Masters of modeling
SPRING HILL –
Master modelers set up their best work Saturday morning in the parking lot of Dana’s Railroad Supply in Spring Hill for the Nature Coast Modelers spring show.
Dana Jackson, owner of the shop at 4041 Deltona Blvd. and member of Nature Coast Modelers, said the group started about two years ago “to get guys out of their hole and start meeting other modelers.”
The modelers group started with no more than three members, and has quadrupled in size since 2011. The meetings and show give the opportunity for modelers to meet each other and share ideas and tricks of the trade, Jackson said.
Many of the modelers Saturday had a direct connection to the real versions of the miniatures they craft. An Army veteran who saw three tours of duty in Iraq creates model tanks and airplanes; a New York native crafts the streetcars he rode as a child, and an industrial property appraiser snaps shots of large structures — such as a steel mill — and later makes models of them.
Wayne Holder, who taught physics at Hernando High School until his retirement in 1994, said he started creating models as a child, and came back to it later in life after his children were grown.
Holder, who creates just about all his models out of wood, said he draws inspiration from his knowledge of putting together Model T cars with his father.
“I must have put 100 together during my teenage and college years,” Holder said.
Holder said some of his modeler colleagues pay painstaking attention to even the smallest details.
“I ignore anything less than an inch or two,” Holder said. “I like to capture the spirit of the thing without worrying about the exact details … I don’t have that kind of patience.”
Chris Downey, a deputy with the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, said making models is a great “stress reliever” and a passion he shares with his wife and family.
Downey said he first became interested in making models when he was in the Army and stationed at Fort Hood in the early 1980s.
“You want to build what you worked on,” Downey said.
