Building a display case for a restoration of a 100 plus year old wooden ship model

Some of my posts have gravitated towards ships and boats of late, and I must admit that is probably my favorite modeling subject. A person who I met through my new membership in the Philadelphia Ship Model Society named Tom M. was telling me that he was restoring a 100 plus year old ship model. He said that he had come up dry for getting a display case built. He didn't have the time to do both. I threw my hat in the ring to help him out with making the case. The dimensions of the case would have to be 48 inches long, 32 inches high and 12 inches wide. A very daunting project indeed. I had an idea in my head on what I wanted to do, but needed first to secure the acrylic with which to get it done. I first looked at the big home rennovation chains for acrylic, but a 48 inch piece was going to cost around 90 dollars per piece, which is way more that I wanted to pay and the quality of the sheet was terrible. I fell back and called my contacts at Everything Plastic in Philly, and they TOTALLY hooked me up with a pre-made acrylic case of the perfect dimensions, with seems and edges perfectly glued! The best part was that it cost me HALF of what it would have cost to buy the materials!



So I decided on a very flat base with the inner base material holding the case in place, and the outer trim holding the case on the outside. I used flat stock 2inch x 1inch x 6 foot pine boards to make a base frame just a smidge larger than the interior board which I made of 18 inch pine shelving cut down to 12 inches.



 I then drilled 5/8 inch holes sunk about 3/4 of an inch on the inside of the pine frames to allow smaller wood screws to hold the outside molding in place. Smaller 1/8 inch pilot holes were drilled to keep the pine from splitting. After several test fits, the molding was also wood glued for extra strength. See pic below

Leaving enough of a lip edge on the bottom for a thin veneer piece of plywood, this allowed me to be able to drill into the cradle and secure it from the bottom. The plywood is held in place by countersunk brass screws.

Side view of the molding after attachment:

Once the case was test fit, (several times!) I was able to add several coats of gloss black to the outside trim, and to coat the inside board with flat black. The trim was then further coated with several coats of polyurethane. The inside board was coated with acrylic sealer. once it was test measured with the case on top the inside board was screwed in from the bottom while resting on saw horses. (Lots of sawdust in the eyes on that one...wear eye protection!)

The real moment of truth, and one which made Tom mighty nervous (and me too) was when we finally got together to see if the ship actually fit in the case.





Once we test fit the ship, we finally breathed a sigh of relief! It fit! Now all that was left to do was to sink screws into the cradle from the bottom, and to mount the ship.





 My wife Joanne wiped down the inside of the case with plexiglass cleaner, and removed the inside film. Tom and I put six screws into the base, and then fit up the bottom plywood to cover the framing on the underside. We breathed a sigh of relief again when the cradle fit perfect.

The Sark on her new home!

Tom and I doing a final fit to the base. It slid in like a dream!

I really wanted to see the ship with the film taken off the case, but we thought it would be better to let the owner do that, as they still had to transport it. I was very proud and Tom's wife Alice seemed to have second thoughts about giving the ship back now!

I may try and do a quick drawing of how I did the base if there is enough interest.

Thanks for looking!