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General Category => General Forums => Topic started by: Dave Fischer on October 12, 2019, 11:18:40 PM

Title: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Dave Fischer on October 12, 2019, 11:18:40 PM
Well, here is a different sort of modeling-- I had worked for 12 weeks this past summer on an exhibit for the Mini Time Machine Museum Museum of Miniatures here in Tucson, an exhibit that demonstrates the concept of SCALE to those who don't live and breathe it as modelers do. I collected some life-size (1:1) modeler's tools, then duplicated them in 1/12 scale (1 inch=1 foot) and built a few of them at 12:1 scale (12x life size). There is a 5-1/2 foot pencil,
a 6-3/4 foot artist's brush, and a 7,000 fl.oz. glue bottle. Thought you might like to see them!    DF
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Dave Fischer on October 12, 2019, 11:21:14 PM
Here are the life-size and 1/12 pieces...
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: finescalerr on October 13, 2019, 11:35:15 AM
And no doubt many will think the models are of different GAUGES .... -- Russ
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Dave Fischer on October 13, 2019, 11:48:17 AM
Right you are, Russ. Not sure I have ever seen reference to 12:1 gauge-- what would that be, 672" gauge? Also, I can't remember seeing "teensy-weensy" as a standard scale in ANY discipline...    DF
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Ray Dunakin on October 13, 2019, 08:09:10 PM
That is super-cool, Dave! And very well done. I imagine the giant-scale stuff might be tricky to pull of convincingly, getting the textures scaled up, but yours looks flawless.
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Dave Fischer on October 13, 2019, 11:56:44 PM
Ray-- The larger pieces caused larger headaches, but it was interesting working from medium sandpaper to coarse instead of medium to super-fine. The wood grain that torments fine woodworkers was actually my friend. Roughly sanded MDF looks JUST like a used pencil eraser at that scale... I should mention that the "Arnell" on the glue bottle label is the founder of the museum.   DF
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: shropshire lad on October 14, 2019, 12:07:53 AM
Quote from: finescalerr on October 13, 2019, 11:35:15 AM
And no doubt many will think the models are of different GAUGES .... -- Russ

I'm glad to see you have written "guage"right. So many people get it wrong !
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Chuck Doan on October 14, 2019, 08:09:19 PM
Excellent!
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Design-HSB on October 15, 2019, 12:12:03 AM
Thank you for showing Dave, a completely different but very interesting perspective of model making.
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Ray Dunakin on October 18, 2019, 10:50:08 PM
Where did you get the lens for the super-sized magnifying glass?
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Dave Fischer on October 19, 2019, 11:24:23 PM
WELL, it's not really a lens... try to follow me on this one! We were only going to show half of the 36" lens (I have a shot showing how it dead-ends into the ceiling), so I had a local acrylic fabricator shape a disk of 1/8 acrylic, which was then cut in half to form the two sides of the lens. His idea was to clamp the heated and softened plastic onto a flat surface with a ring cut from a 36" diameter concrete-form tube, then use air pressure from below to dome the sheet evenly within the ring. The two halves of the plastic disk were glued together at the edge and the frame of the magnifying glass built up around it. It wasn't perfect but looks good ten feet above the floor! The wooden ruler isn't wood, but an enlarged photo of a strip of basswood printed on signmaker's vinyl and attached to a shaped aluminum sheet.   DF
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Ray Dunakin on October 22, 2019, 11:16:54 PM
Fascinating!
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Greg Hile on October 26, 2019, 09:18:56 PM
Yes, very cool! What has been the response from museum visitors?

Greg
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: Dave Fischer on October 28, 2019, 11:57:28 PM
The museum docents have told me that they see little lights come on as visitors stand at the exhibit. One of them carries a 12" wooden ruler and has kids (and their parents) stand in front of the BIG ruler, then shows them how tall they would be at 1/12 scale. An interesting sidelight is that the parents will pick up the pencil or brush (they are meant to be interactive) and the kids are horrified at their behavior... "You're not supposed to TOUCH that!" How the tables have turned!  DF
Title: Re: Museum SCALE exhibit
Post by: nk on November 04, 2019, 02:21:31 PM
This is very cool. Thank you. It reminds me a little of the work of Ron Mueck with regards to the scale bring bigger than 1:1.