For many, many years, I enjoyed the hobby of building plastic model kits. Sometimes I made them into a diorama. I gave some of them away to various places across Canada. It was an enjoyable way to fill my retirement years. Until about six months ago. I started losing dexterity in my fingers, and that does not bode well for the small, intricate parts of a model car. I fought the good fight and finished the model I had started, but it turned into a boondoggle of hot-melt glue and frustration. The picture below is the original photo that provided the idea, and the result beside it. I am ashamed to even post that mess, but it helps explain my lack of dexterity in my hands.

Quite a few of the dioramas depict historical events, some from my life and some from random inspirations. Below is one of my first dioramas: a Ford Model T converted into a snow machine. The model is in the museum where the original truck is located, Nain, Labrador. I lived in Labrador a long time ago and still have fond memories of my time there. The model won a gold prize from the local IPMS chapter.

Next up is arguably my favourite, a Caterpillar dozer. Once again, I have the original, this time with my parents sitting on the track. My dad was the operator. This was a challenge to build because the model I bought from the store was a new machine and a modern D-8 instead of the cable D-6 shown in the photo. It required extensive research into the different engines and cable runs, which led to a lot of fabrication of new parts. It was a challenge, but in a good way.

The next one is a Model T from the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, and my rendition of it. The gear to turn the wheels didn’t quite come out to spec, but what the hey, it’s progress, not perfection. I tend to be my worst critic.

I’m on a roll now, so here are some more real-life dioramas. My Dad, George Weatherly, was a welder at McLevin’s in Red Deer for many years, and they had a yard machine to move things about. It was cobbled together from two truck frames, a Mercury engine, and lots of innovation. They called it The Moose, a face so ugly only a mother could love it. They didn’t have any photos of the moose, so I put it together from my memory and some hints from the owner, Alan McLevin. The welding truck is from their homepage. https://www.mclevinindustries.ca I put an engine and generator in the welding machine, and hand-made all the parts and welding gear. The delivery truck was a dog’s breakfast of parts thrown together. There is no picture of the original other than the web page from above. The truck below is one of my Dad in a Mannix truck, probably somewhere between Hinton and Grande Cache. The diorama is in McLevin’s office in Red Deer.

This next one was fun to build. I started with nothing more than a photo and the shell of a truck cab. Everything else is handmade. I put in electric motors for the two winch cables.

I am rather fond of tractors, and there isn’t much to choose from, but I have made several with some differences. The one in the left foreground is a Ferguson TE-20. The one directly behind it is two Ferguson TE-20’s mashed together. I built the backhoe from scratch but never got around to mounting it on the tractor. One summer I drove a tractor up and down a road pulling a wobbly wheel, which I also built from scratch.

If you managed to make it this far I might as well throw in a couple of random builds.

Last one, another example working electric cable.

Music has always been a focus of my life, and I still listen to lots of music and occasionally write about it on https://weatheredmusic.ca. As enjoyable as it is, I needed something else to fill the void that had been occupied by diorama building. The goal was for something that required a certain level of mental prowess, nothing that did nothing more than kill time. I wanted something that made me problem-solve and required a bit of physical dexterity, but not so small that I couldn’t see or hold it. I was at a loss as to what my new hobby would be.

Until last week. Valerie and I were wandering through Goodwill just to see if there were any bargains to be had, and there were. I scored two CDs: “Best Rock of 1973, “good road music, and the B-52’s “Cosmic Thing,” which has the hot single “Love Shack.” I also got two albums, David Meece and Mark Heard. And then, after browsing the book section, we headed to the front of the store, and I saw hundreds of jigsaw puzzles and mentioned to Valerie that this could be a solution. I browsed the section and found a nice puzzle of the Solar System that fit with my love of gazing at the night sky. It was only $7, so I bought it to see if it checked all the boxes for a new hobby, and it has, sort of. It is good for hand-eye coordination and requires some brain juice to figure out where the pieces go.

I enjoyed putting the puzzle together and finished it in a week. I wasn’t rushing or obsessing over it; I worked on it whenever I had some free time. It was fun, until yesterday. I filled in the non-specific pieces that could have gone in more than one place, and I was looking forward to finishing it. I couldn’t, there is a piece missing! Valerie and I searched high and low around the desk; the 999 pieces out of the 1000 advertised were all I had. No luck, so now I have to take it apart. Originally, I was going to mount it because I like the picture. But I found that it wasn’t very photogenic when it was finished, so I put all 999 pieces back in the box and will regift it to a Thrift store. I bought two more puzzles from the thrift store, and I am almost filled with dread that a piece might be missing in them as well. Maybe I have to pay the extra cost for new ones.

I will keep you informed of my progress. I am starting a puzzle of The Starry Night, an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. I will add one more thought: I enjoy listening to music while I puzzle, a nice melding of two hobbies. Joel also gave me a brilliant idea: what about building large-scale models? I did a Fiat a while back, and it was a nice build. I may have to look into this option and see where it takes me. Until then, it will be The Starry Night with some music while I puzzle. Perhaps more from Timothy Brady, was he at the Symphony and listened with rapt attention as the ESO and Robert Uchida tore into Requiem 21.5.

This is the end. The Starry Night was unbuildable. The puzzle was so dirty I had to wear gloves to handle it ,the pieces were often bent, and so flat I could barely pick them up. Back in the box. It was also too large to work on my desk, so I bought a piece of fibreboard. Unfortunately, leaning over to work on the puzzle put too much strain on my neck, causing severe pain.

I looked into large-scale models, 1/16 and 1/12, and they are astronomically expensive. I couldn’t justify paying $300 for a model kit, and I can’t afford them on my senior retirement funds. I am going back to listening to music, doing research and posting more detailed blog posts. If you made it this far in the post, you can take more punishment than the average blog reader. Well done. I am off to listen to Herbie Mann, 65th Birthday Celebration: Live At The Blue Note In New York City.

Is this post a self-promoting, egotistical, grandiose display? Yes.