Now that I've got a finished model, I needed to come up with a nice way to show it off. Since this is a Sci-fi model (more or less), standing it up on end didn't seem like it would make sense. I wanted something that would show it off in an "in flight" sort of attitute. So, after wandering around Michael's craft store for a an hour looking for ideas, I came across these decopage bases that I thought would make a nice display base. All it needed was a little color. I went to Ace hardware and picked up a can of dark Mahogany wood stain and after two coats, I had what I thought was a nice dark wood tone.
To support the model itself, I went to my local hobby shop and picked up a piece of 1/8th inch dia. brass rod. Now all I needed was a way to get a nice uniformly curved bend in the rod to hold the model at the right angle. As it turns out, the galvanized steel street light pole across from my house was just the right diameter for the bend (you can laugh, but it worked!). I glued the rod into the base at a slight angle using my Dremel drill press to make the hole. I then glued a piece of wood dowel onto the other end. The wood dowel was as close to 18mm as I could find and cut to the same length as an Estes 18mm engine case. This piece goes into the engine mount and supports the rocket on the stand.
As a finishing touch, I had this name plate made up by a local engraver. All I had to do was give them an MS Word doc with what I wanted it to say and the Estes logo in ".eps" format. The next day, I had my nameplate and it cost less than $20.00 out the door.
So here is the completed stand ready and waiting for the U.S.S. Atlantis. For the next and last post for this project, I'll take some higher quality pics of the finished model on the display stand.
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