Museum SCALE exhibit

[Dave Fischer]

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

[Dave Fischer]

Here are the life-size and 1/12 pieces...

[finescalerr]

And no doubt many will think the models are of different GAUGES .... -- Russ

[Dave Fischer]

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

[Ray Dunakin]

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.

[Dave Fischer]

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

[shropshire lad]

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 !

[Chuck Doan]

Excellent!

[Design-HSB]

Thank you for showing Dave, a completely different but very interesting perspective of model making.

[Ray Dunakin]

Where did you get the lens for the super-sized magnifying glass?

[Dave Fischer]

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

[Ray Dunakin]

Fascinating!

[Greg Hile]

Yes, very cool! What has been the response from museum visitors?

Greg

[Dave Fischer]

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

[nk]

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.