

Not only did the Aerocar inspire paper model designers, (Fiddler’s Green sells a version,) but it was also made into a plastic kit by Gladen Enterprises, Inc. of Bay City, Michigan. A photograph below shows the box art for the model, sporting a photo of Bob Cummings hawking the kit. The models are highly sought after and command prices in the hundreds of dollars.

There were four first-generation Aerocars produced, and all four survive today. Occasionally, an article will appear describing a particular Aerocar and its history. These articles often end with the announcement that the Aerocar in question is currently for sale, at a price somewhere north of a million dollars.

The dream lives on…

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[FRD]

Very interesting...

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

First, a couple of comments concerning the previous post. As mentioned, the Aerocar model was published by the Polish Ministry of Defense. The rarely seen paper models released by this publisher are known as MON models and by way of illustration, the cover from a MON hovercraft model is included below. Secondly, the caption under the Curtiss flying car should have read, Curtiss Autoplane 1917, not Curtiss Aerocar 1917 as shown.

As Tom and I were working on ideas for our book, we discussed ways of organizing and presenting the material. One idea was to display and discuss a group of three or more models that shared the same subject matter. As an example, the three models below all relate to space exploration.

Leading off, from Tom’s collection, is an English model published by The Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland. The beautifully rendered Woodbine Space Ship model builds into an impressive galactic cruiser with its leather-clad pilot ready for what may come. Built from 110 lb. cardstock, my build uses mirrored parts to fill the white areas inside the launching rail. The rocket ship has a hook under its bow to engage the powerful rubber band and another hook at the stern to lock onto the ramp. A mere touch of the red-ink button should send the ship on its way. Also included are four figures to set the scene, their yellow surrounds were retained to give them an otherworldly appearance.

Once the model is finished, the spaceship looks as if it could take off from its elevated launching rail, arc high into the air, fly over the cat and land in the closet of a young star-voyager’s bedroom. Sadly, this is not to be. Though cleverly engineered, the model’s launching rail just doesn’t have the strength to withstand the pull of any rubber band powerful enough to fling the ship any distance at all. The rail would surely buckle if put under load. A launching rail made from sheet basswood, clad in paper parts, might be strong enough, but I’m happy with the static model as it is.

Next up is a well-known vintage model I collected from the internet. This French model is called, Ici…La Lune, or Here…The Moon. The small diorama shows an established moon base with all the busy goings-on you would expect. The completed model has been seen many times on the internet, so to make mine a bit different, I brightened the color, removed the background’s score lines, reduced the size of the white, numbered trapezoids and glued a red paper stripe around the outside rim of the diorama. Compare the images below to see my alterations.

Lastly, two ships pass in the night. Very closely, it would seem. Another internet find, this simple diorama was published in America by The Quaker Oats Company in 1953. It appeared on the backs of Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice cereal boxes and stirred the imaginations of countless kids at the time. As one of an eight-diorama series titled, Space Flight to the Moon, this is diorama No. 4 of Series, titled, Passing Space Liner!

Each scene features the same, red space ship heading to the moon and depicts the adventures it encounters along the way. The two sites below offer more pictures and information than I can give you here, so pay them a visit for some classic 1950s paper model space art.

Dreams of Space - Books and Ephemera: Quaker "Space Flight to the Moon" (1953)

MOONBASE CENTRAL: SPACE FLIGHT TO THE MOON

Even the simplest vintage paper model can have a deeper history than we might suppose. That’s what makes this area of the hobby so compelling to so many.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

I use my brain almost every day. Problems arise, decisions are made, actions are taken and occasionally, I think about how to apologize for those actions. Life goes on.

Fortunately, there are those who understand the human brain far better than I do, and they are called Brain Doctors. When young Brain Doctors want to take their first poke-around in some actual wetware, they invariably find a shortage of available brains, because, like me, most people jealously guard the brain they already have, dim though it may be.

Enter a man with a solution to the brain problem. Eduard M. W. Weber was a mere student when he came up with the idea of a paper model brain being a useful substitute for the squishy variety. He reasoned that if a die-cut model brain could be made to display and describe the brain’s important parts and be made strong enough to be repeatedly disassembled and reassembled, it might be a suitable teaching tool for nascent neurologists. With this in mind, Eduard sat down at his drawing board and designed and lettered the complex parts for this unique paper model.

So was born Weber’s Gehirnschnitt Modell or Brain Section Model. First published in 1950 by J. F. Lehmanns Verlag Münichen, Germany, this interesting paper model turns out to be quite the challenging build. Constructed from Tom Greensfelder’s scans, the later edition I built luckily came with a full set of English instructions. But, they only go so far.

When I build an airplane model, I know where the propeller goes. The same can be said for a boat’s rudder. But when the brain instructions say, “1. Slide figure 8 into slot “SS” of the anterior frontal section at the same time bending the fimbria hippocampi and the stria olfactoria to the lateral side,” I know I’m in trouble. A general understanding of German, Latin, Greek and the human brain will be of help if you ever decide to give this model a go. I had none of these advantages, but as you can see, my brain ultimately came together.

The original model was printed on stout cardstock to hold up to robust handling. Depending on what part I was making and the manipulation it would have to endure, I laminated two, three or even four sheets of 110 lb. to get the thickness I wanted. There are a lot of unprinted areas showing on this model and I didn’t make any effort to hide them.

It’s interesting to see other builds on the internet. A search of Google Images under, Weber’s Paper Gehirnschnitt Modell, will reveal a few photographs. Revised editions have been printed over the years and although it’s believed to be out of print, unbuilt copies of the model can still be found. Note that newer editions of the brain have included a pair of eyes, reflecting the current thinking that the eyes are part of the brain itself. There’s even a rough YouTube video, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFHU_b9G-DA

So there you have it, a paper brain model. Now, where did I put my keys?

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Thumb Dog]

Hi All,

Issued by the German publisher RAPI, this complex model would have been near the top on a contemporary difficulty scale. A quick look at the single, uncut sheet will reveal many tightly packed parts and as usual, no instructions on how to put the thing together. The parts are so crammed onto the page that some of the important triangular tabs used to connect the model’s components are overrun by adjoining parts. Having the ability to reprint the page on a home computer (so that troublesome parts can be altered on the fly) is a luxury the modelers of nearly a century ago could not have imagined. The original builders would have been wise to buy more than one copy of the inexpensive sheets to properly finish this difficult project.

The completed model seen here was built from a scan I found on the internet. If I had waited a bit longer, I could have used the better scan that Tom Greensfelder added to his collection. Tom’s clearer, more colorful scan is the one shown below.

The model depicts a D-Rad R 0/6, a 12 hp German motorcycle manufactured in 1928 and 1929. The company’s name is a play on D for Deutsche and Rad for Motorrad, meaning motorcycle. The model shows a couple of factory options, namely the large, red box holding the electric lighting unit seen behind the engine as well as the massive electric headlight itself. The single cylinder engine is shown to good effect and the model’s spoked wheels are nicely drawn, too. The most interesting element of the model is the sidecar. Old paper motorcycle models are scarce, and those with sidecars are truly rare. The only other such vintage model that comes to mind is the pre-war BMW R16 by J.F. Schreiber, still available in their catalog at the time of this writing.

As built, the red motorcycle and sidecar measure eight inches long, but keep in mind that this model was built from a scan, without access to an original copy for a size comparison. This is another positive aspect of building vintage models…a good computer scan can be enlarged or reduced to suit the modeler’s needs, and often the newly constructed models are of a quite different size than the originals were meant to be.

Picture framer’s mat board was used as backing where flat parts needed to be kept flat. The larger the paper model’s flat part, the more likely it requires a backing by a heavier material to keep its shape. Curved parts, like those on the sidecar, receive their strength from the curves in the panels, but flat parts benefit from stiff backing so they don’t become deformed during the building process, or from handling and humidity.

Lastly, the rider was drawn as a two-dimensional part to fit onto a three-dimensional motorcycle. After some trying, it was decided to remove him from his seat, place him on a stand and show him fiddling with his machine. It’s always interesting to try to find new ways of using the various parts of these vintage paper models.

Score and fold,

Thumb Dog

[Don Boose]

A beautiful job on this very complex and difficult antique decoupage.

Don