DOXAERIE: THE MODELS

The models found in this section represent work dating from the late Nineteen Sixties which build upon interests based on my introduction to model making while a youth during WW II.  I continue to build models of that era that are influenced by the types of construction found then and by the way my father built my first wood model in 1944, the varnished StromBecker B-17 kit model, a reproduction of which was done in the Eighties. 

There were many lines of wood model kits in the Forties and Fifties and a lot of these kits found their way onto my workbench, especially the StromBeckers, DynaModels, Testors and Monogram Speedee-Bilt and Superkits. During the war I was also attracted to the card models to be found on the backs of breakfast cereal boxes (Kix and Pep) or inside on dividers (Nabisco Shredded Wheat) or which could be ordered with the box top (Wheaties). They were to be found as well in the Sunday comics and in soft cover book formats. These models were easy to assemble and very, very colorful. Reprints of the Wallace Rigby designed Wheaties Jack Armstrong series of flying scale card models are still available through Paper Models International sixty years later! Young people in that era were besieged by aviation in the news, in photos and movies, in magazines and through all the models available to them. It was hard not to be influenced by all this.

In this part of the site there are three sections. First is the four Galleries: I and II that feature photos of naturally finished wood model sculptures.  Gallery III features painted wood models and Gallery IV card models.  The latter are available through Paper Models International. Tom Johnson did a lot of the photography work in these galleries.

Second is a Studio feature that follows the construction of one of the inlaid 1/16th scale Hurricane.  This is followed by an essay on the history of the Dyna-Model Products solid model kit line of the late Forties and early Fifties that includes a reconstruction of their first release, the Grumman F8F Bearcat.

Third is a Restoration section in three parts, the first with photos of restorations done on models from the Thirties, Forties and Fifties.   The second part is a photo essay on the restoration of a Doering brothers Vultee model shop B-24J, and a third on the restoration of a large Boeing Stratoliner model originally built for TWA in 1940.