Displaying large models

Are you able to put up shelveing. I am doing the Airfix 1/72nd Victor next year and will be puttin up some wider shelves than the otehr i have to accomodate it. Also, if you put it on a base, the shelfe does not need to take the full size of the aircraft.

Coffee table with a tilt up glass top to place models inside.  Unless the missus objects to models on display at tea time.

A guy I know had to take his 1/32 Fw-190A out of the curio in his living room one December, because his wife told him nothing says “Christmas” like a Nazi warplane!

Hi Bish - I've thought about shelves, but they would be almost as intrusive as a cabinet if the model sat on them in the normal way, even on a base.  I did think of a ledge, with a groove cut along the top near the front edge, so that a base (with the model on it) could lean at an angle against the wall without falling off, a bit like the plate rack on a Welsh dresser.  This would need a way to hold the model fixed to the base so that it couldn't slide, preferably one that wouldn't be too obvious.  I've thought of metal pins in the tyres, but that would be too much sideways strain on the U/C legs, and I've also thought of fixing a clear acrylic rod from the base into the underside of the fuselage.  That isn't ideal, but it's the front runner at the moment.  

Thanks, Real G - the glass-topped coffee table is a good idea, but we still have the floorspace problem.  Mrs 6390 (after Saturday the title will no longer be honorary - we're finally getting married!) would have no problem with it at all - one of the V-bombers  - the  Vulcan - is hers!

I have to agree with your pal's wife about the festive FW190, though

An associate hangs his airplanes on the sidewall of his den where they do not intrude on the room but are clearly seen. PaulE

minitanker

An associate hangs his airplanes on the sidewall of his den

Sounds like the sort of thing I'm looking for - do you know how he attaches them?

mawright20

nail/screw and a piece of fishing line.

Thanks, our posts must have crossed - you were answering my question before I'd had time to ask it!

For large ships i usually have them on shelves, but i have mounted two as what are called half-hull models.  Traditionally these are usually models of sailing yachts, showing only the starboard half of the hull with sometimes a truncated stub half mast.  However, that seems to work fine for large ships too, only the right half of the ship mounted to a fine hardwood plywood plaque, mounted with picture-hanging hardware,  for large airplanes and airships I hang them from the ceiling on rooms that have a light fixture in the ceiling.  I can generally fashion wire hooks that I can attach threads to.

Thanks, Don, I've seen the half-hull ship models, originally used to display shipbuilders' models, I think?  I'm not sure if that would work with aircraft.

I don't fancy hanging them from the ceiling, I remember how dusty my air force got when I was a lad!

I've been thinking some more about the narrow, grooved shelf, supporting an angled base, and I reckon I could display a 1/72 V-bomber behind glass on a 20" - 24" square base using a shelf about 10" wide (not yet verified with a trial).  However, due to the models' tall tail fins they would need to be, to a greater or lesser degree, nose downwards, which is far from ideal.  I need to devise a way to reinforce the U/C against the lateral stress, or use some other means of attachment to the base e.g. acrylic rod.  Time to put the thinking cap on.