Displaying Models at the Showcase of Miniatures

This weekend is the annual Good Sam Showcase of Miniatures, an event organized primarily for doll house enthusiasts. But, as the overall theme is “miniatures”, the organizers were happy to include ship models and boat models. The event takes place at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose on Saturday and Sunday, October 8th and 9th. Those interested should visit their website at https://goodsamshowcase.org. This year, the South Bay Model Shipwrights club is participating, and I brought some models for display.

For this exhibit, I brought my Mary Taylor model, a 1/72 scale Japanese boats display, a 1/10 scale Japanese fishing boat, and a 1/24 scale Japanese pleasure boat. I also brought in the South Bay Model Shipwrights club’s Drakkar Viking Ship, which was a group build. I didn’t participate in its construction, but the model was on display at Ages of Sail, and I made arrangements to pick it up and bring it to the show.

My 1/64-scale scratch-built Mary Taylor and the club built Drakkar Viking Ship.

I participated one time before, back in 2013, where I brought my 1/64-scale scratch-built Mary Taylor model, along with an under-construction English longboat. This time, I thought the Japanese boat models might be of interest to the visitors, particularly the larger scale ones, which are very close to common dollhouse scales.

The ship and boat models display at the 2013 Showcase

The Yakatabune model, in particular, is in 1/24 scale, a.k.a. 1/2″ scale, which puts it right at a popular dollhouse scale. This model event sports an interior, with a table, floor cushions, and musical instrument laid out inside the tatami-room floor.

The even larger scale Tosa wasen model, is 1/10-scale, which is actually larger than the largest of the common dollhouse scales of 1/12 or 1″ scale. But, the extras and the large details will, I hope, appeal to the dollhouse crowd.

I brought the 1/72-scale models of the Tonegawa Takasebune and the Utasebune as I’ve had them on my shelf together under a single acrylic cover, and they were the first models I thought to bring, due to their easy portability and small display space.

Two other club members are bringing models for the club display. Looking back at my photos, I kind of feel like I’m hogging all the display space. Then again, these are all models that I’ve built myself, and I’ve been itching to get some of my Japanese subjects out on display again, so this was my chance.

This is a short display, and I’ll have to collect them all tomorrow. It’s about an hour drive for me each way to San Jose, plus the hotel charged me $5 just so I could unload my car (and another $5 when I go to pick them up), but it was good to put them out in front of the public again. I hope I get the opportunity to do something similar again soon. Ω

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February 2, 2022

Today, I felt like doing a little writing, but I didn’t have enough to write a whole post about any one project, so I’m just writing an update for the day.

For the most part, I seem to have gotten my ship modeling mojo back after the holidays, and I’ve been concentrating a lot of my efforts on my build of Amati’s American gunboat model, as it’s far enough along to where it looks good and it looks interesting. So, I feel pretty well motivated to continue it to the finish now.

I decided to rig the model using pear wood Master Korabel blocks that Ages of Sail is now carrying. I used them to rig the gun tackles, and I’m pretty happy with how that looks.

I’m also at the point where I’m considering mounting the model before that gets too difficult to do, so I bought an 8′ cherry wood plank from Rockler a couple days ago, cut a piece of it and routed the edges.

For mounting the model, I found that those little slotted brass stanchions that you can buy from just about any ship modeling source, worked really well, except that the keel on the model is really shallow, so I had to cut them down. It gave me a chance to use the little mini cut-off saw that I inherited from the late Jean Eckert.

Original on the right and the cut-down version on the left. And, yes, the keel is that shallow on this model, but the stanchion is now a perfect fit.

Meanwhile, I finally got around to ordering a “Rope Rocket” – a nicely designed rope walk or rope making machine from Syren Ship Model Company . I’ve made my own model rope in the past, but my homemade ropewalk was really, really primitive… and I mean really primitive. I was looking making a replacement, but I finally just gave in and ordered one that works well. More on that when it shows up. Ω

Higaki Kaisen Display at San Francisco’s Japan Center

It’s official, my Higaki Kaisen model is now on display in the East Building of the Japan Center Mall in San Francisco’s Japantown. The model is in the window display of Union Bank’s Community Room.

The model is in a case made using a Woody Joe case kit. I made a couple informational displays to go with it. Sorry about the quality of the photo. Shooting through glass in brightly lit open area doesn’t work out so well. Maybe with a polaroid filter – do they make those for iPhone cameras?

My Higaki Kaisen model in the window display at Union Bank’s Community Room in San Francisco’s Japantown.

The bank administrator was very happy with the display and cleared out all the general promotional bank stuff that’s normally in there. The model will be on display from now until about April 3rd, when SF Cherry Blossom set up takes place and a Japanese doll display goes in. We’ve already discussed the possibility of bringing the model back after some time in May when the display case may become available again.

The display is right off this open courtyard. What looks like a bridge is actually a stairway.

The only thing is that the model looks awfully lonely in the big display window. We both agreed that there should be two other models to accompany it – the display window is just laid out perfectly for that.

My model seems sad to be all alone in the big window.

Now, I do have a partially completed Hacchoro model, which will actually be larger than the Higaki Kaisen model since it is at 1/24 scale. I just need to finish it and get another display case. Not sure what to do about the empty third spot. I have the large Sengokubune kit, but it’s unstarted, and there’s no way I can justify taking the time to build it with all these other projects waiting for me.

Woody Joe’s 1/24-scale Yakatabune kit is a possibility as it’s almost identical to the Hacchoro in construction except that instead of all the oars and sails and accompanying details, it just has a deckhouse. That would be a pretty quick build and it would fit the theme very well.

Lastly, because of the low position of the floor of the window display, a friend of mine was suggesting maybe putting in some kind of box stand. I suppose anything would work. Lot of possibilities here. Almost screams for some kind of diorama.

Thinkin’, thinkin’…