May 17, 2013—Are you curious about how parts and assemblies are designed in the modern manufacturing world? We have just established a page where 3D CAD designers can show off their work. CLICK HERE to see how parts can be designed and whole assemblies built and animated right in the computer. If you are a Geomagic user, send in your designs and drawings to be displayed in the gallery.

May 15, 2013—A group of new photos was added to Harold Manwaring's page. The Australian model engineer has built a working steam locomotive and a stationary steam engine completely from wood. They run on compressed air, not actual steam, but it's still quite a feat. Now he has completed a Steam Traction engine from plans in old Model Engineer magazines. Check out his page to see the construction process and the finished tractor. It contains 881 pieces with everything from the wheels to the gears being made from various woods.

May 11, 2013—Members of the Asebring Assn. of San Diego drove out for a tour of the museum Saturday. Members showed a lot of interest in the displays and stayed from 10 AM until about 1 PM. Paul and Craig explained the exhibits and fired up some engines in the machine shop for the visitors who were joined by a number of our regular walk-ins.  Attendance has been going up ever since the Union Tribune article about a month ago. See the Club Visits page for photos.

May 20, 2013—We would like to thank Young Ha Park Wong for her generous donation in the name of her late brother Young C. Park. Mr. Park's beautiful aluminum aircraft models were among the first big donations to the museum, and are no doubt responsible in part for our success today. Mr. Park Passed away in late April.

May 10, 2013—New to the online museum and to the actual museum in Carlsbad, CA are the dollhouse miniature creations of Joe and Jan Haring. After her husband Joe passed away, Jan decided to honor his legacy as a craftsman by donating their many years of building, collecting and decorating for others to enjoy. We now have 10 items on display that broaden the range of offerings at the museum. These dollhouses include multi-story homes in two scales as well as special themed displays like a witch's house, a gypsy camp, Santa's workshop, a dress boutique, a restaurant and even a furniture filled wall clock with 4 floors where the pendulum would normally go. Both in their basic construction and the quality of the furniture and other pieces that decorate them are among the best we have seen. You will want to spend some time looking at the details in these when you stop by the museum. Jan has also kindly volunteered some of her time at the museum to welcome visitors and to give a guided tour of these pieces into which she and her husband put so much love and time.

May 6, 2013—An interesting machine gained a lot of recognition in the 1950's. It utilized over 740 gears and mechanisms to produce...absolutely nothing. Called the "Do Nothing" machine by its inventor, Lawrence Wahlstrom, it still entertains to this date. After Mr. Wahlstrom passed away, Earl Wolf purchased the machine at an auction in 2003 and continued to delight audiences with it until his recent passing. His family recently donated the machine to the Craftsmanship Museum, where it can now be seen temporarily in the machine shop while we do some repairs and prepare a proper display base for it, after which it will be on display in the main museum.

May 4, 2013—The Simi Valley Corvette Club drove down with a half dozen or so Corvettes to visit the museum about 2 PM. The club has about 150 members and attends shows as well as contributing to charity events and sending gifts to the troops. See the Club Visits page for photos of the members and their cars.

April 29, 2013—Photos of 2013 Metalworking Craftsman of the Year Guillermo Rojas-Bazan accepting his award at the North American Model Engineering Society Expo have just been posted on his page.

April 28, 2013—Three new photos of a wood and brass 1924 Bentley by Sunia Reznik were added to his page. Seven new photos were added to Iqbal Ahmed's Ford Quadricycle project and 10 new photos were added to Fred Heim's Olympus yacht model project.

April 25, 2013—An article just appeared in the German publication, Flugzeug Classic featuring the work of the late Young C. Park. The May, 2013 issue features a 2-page spread on the 2002 winner of the foundation's Craftsman of the Year award. Unfortunately, it was published shortly after he passed away, but the article continues his legacy with a number of fine photos. CLICK HERE to view a PDF scan of the article.

April 25, 2013—Photos of Iqbal Ahmed's latest project have been added to the bottom of his page. Having finished a 1/4 scale Benz Motorwagen, he has now started on a 1/4 scale Ford Quadricycle. Both were originally built in the 1880's, but Carl Benz got his 3-wheel design on the road sooner. Ford's from 1896, however, featured the 4-wheel layout considered normal today. It was to become the first vehicle produced by the Ford Motor Company.

April 21, 2013—Guillermo Rojas-Bazan was presented with the award for "Metalworking Craftsman of the Year, 2013" at the NAMES Expo in Wyandotte, Michigan. Mr. Rojas-Bazan, accompanied by his wife Clarisa, received an engraved medallion, award certificate, a book about the Joe Martin Foundation and a check for $2000.00. He displayed parts from the model he currently has under construction and displayed a large screen video presentation of many more of his models for spectators at the show. He was available for questions, autographs and photos both Saturday and Sunday during the show. Brass modeler Ken Foran also displayed some of his work at the foundation's booth on Saturday and answered questions about modeling in brass.

April 6, 2013—The museum hosted a group of visitors from Carlsbad's sister city in the Czech Republic, Karlovy Vary. Lord Mayor Petr Kulhanek and two of his deputies were joined by Milan Vodicka who acted as translator and our host form the City of Carlsbad, Tom Hersant. See photos in the Visits section.

April 1, 2013—We regret to announce that ship modeler Phil Mattson passed away in March. Phil was among the first to win one of the foundation's Lifetime Achievement awards in 2002. He started building ship models at a young age and won a prize for one of his ships at age 13. His model of the WWI era battleship USS Bennington is on display in the San Diego Maritime Museum. During WWII he worked on the Manhattan Project and moved on to work at Johns Hopkins after the war in a program to reverse engineer the controls on German V2 rockets. From 1958 to 1978 he worked at General Atomic in San Diego until he retired, devoting more time to his ship modeling. Phil was a member of the ship model building group in San Diego and displayed some of his wonderful ship-in-a-bottle models at our first museum opening in 2006. Phil was also friends with Walt Good who was the first to fly a radio controlled model plane.

March 30, 2013—Thanks to a loan from Howard J. Kruegel of Chula Vista, CA, we have on temporary display a functioning model of the famous Thompson Submachine Gun. Invented in 1919 it was referred to as a "Tommy Gun." The original was popular with both police and criminals alike during prohibition. This version has the "stick" magazine rather than the drum usually seen in the mobster movies where the gun was sometimes called the "Chicago Typewriter."

March 18, 2013—Dr. Lindsay Wilson notified us that a video has been placed on YouTube showing Tatjana J. van Vark and some of her projects. See http://youtu.be/ULUvxf_Bm8A to view it. It is narrated in Dutch, but the images speak for themselves.

March 15, 2013—The museum is mentioned in this month's Southern California edition of the Auto Club's Westways magazine. CLICK HERE to see the ad. The publicity is reaching a lot of new people in the area. In addition, this month's issue of Car & Driver magazine features a full page article on our 2012 Craftsman of the Year award winner Gary Conley and his miniature V8 engines. CLICK HERE to view a PDF copy of the page.

March 12, 2013—More photos of progress on the cockpit of a 1/15 scale Japanese "Zero" fighter from WWII have been added to the page of current Craftsman of the Year winner Guillermo Rojas-Bazan. Parts of this model under construction will be on display at the 2013 NAMES show April 20-21 in Wyandotte, Michigan where Guillermo will be attending to receive his award and show his work. Come to the show to meet him and see his work in person.

March 9, 2013—Members of the Ship Modeler's Guild from San Diego visited the museum. This talented group works with the San Diego Maritime musuem and members have contributed some ship models to the displays there. A working model shop in the museum, which floats on San Diego Bay on a former ferry called the Berkeley shows visitors how ship models and even ships in a bottle are made. See the Group Visits page for a photo of the modelers.

February 26, 2013—A group of volunteers from the Carlsbad Visitor Center came out to see the museum in person. They are the kind and helpful people who hand out our literature at the visitor center in the old railroad station in Carlsbad and send people our way. They wanted to see what we have first-hand, and we thank them for all their help in letting visitors to the area know about our museum.

February 25, 2013—One new photo of a wooden tricycle was added to Sunia Reznick's page and six new photos were added to the Olympus model ship project on Fred Heim's page.

February 20, 2013—Four photos of progress on the cockpit of the Japanese Zero fighter by craftsman of the year winner Guillermo Rojas-Bazan have been added to his page.

February 9, 2013—The Bentley Club from San Diego visited the museum. Despite the rainy weather some classy new and classic old Bentley's tested out their wax jobs while the members toured the museum. See the Club Visits page for photos.

February 5, 2013—Metal artist Christopher Bathgate sent an example of his work for display in the museum, and it is now available for viewing for at least the coming year. Also, Ron Marvin was kind enough to help us fill the early end of our time scale in the development of mechanical and electronic calculators with his donation of an abacus. It was made in Japan in 1957 and is still in the original box with instruction booklet.

January 31, 2013—Those who appreciate fine craftsmanship in the world of miniature guns and knives will be happy to see the latest addition to both the online and physical museum in Carlsbad, CA. Members of the Miniature Arms Society have kindly loaned us a wonderful collection of 90 pieces from miniature pistols and rifles to miniature Bowie and folding knives. We have the privilege of displaying this collection for at least the coming year. If you can get in to see it in person, so much the better, but if you can't CLICK HERE to visit a page with detailed photos and descriptions of each piece in the collection. Even at the reduced size of these pieces, it still took 12 feet of glass display cases to show them all!

January 23, 2013—A special Wednesday tour was arranged for a group of hotrodders who are not affiliated with any particular club. About 15 rods graced the parking lot along with some "regular" vehicles, and at least 30 people toured the museum for over two hours. See the "Club Visits" page for photos of this and other tour groups.

January 19, 2013—It was a delightful surprise at the museum on Saturday when a group of Ford Model T's and a lone Mercury showed up for a tour. The Hidden Valley Model T Club stopped by, taking advantage of a perfect San Diego day for winter touring.

January 11, 2013—The Joe Martin Foundation is proud to announce our 2013 winner of the Metalworking Craftsman of the Year Award. The 16th winner of this annual award is Guillermo Rojas-Bazan of Royal Oak, Mi. Originally from Argentina, Guillermo has been building aircraft models since he was a child and has made a lifelong vocation of it, having completed over 200 highly detailed models from aluminum in scales from 1/10 to 1/40, with most of his models being at 1/15 scale. Mr. Rojas-Bazan will be attending the NAMES show in Wyandotte, MI April 20-21, 2913 to receive his award and show some of his work. He will be presented with a certificate of accomplishment, an engraved medallion and a check for $2000.00. Please click on his linked name above to see our page on him. It features almost 250 photos of his work. His own site also shows many photos at www.rojasbazan.com.

January 2, 2013—We are starting out the new year with the addition of George Thomas to the watch and clock making section of the museum. There are few craftsmen left who can make every part of a watch from start to finish, but George has done it. He has also been tasked with working on some very significant timepieces, such as the pocket watches of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. He has now partnered with watchmaker Hartwig Balke to form the Towson Watch Company, a maker of high quality custom watches. George is the 106th craftsman or organization to be honored in the on-line museum.

December 17, 2012—Three photos of Mel Anderson and the Spitfire engine facility were added to his web page. They were submitted by Bob Meza, whose mother worked for Mel in 1952.

December 11, 2012—A group of 18 seniors 4 caregivers came by for a tour of the museum and machine shop. An organization in San Diego provides monthly trips for seniors with mild impairment who find it difficult to get out on their own. See the Group Visits page for photos.

December 6, 2012—A young machinist/sculptor who creates some very other-worldly, almost biological works of art in metal is the latest craftsman to be added to the "Machining as Art" section of our on-line museum. Christopher Bathgate came to our attention through a link to his own web site, and we enjoyed seeing where his journey through teaching himself machining, CAD and CNC has taken his artistic creativity. Seeing that some of the processes he uses involve the use of CNC machines (some of which he built himself), we also asked him to comment on a subject that often comes up when the words "Computer Controlled" and "craftsmanship" are used in the same sentence. To read the comments of someone who is experienced in the use of both, read what Chris has to say by clicking HERE.

December 6, 2012—The Joe Martin Foundation announced today that two Lifetime Achievement Awards will be given out for 2012. It is  not necessarily an annual award, and the last such award was given in 2009. The awards honor the lifetime achievement of two outstanding yet very different craftsmen; Fred Heim of Marlborough, MA and Iqbal Ahmed of Nagpur, India. More on the award can be found on the sites AWARDS page. Each will receive a certificate, an engraved medallion and a check for $500.00.

November 19, 2012—Large scale modeler Fred Heim has started a new project. His 1/12 scale model of the 1929 motor yacht Olympus is now under construction. His friend Carl Cioppa is supplying photos as the project progresses, and the ones to date have been posted at the bottom of his page. As with his other projects, we will follow this one to completion as the photos come in.

November 12, 2012—Fire apparatus modeler John Ackerman visited the museum and donated another of the 1/32 models built by the late Tom Showers. This one is a Japanese Morita-Isuzu hose tender. It includes two small hose carts that are rolled out of the back of the truck and hand pulled by the firemen to play out hose at the fire. See the Other Displays page for photos of this and seven other of Tom's model fire vehicles.

November 10, 2012—The museum was visited for the first time by the San Diego Region of the Rolls Royce Club. About 18 classic Rolls and Bentley automobiles graced our parking lot while the drivers and passengers toured the museum on a perfect Southern California day for grand touring. Joe Martin was on hand to give a little background on the foundation and museum before the guests were off to lunch and another stop on their tour. See the Group Visits page for photos of the group and some of their cars that dated from the newest examples back to the late 1920's.

October 28, 2012—This year's Street Rodder Magazine SEMA Road Tour included the Craftsmanship Museum as one of their stops for the first time. The tour signed up 100 hotrods this year and over 65 stopped by the museum on Sunday afternoon on their way from Pasadena to a stop in Escondido for the night before heading on to Phoenix and finally Las Vegas for the SEMA show. See the Group Visits page for photos.

October 27, 2012—In town for a Concours in Del Mar, the Vincent Motorcycle club made the museum a stop on their Saturday morning ride. Several rare Black Shadows were part of the group with one rumored to have over 300,000 miles on it. There were also several other brands mixed in including KTM, BMW and Buell with riders from a local club who hosted the Vincent group. See the Group Visits page for photos.

October 25, 2012—Nineteen new engines were just delivered for display in the museum as part of the Paul and Paula Knapp Engine Collection. They are in the process of being put into display cases, but photo of the new engines have just been added to the collection page. Included are two small sculptures made from watch parts as well as engines including a 27-cylinder "corn cob" radial by Dennis Fadden, a Gypsy Major MK I by Reinhold Krieger and a 4-cylinder Panther Pup by Steve Myers, plus seven interesting engines by Fred Kunze.

October 24, 2012—Two more matchstick sculptures by aerospace engineer Ron Remsberg were recently added to the museum. Photos of the Victorian home and 1930's convertible automobile can now be seen on Ron's page.

October 15, 2012—Joe Martin brought in several examples of products he has designed and made the molds for over the years to add to the display that highlights his background as a craftsman himself. Three oil paintings of Joe, his parents and grandparents are also now displayed in the museum to punctuate his legacy, as Joe has no children to carry on the Martin name represented by his foundation. He also brought in a like-new Curta Type 1 mechanical calculator courtesy of his former business partner and engineer, the late Carl Hammons that has been added to our display of slide rules and calculators used by engineers of the past.

October 13, 2012—The Vintage Auto Club came by late in the afternoon bringing a host of interesting old American cars with them from the Huntington Beach area. Neil Maken led the way in his air-cooled Franklin, followed by Studebakers, Fords, Dodges and Plymouths. See the Club Visits page for photos of the cars and their drivers.

October 12, 2012—Andy Moore brought in 4 interesting vintage model engines for display on loan. They include a couple of Thimble Drome engines for tether cars and a "Sea Fury" model outboard motor. See the "Museum Displays" page for photos.

October 10, 2012—8 engines from the collection of the late Les Cade were donated in his honor by his daughters as part of the Cade Family Trust. Included is a Solar #3 "Flame Licker" engine built by "Woody" Woods and a "Silver Dollar" steam engine with a flywheel made from a real silver dollar. There is also a round display featuring four small steam engines of different types that can be run at the same time from a central air line fitting. These engines are being cleaned up in the shop and will be on display along with Les's previous donations very soon. Les's collection can be seen on the "Museum Displays" page.

October 9, 2012—The GM coach model by Emil Kostron has been photographed and on-line visitors can now see it by visiting the "Other Displays" page.

October 3, 2012—A highly ornate, prize winning GM Craftsmans's Guild Napoleonic Coach built by Emil Kostron in the early 1930's was donated to the museum by his family. The coach won the Paintcraft award in the Indiana division and is still in perfect condition. The museum currently has a second coach model built by Bernhardt Goettker which is on loan from his son (also named Bernhardt). It also won a Paintcraft award in its division, but is only on temporary loan for one more year. The Kostron donation will be a permanent display in the museum. Now is a good time to visit to see both the models and compare the craftsmanship of two young men in the 1930's. We also have a complete set of plans issued by GM from which both models were built. Author John Jacobus donated a book he wrote on the Guild and on the contest for those wanting to do some research in our library.

October 2, 2012—Giant scale modeler David Glen of England made a splash on the Internet a while back as photos of his British Spitfire aircraft made the rounds in a viral e-mail. Now he has just about completed a P-51 Mustang in matching 1/5 scale. Photos of these aircraft under construction can be seen on a new page in the model making section. The detail and quality of construction is well worth examining closely.

September 19, 2012—Any wooden ship artisans in the Great Lakes area who would like to get involved in a big model ship project, contact John Hermanson in North Muskegon, MI. He has plans to build a big model for display outdoors in a pool to represent a beautiful Great Lakes lumber schooner called the Lyman M. Davis. The model will be 35 feet long! Contact Mr. Hermanson at 231-670-0577 or john.a.hermanson@gmail.com if you know about building wooden ships and would like to be involved. 

September 15, 2012—The museum was visited by a large group supporting a charity event for Meals on Wheels. The tour started at the Mercedes Benz Design Studio in Carlsbad and moved to the Craftsmanship Museum in the early afternoon. About 50 people arrived, many in vintage British cars in preparation for a car show in Fallbrook to be held the following day as the finale of the weekend fundraiser. Photos of the people and cars can be found on the Club Visits page.

September 11, 2012—Seven new photos were added to the page of Indian model engineer, Iqbal Ahmed showing progress on his latest project--a model live steam locomotive modeled after a full-size prototype run by South African Railways.

August 22, 2012—Photos and descriptions of fourteen vintage model airplane engines were added to the "Other Engines" page. They were donated by R/C champion flyer Joe Bridi. In addition, photos of two large scale R/C warbirds, a P-40 Warhawk and a P-38 Lightning built by Lowell Wexler were added to the "Other Exhibits" page. All of these new engines and planes are now on display in the Carlsbad museum.

August 4, 2012—The morning saw a group of vintage American trucks visit the museum, followed by an afternoon visit of the Palomar A's Ford Model A club. Saturday was a busy day with 59 visitors total. See the Club Visits page for photos of the vehicles and club members.

July 7, 2012—The North County Cruisers hotrod club stopped by for a museum visit. See the Club Visits page for some photos of the cars and the club members.

July 3, 2012—A new engine has just been loaned to the museum for display until the end of the year. It is an unusual 2-piston, 1-cylinder opposed engine with two flywheels built by George Gravatt of the Bay Area Engine Modelers. If you can't come in to see it in person, check out the photos near the top of the Other Displays page.

June 26, 2012—Eight new photos of Lou Chenot's latest project were added to his page. Half the photos show progress on buiding the hull of his mahogany GarWood boat. The other half show progress on the Liberty V-12 engine that will power it..

June 23, 2012—Joining our visitors on Saturday morning was a group of six Corvettes from the Corvettes of San Diego car club. See photos of the group and their cars on the "Group Visits" page.

June 21, 2012—Over 20 members of the National Tool Manufacturer's Association held their meeting at the museum after hours on Thursday night and then toured the museum. See photos on the "Group Visits" page.

June 19, 2012—Wood craftsman Sunia Reznik has added a couple of new items to his page. His latest wooden creations are a model Colt revolver and a lattice boom crane from Walnut and Beech woods. Photos of the new items were added to his page.

June 2, 2012—The local Hudson Automobile Club visited the museum mid-day on Saturday completely filling five parking spaces in the lot with these massive kings of the road. See the "Club Visits" page for photos of the cars and members.

May 26, 2012—The local MG Car Club stopped by the museum for a tour on Saturday morning at the start of the long Memorial Day Weekend. See the "Club Visits" page for photos of the cars and members.

May 25, 2012—Several new photos of a recent donation by Ronald Remsberg were just added to his page. In addition to the almost 6' long model of London's Tower Bridge donated in April, Ron just brought in his latest completed project, a NYFD ladder truck made entirely of matchsticks. Photos can be seen both on his page and also in the section that shows the exhibits on display in our Carlsbad Museum. A new temporary exhibit was also put on display in the Carlsbad museum that features a selection of linear and circular slide rules and early 1970's portable electronic calculators to honor the way engineering was done before today's modern high powered computers and 3D CAD programs were available.

May 18, 2012—Ten new photos of Clen Tomlinson's latest engine project have been added to his page. The Napier Sabre cylinder head is one of two on the 24-cylinder, two crankshaft, 2-cylce diesel engine he is now working on. CNC machined in layers to duplicate the complicated pattern of intake, exhaust and water passages in the original cast head, it is a work of art in and of itself. The head was on display at the Craftsmanship museum for several months but has now been returned to England.

May 11, 2012—Eleven new photos were added to the page of miniature gunsmith Antonio Rincon. Included are unusual items like a miniature violin, two weight scales, gunsmith tools, a cannon, pikes and fighting implements and several shots of a Muff pistol.

May 10, 2012—Two South Dakota artists with an unusual medium—molded paper—were just added to the on-line museum. Allen and Patty Eckman both come from art backgrounds but have found a special love for producing highly detailed sculptures based on a technology they work for years to develop and perfect. Their subject matter is mainly based on American west and native American themes. Because of the unusual materials used, the link to their page is found in the UNUSUAL SKILLS AND PROJECTS sub-menu along with some other interesting artists and artisans.

May 9, 2012—Ten new photos of progress on Jerry Kieffer's 1/8 scale Harley Davidson motorcycle model have been added to his page on that project. These were taken at the 2012 NAMES show in Michigan in a few weeks ago. A video of the speedometer in action is also included.

May 5, 2012—Pam Weiss taught the first basic machining class to be offered by the museum. The class was from 1 to 3 PM on Saturday and featured basic methods as demonstrated on a Sherline lathe. Originally limited to 10 people, we went ahead and accepted all 13 that signed up, and everyone showed up and enjoyed the class. We are looking into expanding the educational program with future classes in metalworking.

May 5, 2012—Lynn Hollis donated his 1/8 scale model of a James Stewart treadle lathe. It was made from photos and sketches of the original that resides in the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. It can be seen among the Vintage Tool Collection page under "Stewart." Lynn has been displaying his work at the NAMES show for years and may have some more work for display in the museum in the future.

April 30, 2012—Ripley's Believe It or Not featured Lou Chenot and his 1/6 scale model Duesenberg in today's cartoon feature. See Lou's page for a copy. We have featured some pretty incredible craftsmanship over the years, but this is the first time any of our craftsmen have been featured in Ripley's. Our thanks to Richard Gibson for sending it in.

April 25, 2012—A new photo of Gary Conley was placed on his page showing him accepting his award as 2012 Metalworking Craftsman of the Year at the North American Model Engineering Society Expo in Wyandotte, MI on April 21, 2012. More photos of Gary, his engine and many other outstanding models and exhibits that were seen at the show can be seen on Sherline's web page at www.sherline.com/names12.htm.

April 17, 2012—A new ship modeler has been added to the museum. William Tompkins had already built 50 ship models by age 17 in 1941 and attracted the attention of the US Navy with their detail and accuracy. As a result, he was inducted into the Navy out of high school and went into naval intelligence. From there he advanced to the think tanks of several major aerospace firms and was instrumental in shaping the direction and success of advanced programs including the Apollo moon landing program. As a hobby, he continued work on his model fleet throughout his life, and it now numbers 307 ships, all in the same scale of 1:600. He is also a published author who wrote technical articles for Model Railroader magazine and is working on an autobiography to tell the story of some of the incredible space and extraterrestrial research projects he worked on, most of which were highly classified.

April 13, 2012—Friday the 13th was a lucky day for the museum. Ron Remsberg dropped off his latest model just before the heavy rain hit. This one is a 6' long model of London's Tower Bridge made from matchsticks that required 5836 "pieces." In matchstick builder parlance, a "piece" can be a sub-assembly made up of any number of smaller bits of matchstick glued together, so the actual number of matchsticks needed is actually much higher...probably around 10,000. See this and Ron's other matchstick models on display in the Carlsbad museum.

April 12, 2012—Model expert Ralph Cooney donated 4 custom made investment cast .61 cubic inch model airplane engines he made himself in the 1980's. What will make the display even more interesting is that he also donated the aluminum molds he made to make the wax masters for the investment casting process. He even sent along some of the wax crankcases that would be used to make the ceramic molds to cast the crankcase using the "lost wax" method. The engines and molds can be found under the "Cooney .61" name in the Other Engines section of the on-line museum and will soon be on display in the Carlsbad museum.

April 8, 2012—Members of the Early Ford Club rolled into the parking lot about 11 AM and stayed for an extensive tour of the museum before heading off for lunch. While they were here, members of the staff and other visitors got to enjoy a free car show in the parking lot. Check out the "Club Visits" page for some photos.

April 4, 2012—Three magazine articles from 1965, 1981 and 1982 highlight the work of fire vehicle and apparatus modeler Tom Showers were added to his site just above the photos section. Two are in model magazines and one is in a magazine for firefighters.

March 30, 2012—The GoodGuys Nationals hot rod show is in town this weekend at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, and a number of early arrivals visited the museum as part of a Friday tour. We wish them luck in competition over the weekend. They all looked like winners to us. See the Club Visits page for a few photos.

March 29, 2012—Four new photos have been added to the page on Michael Paul Smith and his photographic journey back in time to the imaginary town of Elgin Park. Three images of a setup and two photos derived from it were added to the body section of the page and the photo section at the bottom is now introduced with a photo of Michael building one of the house models.

March 23, 2012—Gary Conley sent a package of photos of some of his old engines including the custom built V-2, V-4, V-6 and V-12 engines he experimented with before concentrating on make V-8's. Somewhere out there some lucky collectors have got these rare engines.

March 21, 2012—A new video from Dave Sage showing his Howell V8 running has just been posted on the Howell V4 page. Dave doubled up on Jerry's plans and stretched the 4 to an 8 that is now running nicely.

March 20, 2012—A very informative British model engineering web site has run a nice piece on our Craftsman of the Year winner, Gary Conley. See http://modelengineeringwebsite.com/Home.html for their page. We have sent press releases to not only all of the major model engineering publications but also some of the major automotive publications. It would be nice to see Gary's miniature V-8 engine mentioned in one or more of the big auto enthusiast magazines. Here's hoping they pick up the story. Road & Track has contacted us about doing an article on Lou Chenot's Duesenberg, so perhaps this will interest them too.

March 15, 2012—John Ackerman not only loaned seven fire engine models by Tom Showers to the Carlsbad museum, he has now contributed a large selection of photos and a biography of the prolific model builder. Included on Showers' page are photos of some of the over 400 model fire apparatus, fire boats and model fire stations he built during his lifetime.

March 14, 2012—Roger Ronnie makes his living as a gun engraver, but he makes watch and clock tools, miniature guns and model engineering projects for a hobby. His current project is a 1/4 scale Cushman scooter engine, but to make assembling the tiny parts easier he decided he needed a set of appropriately size tools. He duplicated a Craftsman ratchet and box end wrench set at 1/4 scale to go with the engine—engraved logos and all. To view photos of this latest edition on Roger's page of model engineering projects CLICK HERE.

March 13, 2012—Philip Warren became an internet sensation lately when many craftsmen forwarded articles about his incredible accomplishments. Using only wooden matchsticks, wooden match boxes, glue and simple tools, Mr. Warren has modeled over 450 ships in 1:300 scale starting in 1948, and he is still building. This includes at least one of virtually every class of British warships made since WWII plus 50 US Navy ships and 60 from other navies of the world. For the aircraft carriers he has made over 1800 miniature aircraft from biplanes to F-14 Tomcats with folding wings. Because of the unique nature of the skills and materials, this work has been linked from several sections: Wood Carvers, Model Makers and Wooden Toy Makers.

March 10, 2012—The museum played host to members of the San Diego chapter of the Over The Hill Gang car club. Twenty one beautiful hot rods graced our parking lot starting at 9:30 AM, with the members spending an hour and a half touring the museum. See the Club Visits page for photos of some of the cars and their drivers.

March 5, 2012—The latest photos of Jerry Kieffer's 1/8 scale Harley Davidson have just been added to his page at www.CraftsmanshipMuseu.com/Kieffer4.htm. The wheels, tires and fenders are now in place. Scroll down to near the bottom of the page for the latest additions.

March 5, 2012—Ross Bishop's latest live steam model, a 1/4 scale McLaren Road Locomotive. Designed in WWI to haul artillery, this massive 500 pound model took 7 years and an estimated 4000 hours to build.

February 29, 2012—The new video presentation showing the Carlsbad Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum is now posted on YouTube.com. CLICK HERE to view the 6-1/2 minute video that shows the 16,000 square foot facility and discusses some of the aspects of the collections on display.

February 28, 2012—Over the years many magazines have run stories on Gary Conley's 1/4 scale V-8 engines. We have scanned a few of the key articles from Popular Mechanics, Hot Rod, RC Car Modeler and Liquid Quarter Mile to give an overview of the coverage. Links have been added near the bottom of Gary's page.

February 21, 2012—Seven 1/32 scale vintage fire engine models by the late Tom Showers are on display courtesy of Replica Fire Apparatus modeler John Ackerman. Models by fire historian Tom Showers can be seen at the firefighters museum in Los Angeles among other places. He was a prolific model builder specializing in fire equipment and John leaned the craft from him. Photos of the models can be seen on the "Other Displays" page on this site.

February 2, 2012—Find Hansen of Denmark has been a featured model engineer for his outstanding work in building many hot bulb engines. In 1995 he attempted to build a Diesel engine, but it did not work out as he had hoped. He recently completed a new version of a 1-cylinder, 12cc Diesel that runs great. You can see photos of this new engine and a new video link to a YouTube video of it in operation on his updated page.

January 30, 2012—The Joe Martin Foundation is proud to announce their selection for the Metalworking Craftsman of the Year for 2012. Model Engine manufacturer Gary Conley of Glen Ellyn, Illinois was selected for his devotion to the model engineering hobby over the years by producing and selling first the 1/4 scale Conley V8 and now the new Stinger 609 V8 engine. See Gary's page to read his incredible story of determination to make a living producing a difficult to build product targeted to a very small but devoted audience. Gary will be attending the North American Model Engineering Society Expo in Wyandotte, Michigan April 21 and 22 to receive his award of $2000.00, an engraved gold medallion and award certificate. He will be bringing with him a new Stinger 609 V8 to run for the show visitors, so come on out to the show and offer your congratulations to Gary in person. See http://www.namesexposition.com/ for information on the show and www.conleyprecision.com for Gary's own web site.

January 28, 2012—Thanks to visits from the VettSet Corvette Club of South Bay, the Southwest Corvette Club of Long Beach and the Buick Riviera Club, the museum saw record daily attendance on Saturday. The total of 79 visitors also included friends and relatives who were brought in by former visitors and those who found out about us through the visitor center in Carlsbad, CA. Thanks to all who came out on this beautiful, 80° Southern California day to see the sights. It was a perfect day for cruising to a fun destination. See the Club Visits page for photos.

January 20, 2012—For as long as they have been on the Internet, the North Amercian Model Engineering Society had the same e-mail address. We just found out it has changed, and have updated our LINKS page. Their address is now http://www.namesexposition.com/. Please make a note of it.

December 15, 2011—The newest craftsman to be honored in the on-line museum is the late John Aschauer. His work can be accessed through the menu to other builders of model machine tools. A German immigrant and tool maker who worked in the Detroit auto industry and in manufacturing, he also made a lifelong hobby of building working models of vintage machine tools. Starting at age 14, he completed over 50 individual machines and also a complete steam machine shop model with steam engine and overhead line shafts with belt drives to run the machines. He estimates his hobby involved over 25,000 hours of work over his lifetime, or about seven years of full time work. His models have been displayed in various locations but have finally been collected in one place where the public can view them; the American Precision Museum in Vermont. If you can't get there, you can now enjoy them in our virtual museum by visiting John's page.

December 5, 2011—A ship in a bottle donated by Joe Martin now resides in the museum. See the DISPLAYS page in the section on ship models for a photo and description. Modern craftsmen still make these clever models, and people still love to look at them and wonder how that fully rigged ship with sails flying got into the bottle through that tiny neck.

December 1, 2011—A link to a scan of a full-page article on the Western Engine Model Exhibition in Pleasanton, CA in August was added to the PRESS page. The GoodGuys Gazette Hotrod Magazine provided the photos and story, including a shot of Lou Chenot's Duesenberg and some of Paul Knapp's engines that are now on display in our museum..

November 22, 2011—Paul Knapp stopped by on November 18th and brought 9 new engines for the museum to display. See the IC Engine Collection page for photos and descriptions of the new engines. An additional 9 engines were temporarily removed to be loaned to a museum in Michigan that is doing a 3-month display relating to the history of airplane engines. They will be back with us by early 2012.

November 11, 2011—Ship modeler Michael Titone donated a fine model of the USS Constitution for display in the museum. In addition, he has brought in three of his other models that are now also on loan for display. They include the HMS Victory, HMS Supply and a model of the Viking burial ship unearthed in perfect condition in Norway in 1904/05. Photos of the models can be seen in the "Other Displays" page on this web site.

November 8, 2011—A link to a YouTube video of the first sailing trials of Fred Heim's Nordhavn yacht model Crosswinds II was placed on his page.

November 3, 2011—ANNOUNCING NEW HOURS OF MUSEUM OPERATION STARTING DECEMBER 1ST! In order to scale back on operating costs and make the most efficient use of our hours, a study of the attendance figures for the past 9 months has led to the following changes in our operating schedule. Starting December 1, 2011, the new hours will be Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 9 AM to 4 PM. The museum in Carlsbad will be closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, although those days will still be available for exclusive tours to groups of 10 or more by appointment. We will remain closed on Sundays and Holidays, and admission remains free. Of course, the on-line museum will still be open 24 hours a day, worldwide. (Rev. 11/4/11)

October 27, 2011—Chinese gunsmith Xu Yan builds models of unusual weapons, often at very small scale. We just added photos of his new 1/10 scale model of an unusual British Welrod "Assassin's Pistol." The original take-apart pistol was not tiny but was noted for having an extremely effective silencer and for being very deadly when firing either .32 caliber or 9mm rounds at close range. Broken down it could be easily concealed.

October 17, 2011—The Carlsbad Charitable Foundation held its Fall member get-together at the museum Monday night. About 80 guests enjoyed a catered wine and cheese spread, violin music and a tour of the museum. See the group visits page for photos of this gala event.

October 14, 2011—Photos of Polish artist Szymon Klimek's latest brass masterpiece were added to his page. "Gabka" (meaning "Sponge") must be seen to be believed, as the motion is hard to describe. A video link at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ExKiIyxng shows it in motion, and detailed photos of it can now be found on his page.

October 13, 2011—Tom Boyer and Craig Libuse traveled to the nearby Ocean Hills Retirement Community in Oceanside to make a presentation to the Woodchucks woodworking club. This is a large community with lots of participation from the over 100 members. Each year they get together and make toys for military families in the local area. This year they are serving over 1100 families with doll beds (and quilts made by the wives) for the girls and brightly painted toy race cars for the boys.

October 4, 2011—This past weekend, Paul Knapp visited the museum and brought along 12 new engines to be added to the display. Among them are the new Conley Stinger 609 supercharged V8 and a second 1/4 scale race car by Jim Riggle...this one a DOHC Novi V8 powered winged sprint car. Also included is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the "World's smallest CO₂ engine" made by Stefan Gaspari, weighing less than 1 gram and measuring only .118" to the OUTSIDE of the cylinder. It is installed in a tiny balsa and tissue aircraft that weighs only 3.5 grams total. There are also 3 other tiny Gasparin "soda gas" engines in 3-cylinder, 9-cylinder and 18-cylinder radial configurations. To see these and the other new engines added to the display visit the Knapp Engine Collection page.

September 22, 2011—Note to Museum Visitors: If you sign in the Carlsbad museum guest log and write your e-mail into the provided space to be on our mailing list, PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY. We keyed in about 225 new e-mail addresses into our address book before sending out a group e-mail this morning and 40 of them came back as not deliverable. If you put your name on the list and didn't get an e-mail from the foundation today regarding additions to the Paul Knapp engine collection, e-mail craig@sherline.com and ask to be added to the mailing list.

September 22, 2011—The forty-nine additional engines recently added to the Carlsbad museum display as part of the Paul and Paula Knapp Engine Collection have now been added to the web site as well. See the page on the Knapp Collection to view photos and stories on the background of the 49 additional engines and related items.

September 16, 2011—For those interested in purchasing miniature firearms, there will be an auction in Maine on October 2-3, 2011. See www.poulinauctions.com for info.

September 13, 2011—The museum was visited by about one dozen members of the Vintage Ford Thunderbird Club from the San Diego Region. See the Club Visits page for some photos of the cars and owners.

September 9, 2011— It is with great sadness that we announce that model engineer and museum contributor Les Cade of San Marcos, CA passed away September 7th. A number of engines from his collection can be seen in the museum in Carlsbad, CA and in the "Other Displays" section.

September 8, 2011—New donations include a Weeden #672 toy steam engine and boiler loaned by Judith Haxo and a GM Craftsman's Guild model Napoleonic "Body by Fisher" coach loaned by Bernhardt Goetker and built in 1932 by his father. See the "Other Displays" page for photos of each new item.

September 7, 2011—Forty-nine new engines are now on display in the Carlsbad Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum thanks to board member and engine collector Paul Knapp. Paul and his wife Paula have been building the world's premier collection of miniature IC engines for many years, and over 200 of them can be seen on display in the foundation's museum. New additions feature the original prototype for the Challenger V8, an unusual rotary engine prototype designed by Bell Laboratories, a 1/4 scale 4-cylinder Riggles R/C midget race car, several model outboard engines including a small Elto "Pal" that is not a model, but an actual tiny trolling motor and Scotty Hewitt's "World's smallest tether car" with a CO₂ motor installed inside a Matchbox Car open wheel racer.

September 6, 2011—Clen Tomlinson visited the museum from England in late August and then drove up to attend the WEME show in Pleasanton, CA where he displayed his Deltic engine. Lou Chenot also displayed his Duesenberg at the show and drove down to show it for one day only on September 2, 2011 at the Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum in Carlsbad, CA. This was the last time the engine will be run, so our visitors that day got to see a historic event. Video of the event was placed on YouTube to go along with the first firing of the engine recorded in 2009. Thirteen new photos of the Duesenberg taken at the special museum showing were added to Lou's page today. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QesbGKTKnnQ to watch the video.

July 20, 2011—Among the recent additions to the museum that can be seen on the "Other Exhibits" page are a 1940's McCulloch 2-cylinder drone engine for the Radioplane target drone and a small, high speed control line model designed to set speed records. The McCulloch is not a model engine, but rather a real, restored but very small 2-cylinder opposed engine. It was donated by Joe Martin. The model control line plane was donated by John Stein at the request of his father who obtained it many years ago. If anyone can give us a little history on that plane, please contact the museum.

July 13-15, 2011—Foundation Craftsman of the Year winner for 2010, Michel Lefaivre of Paris, France visited the area and spent time each day at the museum talking to visitors about the process of making miniature guns. Jeff Frank mentioned the visit in his column in the North County Times on Wednesday.

July 13, 2011—Former model airplane pylon racing champion Dale Nutter, now a resident of Oklahoma, donated two of his rare and award winning engines made for him by Clarence Lee. One was made from VECO components (S/N 002) that was one of three made by Clarence and the other was a special engine totally made by Clarence. Some of the trophies won with the engines were also donated for display.

July 13, 2011—Joe Martin won an eBay auction for a restored McColloch drone engine originally used on the "Radioplane" target drone from the 1950's. It is now on display in the shop as we build a mounting base for it. An interesting sidelight to the story includes two photos of Marilyn Monroe posing with the engine in the factory. She was still known as Norma Jean Doughty and working in the engine assembly plant was her first job after moving to California. The photographer sent to the factory for the publicity photos recognized her photogenic qualities and helped get her introduced to the right people to advance her career in modeling and movies.

July 12, 2011—A rare pendulum driven 30-hour wall clock made by Riley Whiting in Winchester, CT in 1819-1830 was donated by local clock expert Joe Kunkler. We have now mounted it as a working wall display so visitors can see the all-wooden clock gears in action.

July 8, 2011—Thanks to the loan by Mary Martin of eight vintage Orwick model airplane engines from the collection of her late husband, Noel Martin, we have added a section to the model engine pioneers page on Henry Orwick and his engines. The engines pictured are now on display in the Carlsbad Craftsmanship museum so visitors can see them in person for at least the coming year.

June 16, 2011—CHENOT DUESENBERG WEST COAST TOUR DATES! Louis Chenot and his 1/6 scale Duesenberg model will be attending three west coast events this summer. They will be at the Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum in Carlsbad, CA on Friday, September 2nd from noon to 4 PM. This will be the last running of the straight-8 engine before it is reinstalled in the car, after which it will no longer be run. The weekend prior to that Lou and the car will be at the Western Engine Model Exhibition, August 26-28. Instead of Vallejo as in years past, the show this year is being held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, CA in conjunction with the GoodGuys Car Show. The weekend prior to that, Lou will show the car at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours in Pebble Beach, CA. These events are still several months away, but mark your calendar now. For those on the west coast, these will be your only chances to see the car and talk to this year's Craftsman of the Decade winner in person.

June 15, 2011—Seventeen new engines have been added to the collection courtesy of a donation by Les Cade. They can be found on the "Other Displays" page that features exhibits that we have on display in the Carlsbad museum. In the section on "engines" they start with the "High School" project engine from the 1930's. Another of the more interesting additions is the Cretors Popcorn Machine Engine. Today the 1/4 scale Marmon Coupe model was returned to its owner after being displayed since our opening on February 7th. You can still see photos of this and the other miniature cars built by the Marmon auto company in 1921 and others on our page on miniature factory models.

June 9, 2011—We regret to announce that long-time museum docent Larry Simon passed away April 20, 2011. He was a great friend to the museum and a stalwart volunteer and tour guide every Monday for over four years. He has kindly left the machine tools in his home shop to the Joe Martin Foundation where they will continue to be useful to our shop craftsmen. The new museum's lounge area has been named "Larry's Lounge" in his honor. We are glad he got to see that before he passed away, as he treasured the time he spent at the museum talking to visitors and fellow craftsmen. The lounge features the display of his 1/32 scale Manitowoc construction crane, which he was also kind enough to donate to the museum.

June 9, 2011—Carlsbad museum visitors please note that if you have not yet seen the 1/4 scale 1921 Marmon Coupe model on loan from Paul Bundy, you only have a few days left. The model was only on loan for our re-opening and is being returned to the owner on June 15th.

June 1, 2011—Boat and model builder Fred Heim has built something out of the ordinary this time, even for him! "The True Yachtsman's Last Boat" is built like a classic mahogany speedboat, except its purpose is not to sail the lakes or seas. It is built to take it's captain into the great beyond...it's a coffin. Built as a conversation starter at boat shows, it has certainly attracted a lot of attention. We give you a chance to see it at the bottom of his page.

May 25, 2011—At the NAMES show a few weeks ago in Detroit I was able to get some photos of Paul Hamler's latest project. He has moved on from making limited edition miniature woodworking tools to making 1/3 scale Kentucky Long Rifles based on the Lancaster design. A number of photos of the finished guns have been added to his page along with some photos of the production process.

May 25, 2011—Several interesting new projects are now on display or under renovation in the museum shop. Will Neely was kind enough to loan us two of his fine models--a 1/4 scale vintage sprint car and a 1/4 scale static model Ford Flathead marine racing engine. The front axle of the racer was damaged in shipment, but Tom was able to do an almost invisible repair, and it is now ready for display. Also just received from William and Carol Cox of Oceanside is a very nice Gabruder Bing Nurnberg (GBN) steam machine shop with four tools that was made between 1906 and 1923. In addition, we just received from Norman Palmer two small but interesting woodworking tools--a rasp with cast brass handle and a small, chrome plated 1" wide surface plane identified only by the number "92." After a little cleaning, these last items will be on display in the museum. Right now they can be seen in the museum's shop if you ask Tom.

May 19, 2011—Twenty new photos of the award winning 1/6 scale Duesenberg by Craftsman of the Decade winner Louis Chenot were added to his page along with a photo of him being presented with his award at the NAMES show April 30th. In addition, the first photos of progress on his next project, a 1930's mahogany speedboat powered by a Liberty V-12 engine are also included.

May 19, 2011—Jerry Kieffer brought his 1/8 scale Harley Davidson to the NAMES show so that spectators could see the progress he has made in the past year. We have included 9 new photos of the state of assembly of the bike. In addition, Jerry brought his finished and painted John Deere tractor to display for the first time since it was painted. It is worth a look as well if you CLICK HERE. Eight new photos were added.

May 17, 2011—Michel Lefaivre, the foundation's Metalworking Craftsman of the Year for 2010 has recently completed a two-year project to build a 1/3 scale Mauser 98K bolt-action rifle. He just submitted the photos and descriptions, and they have been added to his museum page. This rifle, presentation case, tools, bayonet and the clip of miniature ammunition have over 2000 hours of work in them Don't miss this one.

May 17, 2011—Iqbal Ahmed recently completed a project that qualified him for inclusion in a special page for complete, running vehicles called "Model Engineering Masterpieces." We have given special coverage to his recently completed 1/4 scale model of the historic 1886 Benz Motorwagen, known as the first car. Learn a little about its history and how Iqbal completed the model in only 13 months.

May 16, 2011—Several new projects have been added to the museum in Carlsbad. You can examine them online by going to the "Other Exhibits" page. Look for the tiny child's iron built by slaves in the south donated by Dr. Francis Rigney as well as the four interesting projects built by Marvin Johnson and on loan to the museum courtesy of his daughter, Marleen Wight. They include a tiny B-24 Liberator bomber filed from a block of aluminum sawed from the propeller of a downed Japanese fighter during WW II, a highly detailed miniature violin in its own case, a Bell helicopter main and tail rotor mechanism in miniature and a little brass bike to be ridden on a wire by a little articulated clown figure.

May 13, 2011—Three newly donated engines were added to the museum and are now documented on the "Other Museum Displays" page of this site. Joe Kunkler of Vista, CA donated a large supply of watchmaker's tools, a Riley Whiting clock with wooden gears and two "mystery" steam engines he obtained from a junk box after an estate sale. Though the builder is lost to history, the engines remain and have just been restored in the museum shop by Tom Boyer. In addition, Paul Elsmore donated his recently completed 1/3 scale Red Wing Air Cooled "Thorobred" engine after putting in over 1000 hours of work on it. All three engines are now on display in the Carlsbad museum if you want to examine them first-hand.

April 26, 2011—This has been a good week for publicity. First, our local Carlsbad paper, The North County Times published an article last Friday that brought a lot of people out to the museum. Today I received several copies of the May/June 2011 magazine, The Home Shop Machinist, which features a nice article honoring Lou Chenot for his win as the foundation's Metalworking Craftsman of the Decade. Both can be found in PDF form on the "Press" page or by clicking the links above. Our thanks to the NC Times and The Home Shop Machinist.

April 13, 2011—The third group to visit the museum in April arrived on Honda Goldwing motorcycles. This is the second visit for the San Diego Honda Goldwing Road Riders Assn. See the Club Visits page for photos of the members and some of their fine machines.

April 13, 2011—Five new photos of Fred Heim's latest project have been added to the bottom of his page. Fred likes to model in large scales, and his big R/C model of the yacht Nordhavn is no exception. It is almost ready for sea trials.

April 11, 2011—On Saturday, April 9th we opened up at 9 AM with visitors from the San Diego Fine Woodworking Club already waiting in the parking lot. You can see photos of this and other club visits on the Club Visits page.

April 5, 2011—Clear Sign & Design installed the new exterior sign on the museum building this morning. See the Facility Page for a photo.

April 2, 2011—It was a second visit for the Palomar Model A Ford Club, but their first to the new location. A good turnout meant lots of nice looking Model A's in the parking lot. Shop Craftsman Tom Boyer is a Model A owner, so he specially appreciated the visit. Photos can be found on the Club Visits page.

March 31, 2011—A group of hot rodders driving down from Central California for the weekend GoodGuys car show at Del Mar stopped by on the last leg of their drive for a tour of the museum. Though pretty tired out after two days of hot driving and a number of other visits along the way, the hard core of the group made us their final stop before heading for the motel pool. See the Club Visits page for photos.

March 28, 2011—A link to video shot at the Cabin Fever show in York, PA in January shows Lou Chenot's Duesenberg engine being run. The chassis with the body off is also lovingly photographed so you can see work that will be hidden once the engine is in and the body is back on later this year. Also, photos of Clen Tomlinson's 1/8 scale Deltic engine and the 1/4 scale 1921 Marmon 34 now on display and Ken Nobel's newly donated wall clock have been added to the "Other Displays" page.

March 19, 2011—A visit by the Horseless Carriage Club of America (San Diego Region) brought a parking lot full of classic American cars and their drivers and friends for a club visit to the Carlsbad museum. See the Club Visits page for photos.

March 15, 2011—Clen Tomlinson's spectacular Napier Deltic engine arrived safely from England for display for the coming year. We are now in the process of putting together a display for the engine where it will be featured right up front. Clen has years of research and machining in this 1/8 scale model of one of the world's more complicated engines. Used in fast attack boats and diesel electric locomotives in the 1940's and -50's, this supercharged, two-cycle diesel engine has 3 crankshafts, 18 cylinders and 36 pistons. Despite its vintage heritage, Clen used methods not available to the original builders to create the model, including doing the drawings in CAD and creating many of the parts using CNC. Clen has written some interesting comments regarding the controversy over CNC vs. Craftsmanship. Seeing this engine may change some minds.

March 11, 2011—A significant collection of model engines was donated to the museum by Les Cade of San Marcos, CA. A long time visitor to the museum, Les has built and collected a number of interesting engines over the years. He figured it was time to clean out his garage and put the engines where they could be enjoyed by more people. Our sincere thanks to Les for making these available for you to enjoy. The collection is in the process of being cleaned up and mounted for display and will be featured in the online museum as soon as they are photographed. In the mean time, they can be seen in the Carlsbad museum as they are prepared. Included are a full size Root & Vandervoort hit-n-miss engine plus a number of model hit-n-miss and steam engines. Historically significant among the small steam engine is a Cretors "popcorn" steam engine originally used to power a street vendor's No. 1 popcorn wagon that was originally sold in March, 1913.

March 1, 2011—Well-known model engineer from India, Iqbal Ahmed has created a running 1/4 scale model of the first internal combustion powered vehicle--a Benz Motorwagon from 1886. Thirty-one photos of the project were added to his page. Mr. Ahmed received a very prestigious award from the Central India Vintage Automobile Association in January for the building of this model. Already known through his presence in the Guinness Book of World Records as building the smallest steam engine, he has also built live steam trains, engines, model machine tools and other detailed projects, but this particular model shows off his skills in foundry work as well as machining and woodworking.

March 1, 2011—An updated photo of the progress of Fred Heim's large R/C ship model was added to his page at the bottom.

February 28, 2011—Two photos of a McCoy .35 and a link to a tune-up article were added to the page on model airplane engine builder Dick McCoy.

February 22, 2011—The local chapter of the Little Guys Street Rod Club held a monthly meeting at the museum itself. We opened up after hours and about 20 members arrived for pizza, sodas and a tour of the museum, despite the rather inclement weather. Photos of the event will soon be added to the Club Visits page.

February 15, 2011—Tom Boyer and Craig Libuse attended a meeting of the local chapter of the Lite 'em Up Street Rod Club in Vista, CA. We brought along the Seal and Howell V4 engines which were run at the club meeting. With over 40 members in attendance, a short talk on the foundation was given, and the club has put a future visit to the museum on their cruise agenda.

February 7, 2011—The new Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum reopened in its new location in Carlsbad, CA. It is now open to the public Monday through Saturday, 9-5. (Closed holidays) For the reopening we have two special displays for a limited time. In the front lobby you can view a 1/4 scale 1921 Marmon coupe built by the Marmon factory assembly craftsmen for auto shows and dealer promos. It was formerly owned by John R. Bond, publisher of Road & Track magazine who had it restored in the 1970's. It is on loan from its current owner, Mr. Bond's nephew Paul Bundy a hotrod builder from Escondido, CA. Also on display is a Fine Art Models 1:192 Bismarck battleship. On loan from Niall Conway in La Costa, CA, the ship model features an incredible amount of detail and measures almost 5' long. The new museum is located at 3190 Lionshead Avenue in Carlsbad, and an updated map has been added to the "CONTACT" page of the web site.

January 4, 2011—Dave Sage has completed a V8 version of Jerry Howells' V4. See the Howell V4 page at the very bottom for photos and video of Dave's creation in action. We're sure Jerry would have loved to see this one.

December 22, 2010—A while back we posted a video of a few of Rudy Kouhoupt's steam engines running in our museum shop. We have doubled the size of the exhibit with 14 engines now being run for museum visitors. Check out the link from Rudy's page or see the short video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blRkSD7d-e4 .

December 21, 2010—The Foundation is proud to announce that Louis Chenot has been selected as the 2011 Metalworking Craftsman of the Year. In honor of the special nature of his acheivement, this year's award is being called the "Craftsman of the Decade" award. A lifetime of outstanding craftsmanship and the completion of his 10-year project to build a running model of a 1932 Duesenberg in 1/6 scale have earned him this well-deserved recognition. Lou will receive his award medallion and a check for $2000 at an awards ceremony to be held at the North American Model Engineering Society (NAMES) Expo in Southgate, MI on April 30th, 2011. Our congratulations to Lou on becoming the 15th winner of the Foundation's top award.

December 20, 2010—Two photos of the latest wooden creation by Sunia Reznik were added to his page. This one is a 24" long model of the M1 Abrahams main battle tank.

December 17, 2010—A generous donation of seven model airplane engines was recently made by Jerry Nelson, an old friend of Joe Martin's. They have been mounted on stands and are now part of our growing display of model airplane engines. Just added were a 1990 supercharged O.S. FS120S-SP 1.2 cu. in. single, a 5-cylinder G-Mark Radial, a 7-cylinder Technopower II radial, two different cutaway HP .40's and two cutaway HP .61's. The cutaways are new to our collection and are good at illustrating what goes on inside a model engine. Photos of the new engines have been added to the "Other Engines" page, and the O.S. has been added to the page on Shigeo Ogawa and his O.S. engines.

December 16, 2010—As most of you who visit this museum regularly already know, Joe Martin is the owner of Sherline Products, a manufacturer of precision miniature machine tools, hence our interest and respect for excellent projects at the small end of the size scale. The profits from that company provide the primary financial support for this foundation. However, we also want to make it clear that use of any particular brand of tools in no way influences the choice of craftsmen and projects displayed in this museum or honored by the foundation. Sherline has decided to sponsor the pages of the craftsmen who use Sherline tools to make all or part of their projects, but that sponsorship opportunity is also open to any other manufacturer who wishes to sponsor a page. If you sponsor the page of a craftsman who uses or endorses your product, you are free to advertise that fact in your sponsorship. You can also claim in your other litereature and advertising that you support craftsmanship through your support of the foundation. Many worthy sponsorship opportunities are still available at the bottom of pages in the museum, both for individual craftsmen and for entire sections. If you are interested in the lifetime sponsorship of a page, whether or not the craftsman sponsored uses your products, please contact us at craig@craftsmanshipmuseum.com or call 1-760-727-9492 for cost and details of the sponsorship program. As a non-profit organization, we are always looking for ways to help support the foundation and the work that goes into maintaining and growing this museum. Page sponsorship is one way you can also help contribute while gaining credible recognition for your company among a community of the world's finest craftsmen and the people who appreciate their work.

December 14, 2010—It was announced today that the move to the new facility will not take place until after the first of the year so that we can maintain an uninterrupted schedule in the busy week between Christmas and New Years Day. The move to the new building in Carlsbad will take place soon after the first of the year. The exact dates will be posted on the opening page as soon as we we know them. We also need volunteer docents (tour guides) and machinists at the new facility. CLICK HERE for details if you would like to become involved with the museum.

December 3, 2010—Can parts made on a CNC machine exhibit "craftsmanship?" To read what CNC craftsman Clen Tomlinson has to say on the subject CLICK HERE. This essay has now been linked from Clen's page as well as from the home page. You may remember Clen as the man who is building the incredibly complicated Napier Deltic engine and using CNC to help him do it.

December 2, 2010—An ad was placed on Craigslist.com today seeking retired toolmakers, machinists, shop teachers or other craftsmen to work at the new museum for 3 days per week. This will be a paid position for two or more qualified people to help manage the museum and shop to be opened soon in Carlsbad, CA. In addition, we are seeking volunteers to help act as hosts or docents for people visiting the museum. Anyone interested in learning more about these positions should contact Craig Libuse at craig@craftsmanshipmuseum.com or call 1-760-727-9492.

November 30, 2010—Polish artist in brass, Szymon Klimek donated a second work of art to the Craftsmanship Museum in California. It arrived undamaged and is now on display. The solar powered brass Victorian steam engine is encased inside a covered glass goblet and runs on the light from a 30-watt bulb. To enhance the delicate beauty of the engine, Szymon included bunches of red and purple grapes, tiny brass leaves and jewels. The engine is named "Susi" after the tiny snail that can be seen sitting atop the solar panel. Photos of the new engine have just been added to Szymon's museum page.

November 13, 2010—Forty members of several chapters of the Pickups Limited truck club arrived at 10 AM for a special Saturday tour of the museum and shop. See the "group visits" page for more.

November 10, 2010—Several new photos have been added to a couple of sections of Xu Yan's page, including a Japanese Matchlock pistol and M2 Carbine rifle.

October 29, 2010-November 2, 2010—Seven new photos of Xu Yan's 1/6 scale Type 38 carbine built in 1964 can be seen on his page. One photo shows the individual parts in disassembled form. On the following day, six new photos of the Italian matchlock pistol were also added. On November 2, seven new photos of the M1 Carbine were added.

October 28, 2010—The newest craftsman to be added to the on-line museum is Ronald D. Remsberg. A few months ago Ron came by the museum and donated nine of his matchstick models for display. This former aerospace engineer and retired print shop owner switched from building free-flight model airplanes to working with matchsticks several years ago, and finds it a relaxing task that takes less space, uses less toxic adhesives and produces a satisfying result. Ron's new page is linked from the Wooden Mechanical Projects section.

October 21, 2010—A new-in-the-box Cox Tee-Dee .051 model airplane engine was added to the engine display and the page of Leroy Cox, courtesy of Joe Martin. This was a version of the famous .049 engine with a slightly longer stroke. It was made in 1961.

October 9, 2010—Over 20 members of the Bay City Rodders hotrod club visited the museum for a Saturday tour. See the Group Visits page for photos of this and other groups that have paid us a visit.

October 6, 2010—Dioramas are more than just models, they are models in a setting. Each tells a story or captures a moment in time in 3D. You could say Ray Anderson "wrote the book" on boxed dioramas. Published by Kalmbach Publications, his how-to book was collected from articles he published in Fine Scale Modeler magazine over the years. He is now featured in the model making section. Check out his detailed, authentic, action-packed and sometimes humorous work.

October 6, 2010—Our gunsmith from China, Xu Yan builds not only miniature guns, but also the tools to make them. He has just added a more powerful and versatile milling machine for his shop. See photos at the bottom of his page.

September 21, 2010—Find Hansen of Denmark has sent in eight new photos of his latest hot-bulb engine; a beautiful red twin-cylinder horizontal. He also provided four more YouTube links so you can see some of his engines being started and run.

September 10, 2010—Our page on miniature cars made by major maufacturers now includes a link to other companies that made miniature versions of major brand cars. See http://www.jrcentral.com/ for photos and stories of some of these beauties. Our thanks to Christian Weiss for the link.

September 9, 2010—We just obtained a copy of the August, 2010 issue of In Flight USA magazine. It contains a nice article on the Craftsmanship Museum by Russ Albertson. The magazine is free to pilots and is given out at airports around the country. So far it has brought in a number of pilots who have flown in to nearby McLellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, CA. CLICK HERE to read a PDF version of the article or see the PRESS page for links to this and other articles on the museum.

September 1, 2010—Woodworker Sunia Reznik has also produced some metal projects, including a drill press and two running engines. His son Mike sent in some photos and we have added them to the page of this multi-talented craftsman.

August 30, 2010—Whenever I have a question about a vintage model airplane engine that has been donated to the museum I call Tim Dannels at the Engine Collector's Journal. Perhaps he grew tired of my calls, because he just donated a copy of his book, American Model Engine Encyclopedia to our museum library. This will be a great source for us in finding out about both the common and the rare engines that we see from time to time. We thank Tim for his kind donation and recommend this book for anyone interested in collecting vintage model production engines.

Augusts 26, 2010—Two vintage model airplane engines have been added to the "Other Engines" web page; a DEW .51 and a Webra .91, both donated by Joe Martin. More model airplane engines and the stories of the clever craftsmen who founded the companies that made them can be found on the page covering the history of early model engines.

August 19, 2010—Three new projects have been added to the web site: 1) A Boutet pistol set by Antonio Rincón, four more matchstick sculptures by Ronald Remsburg and the Fine Art Models Corsair that has been on loan since April was replaced by a Fine Art Models P-51 in 1/15 scale. These new projects can be seen in person at the Craftsmanship Museum. The P-51 and matchstick sculptures can be found on the web site on the "Other Displays" page. The pistol set is the last item in the "pistols and rifles" section of Antonio's page.

• Link to written version of the article on Channel 8's web site

July 14, 2010—Today we got a visit from local San Diego TV reporter and personality Larry Himmel. He brought along a cameraman from San Diego Channel 8 (CBS) and filmed a short segment that will air tonight at 5:40 PM. We hope it will make a lot more people in the San Diego area aware of the museum and Foundation.

July 8, 2010—A short 1-minute video was added to YouTube.com that features six of Rudy Kouhoupt's steam engines in action. See the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoUePCWNxYM or go to Rudy's page for a link to a smaller WMV version of the video. This six-engine display is now in the museum's shop. Tom made the copper pipe air manifold that has an individual aquarium valve and air line for each engine to adjust speed individually while running all six at the same time. It's quite a combination of motions when all are running.

July 6, 2010—Puzzle Master GarE Maxton has just introduced his latest challenge. "The Intimidator" puzzle weighs 40 pounds and has 125 custom machined metal pieces. If that isn't intimidating enough, hidden inside are pieces that assemble into a second object—a .45 caliber muzzle loading pistol. Even the powder charges, bullets and firing primers are hidden inside the sculpture. That's the real reason for the name. Visit his page to see photos of this latest puzzle and several video links to the disassembly of the puzzle and assembly and firing of the single-shot .45 pistol styled along the lines of the one in the James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun. If you are a puzzle fanatic who is also into guns, this is as good as it gets. Even if you just want to see how a 40-pound, 125 piece puzzle is disassembled it's worth a look.

June 27, 2010—The Temecula Valley Corvette Club made the Craftsmanship Museum a stop on their "Mystery Tour." Though we are not normally open on Sundays, we wanted to see what a parking lot full of Corvettes looked like and agreed to a special opening. On a mystery tour, no one in the group except the tour organizer knows their destination, so there was some confusion when they arrived at the Sherline building in an industrial park. The group of 25 Corvettes arrived on time and together, making for an impressive entrance. The destination was a surprise for all (except Bill Moore), and we hope they went away with stories to tell the next time the subject of "small engines" comes up in a conversation. See the Club and Group Visits page for photos. This group of 50 people was our largest tour to date.

June 23, 2010—A group of eight 11 x 14 photos contributed by model maker Michael Paul Smith was added to our museum display. Michael also contributed a nice hardbound book of his photos of the models which is also now on display.

June 10, 2010—Back in January, a viral e-mail brought attention to the work of artist, architectural model builder and photographer Michael Paul Smith. He combines custom 1/24 scale models of vintage buildings with diecast scale model cars and photographs them to give a sense of a real town somewhere in the midwest in the 1930's through the early 1960's. The photos are so lifelike it is at first hard to believe they are of models, and each tells a story. The craftsmanship of the models combined with the artful use of real backgrounds and photo techniques that mimic old black and white or Kodachrome photography yield photos that look like they could have come from your parents or grandparents photo albums. We are now fortunate to be able to feature his work too and think you will enjoy touring his town of Elgin Park that never really existed but looks like it might have.

June 9, 2010—The foundation would like to thank Phillip Henderson of San Diego for his donation of the 1/15 scale wooden LeTourneau L-1100 front end loader built by his father in 1992. Perry Henderson built many large models of some very complicated cranes and construction equipment as a hobby during his lifetime, and this model is now on display in the museum. You can see several photos of it on the "Other Exhibits" page on this web site.

June 3, 2010—It is nice to see one of our featured craftsmen on TV. Recently, the History Channel did a feature on steam power on their show, Modern Marvels. One of the segments showed the work of "steampunk" robot builder I-Wei Hauag. CLICK HERE for a link to a YouTube video of the TV segment.

June 1, 2010—HELP! The Joe Martin Foundation is seeking volunteers to help out as docents at our museum in Vista. We will soon be moving down the street of our new facility in Carlsbad, and the location will require that someone be on hand during the hours we are open to greet people at the front door, as Tom and the machine shop will be located at the back of the display area. If you would like to spend some time in a fun environment hosting tours of some very intersting displays, please give us a call at (760) 727-9492 or e-mail Craig Libuse at craig@craftsmanshipmuseum.com.

June 1, 2010—Back issues of Model Engineer magazine sought. In the museum library we have a collection of Model Engineer magazines dating back to the first issue in 1898; however, there is a hole in the continuity from where the purchased collection ended and where our subscription began. We are seeking about 110 issues starting with the issue after December12-26, 2003 (Vol 191 #4210) up to May 23-Jun 5, 2008 (Vol 200 #4320). A donation of back issues is valued for tax purposes at about $5.00 for each issue. We will pay the cost of shipping within the USA. If you have a collection you would like to donate to the museum and could use a $550.00 tax deduction, please keep us in mind for those missing issues.

May 26, 2010—Last week Les Cade donated a beautiful Rider-Ericsson Sterling pump engine built in 1982 by Bill Fowler. We now run it upon request for museum visitors and have posted both still photos and links to videos of it in action on the "Other Projects" page. You can also see the video on YouTube if you CLICK HERE.

May 19, 2010—Roger Zimmermann loves 1960's American cars like Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles and Studebaker Avanti's. Roger also makes models of them, even though he doesn't often get to see them on the road. That's because Roger lives in Switzerland. Even so, the former GM Engineer builds some spectacular 1/12 scale models with finish and detail that are up there with the best. We just added a page to the Model Makers section of the museum that details his efforts from childhood models made of cardboard up to his current model of the 1963 Avanti.

May 14, 2010—A 1/50th scale model of the Greenland fishing trawler Nordkap was just donated to the museum and is now on display. It was built by the late Mike O'Conner of Vista, CA and donated in his honor by his wife Danelyn after he passed away earlier this month. Mike was a member of the Ocean Hills "Woodchucks" woodworking club, a lifelong pilot and an engineer for Douglas Aircraft for over 40 years. Photos of his expertly built model can be seen on the Other Displays page.

May 14, 2010—Also donated this date was a 1/4 scale working Rider-Ericsson hot air pump engine built by Bill Fowler in 1982. Pinstriped by famed automotive pinstriper "Shakey Jake," this engine runs on heat provided by a propane flame to pump water. It was one of two built by Mr. Fowler from casting sets purchased for him by donor Les Cade. When he brought it in, Les demonstrated its smooth and almost silent running as it continuously pumped water from and back to a clear acrylic tank. The engine will be kept in the museum shop for the time being and will be available to be run upon request for visitors wishing to observe its unusual function. Photos of his engine can be seen on the Other Displays page.

May 6, 2010—A new page on Dutch craftsman Roberto Heijmans has just been added to the Wooden Mechanical Projects section. Roberto has spent over 14 years building a large 1/25 scale model railroad with sectional track; however, this one is made entirely from wood--engines, cars, track and all. He has even come up with a clever electronic system to run severak trains at once without a collision and has also built large bridges and other structures for the portable layout. Those of you in the Netherlands and Belgium may have seen his layout at shows, but for those around the world who haven't seen it in person, you will enjoy this new page.

April 28, 2010—Ken Foran displayed his latest model at the Joe Martin Foundation booth at the NAMES show last weekend. The 1/8 scale Model T board track racer is made from brass and, like all Ken's models is highly detailed. Twenty-three new photos of it were added to his page today. Be sure to inspect his latest project. In addition, three new photos of the 1/8 scale Harley Davidson Knucklehead motorcycle being built by Jerry Kieffer were also added to his page.

April 24, 2010—Gunsmith and miniature arms maker Michel Lefaivre flew from Paris to Detroit to receive his award for Craftsman of the Year. Photos of the award presentation have been added to his page.

April 16, 2010—2008 "Craftsman of the Year" award winner Ron Colonna has built some very nice engines over the years. He now has a section on YouTube.com where you can see videos of some of them in action. See http://www.youtube.com/user/ronsmodelengines.

April 12, 2010—David Gee of Arleta, CA donated a "Peanut Scale" flying model that he designed and built based on a 1913 Grahame-White "Lizzie" biplane. This beautifully built rubber-powered plane is a former contest winner.

April 7, 2010— Escrow closed on the new home of the Joe Martin Foundation and Craftsmanship Museum. The purchase involves a $2 million dollar investment on the part of Joe Martin to secure the future of the Foundation in its own building. The new concrete structure is 16,500 square feet and is located about 3/4 mile west of our present location. Once zoning issues are worked out with the city of Carlsbad, we hope design and construction will soon begin on the interior shop and display spaces, with the goal of a Grand Opening of the new facility before the first of the year. The new building is located at 3190 Lionshead Avenue in Carlsbad, CA. (Click on the photo thumbnail to view a larger image of the building.)

April 6, 2010—A Fine Art Models version of the F4U Corsair in 1/15 scale was placed on display courtesy of a loan by local model collector Niall Conway. It will be on display for the next 8 weeks, when it will be replaced by another of Mr. Conway's fine aircraft models.

April 2, 2010—A short video of the first run of Lou Chenot's 1/6 scale Duesenberg engine was placed on YouTube.com. Lou sent the raw video to the museum and Craig Libuse produced the video, which includes Lou's footage plus still images. This is one of the major model engineering projects to be attempted in several years, and we congratulate Lou on a successful first run of a beautiful scale straight eight with 4 valves per cylinder. The car will be reassemebled in time for the NAMES Expo in Southgate (Detroit), MI on April 24th.

April 1, 2010—Young C. Park's first aluminum Corsair model (the cutaway version) was delivered to Terry Brennan at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park, where it will be placed on display in the rotunda for a loan period of one year. The museum has agreed to display promotional cards for the Joe Martin Foundation Craftsmanship Museum as part of the presentation, which means a larger local audience will be learning of our museum.

March 31, 2010—A 1946 Atwood & Adams .62 two-stroke model airplane engine was just added to the model engine collection. The engine along with a couple of wooden propellers and miniature champion spark plugs was recently donated to the museum by Bob Stein of Lakeside, CA. This is one of the many successful engine designs by Bill Atwood, who started out in 1932 with his first engine and continued making important contributions to engine development until his retirement from Cox in 1975.

March 25, 2010—We recently received a copy of the March, 2010 issue of the Russian edition of Popular Mechanics magazine. On page 23 is a nice full-page article about Young Park's 1/16 scale Corsair model. More world-wide acclaim for his amazing models. Click on the linked magazine name to view a scan of the cover, the article and a translation.

March 18, 2010—The Howell V-4 engine fired for the first time on March 16th at 2:40 PM. The "first pop" was witnessed by Joe Martin, Craig Libuse, Pam Weiss and Justin, our Realtor as Tom got about one second+ of running time on several attempts. After thinking about it overnight Tom made a few adjustments and was able to get the engine to run continuously the next morning. The event was captured on video and a 4-1/2 minute clip was posted on YouTube.com last night. CLICK HERE to view the video or go to the Howell V4 page to view a shorter 30-second close-up video of the engine as it was run today. We only wish the late Jerry Howell could have seen it run.

March 11, 2010—The Howell V-4 engine has been mounted to a temporary wooden base for layout and testing of the electrical ignition components. Once that is done and a throttle linkage is hooked up we should be ready to attempt to fire it up for the first time. Photos of the assembled engine and electrical test were just added to the V-4 page.

March 8, 2010—Two months ago we added Find Hansen and his hot bulb engines to the on-line museum. If you have never seen a hot bulb engine run before, Find has now posted videos on YouTube. Go to his page and click on the five new links provided there to view his videos of the engine being lubricated, started and run. The action of this unusual type of engine is quite interesting to watch.

February 17, 2010—An article from a 1939 issue of Popular Science magazine sent in by a friend has allowed us to add some photos of model engine builder Ray Arden. There is also a link to a scan of the whole 5-page article for those wanting to know more about Ray and his engines. Ray is known as the "Father of the Glow Plug," and we have two of his engines in our commercial model engine collection, photos of which can be seen on Ray's page.

February 10, 2010—Building miniature tools is a popular hobby for some model makers. John Maki of Washington specializes in making 1/3 scale versions of fine Victorian woodworking tools. These tools all have a certain functional beauty, and when reduced in scale and made with fine hardwoods, ivory and brass, a collection of them is an impressive site. (It also takes a lot less space to display than the full size tools.) John is able to purchase many of the full-size tools on eBay, study and draw them, recreate them in miniature and then re-sell the original, keeping just his miniatures. John has been added to the root page linking to other people who specialize in miniature tools.

February 1, 2010—Our fourth addition to the on-line museum for 2010 is engine builder Jim Moyer. Jim has been building really small IC engines for years and has recently completed what is, as far as we know, the "World's Smallest Running Chevrolet V-8." Built in 1/6 scale, this is a highly detailed model of a 1964 365 HP Chevy Corvette 327 V-8. Unlike the real engine, this one will turn 11,000 RPM!

January 26, 2010—One of the biggest announcements we make all year is the selection of the winner of the Metalworking Craftsman of the Year Award. Today we announced the selection of Michel Lefaivre of Paris, France as the 2010 winner. Mr. Lefaivre is a retired engineer and miniature gunsmith whose craftsmanship shows uncompromising quality. He will be presented with his award and a check for $2000.00 at the NAMES show in Detroit, Michigan on April 24th, 2010. He will bring some examples of his work for display. If you can attend the show, please come by the Foundation's booth to meet and speak with Mr. Lefaivre.

January 26, 2010—A second big announcement for the same day is the induction of multi-faceted model engineer George Britnell into the museum. He builds models in so many areas that he is linked from the steam engines menu, the IC engines menu and the gunsmithing menu. George has long been a participant in the Sherline Machinist Challenge contests at the NAMES show, having taken first place in the event in both 1993 and 1995. This will tell you something about the quality of his work.

January 20, 2010—Our second new craftsman of the year specializes in wooden ship models. N. Roger Cole is among the world's best when it comes to ships in scale. Recommended by former Craftsman of the Year winner, Bill Huxhold of Canada, Roger has also contributed much to the hobby by writing numerous articles on both his research and his techniques. Roger's work is as authentic as it is meticulous.

January 7, 2010—Our first new craftsman to be added to the museum for 2010 is Find Hansen of Denmark. Find builds "hot bulb" engines. These somewhat unusual 4-cycle internal combustion engines have no spark plug or electrically heated glow plug. They rely on a vaporizer tube inside a cover that is heated to glowing by a small torch in order to ignite the fuel mixture in the cylinder. Looking much like steam engines in shape, they are an early internal combustion engine that you rarely see replicated by model engineers. Find's engines not only run well, they are beautifully crafted in many different configurations.

January 5, 2010—Tom Boyer just finished soldering the radiator for the Howell V-4 engine. See the latest photos on the Howell V-4 build page.

December 31, 2009—Visitorship at the museum has reached new highs for the past several weeks due to an e-mail going around the Internet. Someone copied a group of photos of Young Park's Corsair and P-51 models and sent them to friends. Friends forwarded it to more friends and at some point it took on viral proportions, going to all corners of the country and the world. That resulted in a huge amount of interest in Young's models and introduced a lot of people to our on-line museum. Locally, many people found out about our museum in Vista and came out to see the planes in person. Several publications ran articles on it including an e-mail newsletter to 90,000 EAA members and a center spread in the Sunday Mail (London) newspaper on December 20th. Our thanks to the person who originated the message, whoever you may be.

December 23, 2009—We believe a couple of records were set on December 4th when a group in Andersonville, GA flew a 1/4 scale Bentley BR2 rotary engine powered model plane for the first time. This is the first 1/4 scale rotary to fly plus it is the first Bentley BR2 to power a model airplane. Paul Knapp built the engine and Robert Cooper built the plane, called the "Gigantic." The pilot was Mac Hodges. A 10-miniute video of the event has just been placed on YouTube.com so you can see the engine run-up and first flight at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSYp1jFz6_E.

December 16, 2009—Eighteen riders with the San Diego chapter of the Honda Gold Wing club stopped by for a visit, joining with a number of others who came by the museum today after having seen the e-mail about Young Park's airplane models. It was one of our busiest days yet, and for a while we had over a quarter of a million dollars worth of shiny motorcycles in our parking lot. This is just a reminder that we do welcome club visits. See our club visits page for photos of this and other clubs that have visited the museum in the past.

December 15, 2009—Our thanks to whoever sent out the original e-mail about Young Park and his Corsair and P-51 model. It has reached the viral stage as internet e-mails go, and we are getting responses from all over the world from people who have received it from friends. It was also the basis for a cover story on the recent EAA (Experimental Aircraft Assn.) newsletter that went out to over 90,000 members last Friday. If you get the e-mail from a friend, send it on to everyone you know. Big corporations spend a lot of money trying to get this kind of exposure. Not having an advertising budget, we were fortunate to get it for free courtesy of our fellow craftsmen on the Internet. Our site has received well over 10,000 hits in 5 days.

December 11, 2009—Jim Hastings is the newest addition to the on-line museum. Jim came to our attention after the Black Hills Model Engineering show when his work was noticed by a couple of the former winners of the Craftsman of the Year award. It is a little unusual to see ship models at a model engineering show, and these were standouts. Joining our builders of mostly more moder ships, Jim specializes in older, classic square-rigged ships in the old traditional plank-on-frame style. If you like detailed wooden ship models, he has now been added to the model making section.

December 2, 2009—For the past several years we have been trying to put together a page on the late Lee Root. Though he had many friends in the model engineering community, none have so far come forward to help write a biography. We have collected a few photos and a little information about his life and have decided to go ahead and publish it in the hopes that others will contribute their favorite stories and photos of Lee so we can built the page as we go. If any of you fellow model engineers or friends of Lee's can contribute, we will be glad to add more background information, stories and photos as we receive them. Several of Lee's engines including his well-known 18,000 RPM Corvette V8 are now on display in the Vista Craftsmanship Museum as part of the Paul and Paula Knapp engine collection. We would also like to share any videos you may have of Lee's engines being run.

Novermber 25, 2009—A new page has been added to provide links to videos of engines being run. It's nice to look at a nicely built engine but more fun to see and hear them in action. We have collected a number of links to videos of running engines, and we solicit your input as well. Send us your favorite links if you don't find them in our list.

November 24, 2009—A new woodworker has joined the makers of wooden mechanical projects and toys. Sunia Reznik retired in 1994 and set about taking his hobby of woodworking more seriously. Since then he has created many beautiful models in wood. See his new page for items including fire trucks, motorcycles, trains, construction equipment and more.

November 18, 2009—Who is doing anything to get kids interested in building things and introducing them to the manufacturing trades? The Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation is. We just added a link to their web site at www.nutsandboltsfoundation.org to the LINKS page. Check out this page for other links to items of interest to craftsmen as well.

November 12, 2009—You may have looked at Fred Heim's 1/2 scale wooden construction equipment and Peterbilt truck in the Mechanical Woodworking Projects section. He recently retired as a boat builder and spent the summer cruising the waters of Florida in the 31' fantail launch Rachel H that he built for him and his wife to enjoy in retirement. Well, "retirement" doesn't mean Fred has stopped building things. Now he has started working on model boats. Photos of the first of his efforts has been added to his page.

November 9, 2009—Polish artist in metal, Szymon Klimek just donated one of his finest pieces for display in the Vista Craftsmanship Museum. After a nervous wait by both Szymon and us, UPS delivered the delicate 1835 Adler locomotive this morning. It made the trip half way around the world without a problem, testifying both to the fact that the delicate art must be stronger than it looks and also to Szymon's extra careful packaging. It is now on display for our visitors, a significant addition to the museum's fine projects in metal. You can learn more about it on Szymon's page or by going to the Other Projects on Display page.

October 27, 2009—The two new model airplane engines mentioned below have now been added to the Other Engine Manufacturers page. Both Russian engines are from the "Cold War Era," and they are both still new in the box. The engines were kindly donated by Richard T. Mack of Fallbrook, CA.

October 23, 2009—Today was a good day for donations. First we received two interesting model airplane engines from Richard Mack. They are both Russian made models from the "Iron Curtain" era of the 1950's and are new in the box. One is a small CO₂ engine and the other is a 1-cylinder, 2-cycle. UPS also brought a heavy box from Michael Molitsky containing 55 back issues of the NAWCC bulletin filling in all the holes in our collection from 1974 to present. We now only need issues older than #176. Our thanks to Mr. Mack and Mr. Molitsky for your generous donations.

October 20, 2009—A new engraver and miniature gunsmith has just been added to the museum. Links to Damien Connolly's page can be found from both the engraving and gunsmithing sections, because he fits into both categories. Be sure to examine the talented Australian's tiny 1/5 scale Kentucky long rifle. It is made in a scale much smaller than is usually attempted for a miniature gun. There is also a great photo series of how a very delicate brass inlay is created for the lid of a very fancy display box for a rare revolver.

October 20, 2009—Xu Yan, the gunsmith from China has added a new miniature mortar to his weapons collection.

October 1, 2009—I-Wei Huang has amazed and entertained the robot world with his steam punk robots. Now his small, bug-like swashbots made from R/C helicopter swash plates have gotten some attention in the national media from Discovery Channel to magazines like Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Make. See his page for links or watch this YouTube video.

September 25, 2009—William Gould has won awards in the past for his 3D CAD renderings. Nine new renderings of a steam engine and several historic racecars were just added to the bottom of his page. Using SolidWorks, Bill has created a look of total reality in his renderings.

September 21, 2009—Although visitors to the on-line museum can see work of many superb craftsmen from around the world, the physical museum in Vista, California has some unique individual displays that have been donated or are on loan. A new page in the on-line museum describes some of these other exhibits so those who can't make it in person to the museum can see what the visitors see. If you can stop by the Vista museum, you can examine these items in detail.

September 21, 2009—Miniature gun maker Antonio Rincón of Columbia has just submitted photos and a description of his latest work in 1/3 scale—a Le grand nécessaire d'armes boxed rifle and pistol set. These have been added to the bottom of the "Pistols and Rifles" section of his page.

September 15, 2009—Toy Farmer Magazine for September, 2009 featured Jerry Kieffer's John Deere tractor model in an article on scratch built farm toys. His is far from a "toy" and the only one of the lot that actually has a running engine. CLICK HERE to see a high quality PDF version of the article or go to Jerry's page on the 1936 John Deere "D" Tractor model for more details.

September 4, 2009—Several new engine photos have been added to the age of award-winning Indian model engineer Iqbal Ahmed. He has recently completed a live steam 0-6-0 tank engine in 45 mm scale—a reduced size version of his Indian Glory engine. He also sent a photo of a Wetzel twin-cylinder stationary engine and will soon follow with photos of a Stirling engine he built after attending the NAMES show in Toledo, OH and seeing such engines in action there.

September 2, 2009—Since there is no rule that says the Foundation is limited to one achievement award each year, a second Special Achievement Award is being presented to Szymon Klimek of Poznań, Poland for the unique combination of engineering and art found in his tiny brass sculptures. He is being sent an award certificate and engraved gold medallion along with a cash award of $500.00. Szymon is the second recipient of an achievement award this year, with Lou Chenot having received the first at the NAMES show in April for his work on the 1/6 scale Duesenberg. Szymon has mentioned that he intends to donate one of his creations for display in the Vista, CA Craftsmanship Museum, so hopefully visitors in the USA will soon be able to enjoy his work first-hand.

August 30, 2009—Word was just received from the family of engine designer Jerry Howell that he passed away unexpectedly on August 29th. A link to the funeral home web site is posted on his web page at www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/Howell.htm. More details will be available on that page as funeral plans are finalized. The passing of Jerry is a great loss to the model engineering community, as his plans and kits were a source of well designed and documented projects for many builders. He was not only a superb craftsman himself, but he shared freely of his knowledge and expertise as well. We particularly regret that he did not live to see the completion and first running of the Foundation's Howell V-4 engine, which is very near ready for final assembly.

August 17, 2009—Australian model engineer Ross Bishop has been building live steam engines since he was a  young lad. His latest is a 2-8-0 "Standard Goods" locomotive that runs as good as it looks. Some of his other projects are shown as well on his new page. It is linked from the "Model Engineering—Steam" page.

August 17, 2009—Two new photos of progress on Ron Colonna's Novi V-8 were added to his page.

July 22, 2009—After attending the Western Engine Model Exhibition in Vallejo, CA last weekend, we returned in our van with another 40 superb pieces from Paul Knapp' collection. These include all four of Lee Root's engines, a Ferrari V-12, two turbojet engines, a patented swash-plate 4-cylinder Stirling and many other very interesting engines. These have now been added to the museum display. Photography is now being completed and by tomorrow we should have photos of each new engine on the engine collection page of this web site.

July 9, 2009—Our thanks to Jerry Kieffer for donating 139 back issues of the NAWCC Bulletin to the museum library. We are still missing issues 1 through 188 plus 41 others since 1977, but we do have 156 issues from 1977 to date. The issues we are missing are: 1-188, 190-217, 244, 262, 265-267, 277, 281, 284, 287, 290, 301, 323 and 347. The most recent issue is number 380 for June, 2009.

July 9, 2009—Antonio Rincón of Columbia has created his newest miniature weapon, a flintlock hunting shotgun after a design by Joseph Manton. See his page for six new photos of this miniature weapon plus more on his other outstanding work.

July 2, 2009—Jerry Howell has designed a new hit-n-miss engine called the Farm Boy. See a photo of the new engine at the bottom of the page on Jerry. Plans for the engine are available from Jerry. Five new photos of progress on the Howell V4 engine project were also added to that page.

June 24, 2009—A second craftsman in two days has been added to the Unusual Projects page. Randy Boni carves intricate and lifelike animal and human figures from old logs using the unlikely instrument of a chainsaw. What might seem like a tool of destruction becomes an tool of creation in the hands of an expert artist. Randy is the 78th to be featured in the on-line museum.

June 23, 2009—A new addition to the recently introduced Unusual Projects page, GarE Maxton is a maker of very challenging puzzles. The precision machined metal objects are made up of many interlocking pieces of various metals, finishes and patinas and make an attractive desk sculpture when assembled. He has been building a worldwide following for these limited edition pieces for several years, and they are....well, unusual! Check out his new page.

June 18, 2009—Though several years late, some photos of the heat treating process used to case harden the cam on the Seal engine were added to the Seal Engine Build Page. They were shot April 13, 2007 by Larry Simon as Tom and Pam hardened the cam.

June 17, 2009—Four new photos of progress on the Howell V4 engine were added. Tom has completed the valve lifters and wrist pins, plus he has test-installed the pistons (without rings) and rods to make sure there are not binding problems.

June 2, 2009—Australian Harold Manwaring is featured in the woodworking section as a model engineer who built a running steam locomotive entirely from wood. Now he has completed a Tubal Cain designed walking beam stationary steam engine in wood as well. See 15 new photos that have just been added to his page on this fine wooden steam engine.

May 28, 2009—Maurice Nysether started making engines at age 73. Now 90, he has sold a few but retains about a dozen or so running internal combustion engines that he takes to shows and fires up whenever possible. Since he lives only a few miles from our museum in nearby San Marcos, CA, he was able to bring his engines by for us to photograph and to learn a little more about this interesting World War II veteran B-17 bombardier.

May 27, 2009—The Howell V4 engine project is coming along nicely. Tom has completed the fan, pulleys and oil pump, and Larry Simon has built a number of special tools needed to assemble the engine. See the photo updates of all the new parts.

May 7, 2009—Today, a new section and two new people were added to the museum. The "Unusual Projects" page features craftsmanship that is a little different--tiny arrowheads, a giant temple model, art crafted with a chainsaw and more. Expect the unexpected, but also be inspired by some truly gifted craftsmen who don't follow the usual path. Two new people are introduced through this section today as well: Szymon Klimek of Poland crafts brass objects that could be called jewelry, art or model engineering--you decide. In addition, we introduce Alec Gerrard of England who spent over 30 years of his life building a giant 1:100 model of Herod's temple on his farm, and he's still not done.

May 7, 2009—The Home Shop Machinist magazine, May/June 2009 devoted a two-page spread to honoring the selection of Richard Carlstedt as the Foundation's 2009 Metalworking Craftsman of the Year. Scans of several magazine articles in addition to this one have been added to his page. There is also coverage on Sherline's page devoted to the 2009 NAMES show where Richard received his award.

May 5, 2009—Fred Heim's latest boat project, the Rachel H has now been launched in Florida at the Mt. Dora Boat Show and is ready to be returned for a summer on the Charles River while Fred and his wife enjoy his one themselves. Photos of the launch in Florida close out that section of his page. Also, three new photos of the latest progress on Lou Chenot's Duesenberg taken at the NAMES show were added.

April 29, 2009—A very rare Lee .51 (one of seven made) was just donated to the Craftsmanship Museum by Jerry Nelson and is now on display as part of the vintage model airplane engine collection. In addition, Roger Ronnie's finely engraved brass watchmaking tools, the Verge Twister and the Oil Reservoir are now on display in the Vista, CA museum along with an explanation of what they are used for. A photo of the display was added to Roger's page on watch and clock tools.

April 27, 2009—Sixteen new photos have been added to the page of Spanish motorcycle model builder Pere Tarrago. He recently completed a vintage BMW R2 that is worth taking a look at. Also included is a link to a brief history of the original bike.

April 18, 2009—At the North American Model Engineering Society (NAMES) Expo in Toledo, Ohio, Craig presented the award for Metalworking Craftsman of the Year to Richard Carlstedt. Also winning a Lifetime Achievement Award was Louis Chenot from Joplin, MO for his work on a 1/6 scale Duesenberg. Each is featured on this web site, so check out their updated pages with photos of the awards.

April 14, 2009—Sadly, Robert Washburn passed away yesterday. Robert and his wife Frances were the founders of Strictly IC magazine, which for years was the only publication specializing in model internal combustion engines. Robert and Frances were the co-winners of a Lifetime Achievement award from the Joe Martin Foundation in 2007 for their work in expanding the hobby of engine building.

March 21, 2009—The Vista Craftsmanship Museum was opened at 10 AM for a special Saturday tour by the Southern California Home Shop Machinists club. Members came from as far as Los Angeles and Palmdale for this club gathering to see our exhibits. Thirty-three members signed into our guestbook, although there were a few more than that in attendance. The 2-1/2 hour special opening included a tour of the Sherline factory for 21 of the guests. Present from the Foundation were Joe Martin, Tom Boyer, Larry Simon, Pam Weiss and Craig Libuse.

March 19, 2009—Scotty Hewitt was Joe Martin's race car driving instructor, and Joe got Scotty set up with a miniature machine shop and a few tips to get him started. It was a good trade for each of them. This page details Scotty's model engineering success, including his marine steam engine and two CO₂ race cars that won the Sherline Machinist's Challenge contest in Detroit three years running.

March 7th, 2009 was our best attended Saturday to date. Visiting the museum were the Airheads BMW Motorcycle Club and the Poway Cruisers Hotrod club in addition to several walk-in visitors. It was a very satisfying turnout with over 37 people signed into the guest register for the day.

March 5, 2009—A link to Make Magazine was added to the Links page, and four new photos of the V4 engine build progress were added to the Howell V4 page. Tom has completed the camshaft blanks, pushrods, pushrod clevises and installed the intake manifold.

February 17, 2009—Ron Guttu's father George raced an Offy-powered IMCA dirt track car back in the 1930's. Ron found an old photo of it and built a 1/4 scale model of the car with a running Offenhauser engine, right down to molding the knobby tires himself. Although a lifelong auto mechanic, he had never built a model of this level of difficulty before. Take a look at this fine auto as you learn a little more about how it came into being in Ron's shop.

February 6, 2009—New photos have been added to Jerry Kieffer's page on the 1/8 scale Harley Davidson to show the clutch cable and one of the first wheel spokes. New photos were also added to the bottom of the Seal Engine page to show the new cooling tank Tom is in the process of building.

February 5, 2009—Leroy M. Cox may have introduced more kids to model flying than any other person. At one point Cox Manufacturing was making over 1 million engines a year. Their products were featured for years in the Flight Circle in Tomorrowland at Disneyland in the 1950's and 1960's. He was a quality oriented manufacturer who also had a great sense of marketing. Read his story in the section on Production Model Engines.

February 4, 2009—Master miniature gunsmith Michel Lefaivre recently sent photos of his latest project, a 2/5 scale Navy Luger pistol. They have been added to his page along with a link to a magazine article where he describes how the miniature pistol was made. Be sure to check out both the article, which has black and white photos plus the color versions in the "Photos" section at the end of the page. The rich detail can be much better appreciated in the color images.

February 4, 2009—For those of you visiting the museum in person, we have added the physical address and GPS coordinates of the facility to the home page and the "Call Us" page that also features a location map.

January 29, 2009—Although we don't know the individual craftsmen's names, we still treasure the miniature cars they produced. Auto manufacturers in the early part of the automotive era sometimes had their pattern or design shop build miniature versions of their product line to attract attention at auto shows. Now treasured collectibles, we have tried to uncover a little about he cars and how they were made. Paul Bundy's 1/4 scale 1921 Marmon Coupe inspired the page, but we also show some of the others that have turned up.

January 26, 2009—Jerry Brown has sent us a write-up of how he got interested in building steam projects called The Making of a Model Engineer. It has been added to his page. In addition, five new photos of Fred Heim's fantale launch were added to the very end of his page. It is very near its first showing at an East Coast boat show in min-February.

January 16, 2009—New photos of highly decorated miniature rifles and pistols have been added to the page of Antonio Rincon. The Rigby 4-barreled pistol is now shown after being engraved, and the very ornate Boutet carbine and dueling pistols are shown all together.

January 14, 2009—Jerry Brown always loved watching an expert maneuver a giant steam crane. Knowing it would be impractical to buy one of his own, he decided to make one in 1/6 scale. Even at 1/6 size that's a large project. (The 60' real boom is still 10' long in scale.) The completed crane is a powerful workhorse that has been put to the test many times. See Jerry's page for how he went about building this big steam project.

December 19, 2008—Richard Carlstedt has been selected as winner of the Joe Martin Foundation "Metalworking Craftsman of the Year" award. See Richard's page for details on the 13th winner of the foundation's top award. See the Awards page for an explanation of the award itself. Richard will be presented with the actual award medallion and a check for $2000.00 at the NAMES Expo in Toledo, Ohio April 18-19, 2009.

December 11, 2008—A local North County (San Diego) newspaper called The Community Paper did a nice article on the Craftsmanship Museum that brought in a lot of attention and a number of local visitors. It will be archived for viewing on-line for the next four years at http://www.thecommunitypaper.com/archive/2008/12_11/index.php. Our thanks to editor Lyle Davis for the nice free plug.

December 4, 2008—A sensational model steam engine has attracted a lot of attention in the model engineering community recently. Richard Carlstedt of Green Bay, WI built a working model of the recently recovered engine from the civil war ironclad ship Monitor. Beautifully done in great detail, it is the first correct working model of the engine and a worthy tribute to the famous ship. Years of research went into building it, as no plans were ever found. Richard has also built other beautiful steam models and all are featured on his new page in the Model Engineering (Steam) section of the museum.

November 19, 2008—Updates: Five new photos of work in progress on the carburetor and crankshaft have been added to the page on the Howell V-4 engine project. Four new photos of Fred Heim's full size mahogany fantail launch have been added to his site. The new web site address for Wm. Dubin's mechanamorphic sculptures has been added to his page.

October 17, 2008—A significant development in the history of model engines was the development of the glow plug ignition. Ray Arden is credited with that discovery in the 1940's. He also produced a line of engines that were popular after World War II. A biography of Ray has been included in the Model Engine Developers section. At this time we have not been able to locate any photos of Ray, so if you have any in your archives, please submit them for inclusion in this article.

October 14, 2008—Though donated two weeks ago, I just finished making a maple display base for this engine, which reminded me to thank the donor, Robert Meltzer of Irvine, CA. He sent in a very nice MVVS 2.5 cc (.15 cu. in) diesel model airplane engine with prop. The engine was made in Czechoslovakia in the 1960's or so and is popular with vintage style flyers. We didn't have any diesels in our vintage model airplane engine collection (other that the tiny ones on display as part of Paul Knapp's collection) so this was a welcome addition. Our thanks to all of you who are helping the museum a more impressive place to visit every week. (CLICK HERE to see the engine or visit the OTHER ENGINES page.)

October 9, 2008—Due to many requests from people who cannot come during regular weekday work hours, the Vista Craftsmanship Museum is going to be open the first Saturday of each month from 9 AM to 3 PM until further notice. Continuing the program will depend on attendance. If the first Saturday occurs on a holiday weekend, we will be open the second Saturday for that month. New Year's Day this year is on a Thursday, so we will not consider that a holiday weekend. Therefore, our first three Saturdays will be November 1st, December 6th and January 3rd, 2009. As on weekdays, admission on Saturday is also free. CLICK HERE for directions.

September 30, 2008—Two significant donations were added to the museum this week. First, Rex Geivett of Oceanside, CA came by and left five of his fine steam engines on "permanent loan" for display. The next day Donald Holcomb of San Diego, CA donated two WWII era model airplane engines: A K&B "Infant Torpedo" .020 and an Arden .099. These are now on display and photos have been added to the appropriate pages devoted to builders of early model airplane engines. The Infant can be seen on John Brodbeck's page for K&B engines. Since Arden is not covered in the manufacturer's section, a new page for "Other Engines" was added to cover the Arden and any future unclassified engines.

September 23, 2008—Australian woodworker Harold Manwaring is featured in the "Mechanical Wooden Projects" section for the unique all-wood working steam locomotive that runs on compressed air. He is also an excellent wood turner, and we have just added photos of several of his other turning projects to his page.

September 15, 2008—We have featured people in the past who model construction equipment in wood, but never someone who works in this scale. While most go small, home contractor and boat builder Fred Heim takes his hobby to extremes by working at 1/2 size. Take a look at his running diesel powered 1/2 size Peterbilt truck, drop-deck trailer and Caterpillar construction equipment. Be sure to view the Google video link too. Though technically "miniature," these pieces offer a real modeling challenge.

September 3, 2008—Miniature motorcycle builder Pere Tarragó has just completed a new model in 1/5 scale and sent photos of his Benelli 250 Quatro G.P. These photos have been added to his page. An additional comment about Dick McCoy's brother Mike was added to his page as well.

August 27, 2008—The newest addition to the museum is Polish aircraft modeler Andrzej Ziober. Looking at the detail in his models you would not suspect from the photos that they are built to such a small scale—1/72! After getting a PhD., Andrzej gave up a promising career as a scientific researcher to build models full time and has been doing so for over 30 years. In that time he has competed in every major model contest throughout Europe and never failed to win 1st place. This is an amazing record, and when you see his models you will understand why he was awarded one of Poland's highest aviation awards...the first model maker to receive it.

August 15, 2008—An article appeared in Fine Scale Modeler on Young Park's second Corsair. The September 2008 issue of FSM features a belated article on Young's P-51. Both articles have been scanned and linked from Young's page. The links are just above the photo section.

July 30, 2008—The winner of the 2008 Young Artisan's Scholarship Award was announced today. Benjamin Roth of Elgin, ND was awarded a $5000.00 scholarship toward his first year at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where he will begin as a freshman in the Fall semester of 2008. Details on the scholarship program can be found by clicking on the link above.

July 28, 2008—The additional 50 display pieces (48 engines, a radial engine casting and a miniature tachometer) brought back from the WEME show have now been added to the other 51 engines and objects already on display as part of the Paul and Paula Knapp collection. This is such a major addition to the museum we have added Paul's name to the masthead on the opening page of the on-line museum. See the updated page linked above for photos of these additional pieces. However, to fully appreciate the quality and variety of this collection, you really must visit the museum in person. It is our intent to make this a "must see" destination for anyone interested in model engineering who is visiting Southern California, and the addition of this collection certainly has us headed in the right direction.

July 22, 2008—Joe Enriquez has completed another of his highly detailed 1/87 scale trucks. Take a look at the Mack HWSC water truck that was just added to the bottom of his page.

July 21, 2008—The Joe Martin Foundation was represented by Craig Libuse at the Western Engine Model Exhibition (WEME) held in Vallejo, CA July 19th and 20th. Also at the show was engine collector Paul Knapp. He displayed 50 of the engines from his collection. At the end of the show, they were packed up and returned in the Sherline van to be added to the 51 his engines already on display in the Vista museum. Even if you've been by to see the first part of his collection, it is worth a return trip to see these additions. As soon as they can be photographed and added to his page, we will get them up there. To see the ones already on display, CLICK HERE.

July 7, 2008—A new craftsman has been added to the Clock Making section. Ray Bates is know as "The British Clockmaker" in his home town of Newfane, Vermont. He is originally from England, and is a master at restoring old clocks to their original glory. He also shares an interest in music boxes and "Automata." Be sure to visit his new section, where you can learn about his work and see some samples of his restorations.

July 2, 2008—A "Mystery Project" has been added near the bottom of the home page. Can you identify it or the craftsman who made it?

June 6, 2008—Tom is nearing completion on the radiator on the Howell V-4 project. Five new photos of it in various stages of production were just added to the page on that build.

June 5, 2008—Craig and Tom were invited to speak before the Ocean Hills senior community woodworking club in Vista, CA. About 75 members attended the meeting, many of them retired engineers and professionals and all interested in craftsmanship. Many club members signed up to take a tour of the Craftsmanship Museum in the near future. We thank them for the opportunity to talk about the foundation and show off some of the exhibits. See the PRESS page for a photo from the event.

May 30, 2008—Two new miniature robots, SwashBot 1 and SwashBot 2 have been added to the page of steam-punk robot genius I-Wei. There are also links to YouTube videos of them in action that are fun to watch.

May 27, 2008—Two new miniature pistols, a set of Boutet dueling pistols with very ornate design and a set of 3-barrel and 4-barrel Rigby pistols from Ireland were added to the page of Antonio Rincón.

May 21, 2008—Motorcycle miniaturist Pere Tarragó is the newest addition to the on-line craftsmanship Museum. His 1/6 scale models are highly detailed and well worth a look. In fact, master craftsmen Jerry Kieffer and Gerald Wingrove—two of the best—originally suggested we take a look at his work, and they were right. Pere's work makes a fine addition to the model making section of the museum.

May 16, 2008—A photo record of the newest addition to the museum has been added so those who can't get by to visit in person can view the Paul and Paula Knapp Engine Collection on loan to the museum for at least the next year. To view and read about each engine, CLICK HERE.

May 12, 2008—Photos of Dave Eggert's finished air cleaner cover and mounting components have been added to the Howell V4 page. In addition, update photos of Tom's work on the block and rocker arms have also been added as has a shot of some of the fixtures Tom has had to make in order to complete various parts and operations.

May 5, 2008—Ten new photos of the Stearman aircraft model now in progress were added to the new page of model maker Ken Foran.

May 2, 2008—After seeing the work of Ken Foran on various internet sites devoted to models of WW1 aircraft, we gave him a call. He came to our show booth at the recent NAMES show in Toledo and displayed a couple of his models, and they are truly works of art. After seeing them in person there was no doubt we wanted to share them with other craftsmen. Take a look--you will see why.

April 30, 2008—A huge new exhibit was just added to the physical museum in Vista, CA. Paul and Paula Knapp were kind enough to put on loan for the coming year a large portion of their engine collection. Included are over 50 engines of various designs from singles to rotary engines to V-4, 4-8 and V-12 engines, diesels, horizontally opposed, outboards and hit-n-miss engines. Also added was a 1/3 scale 1854 Smith & Wesson "Volcanic" lever action pistol made by 2006 Craftsman of the Year, David Kucer. If you haven't been to the museum lately, now would be a good time.

April 10, 2008—The engine block on the Howell V4 project has has the fixture holes and extra metal removed so it now has the classic "V" shape. The original 6.32 pound block of 7075 aluminum has now been reduced in weight by 77% over the past almost seven months. It now weighs just 1.42 lb. See the latest progress photos at the bottom of the V4 engine page.

April 8, 2008—In addition to the clocks he is best known for, William R. Smith is also a HAM radio operator and a collector and maker of telegraph keys. He has recently completed some very tiny speed keys, the "Minikey" and the "Nanokey" that push the boundaries of miniaturization while still offering full functionality. See his page for details on several of his unusual telegraph keys.

March 20, 2008—On the Howell V4 page, a video of Jerry Howell's prototype engine running has been added. The link is near the top of the page. At the bottom of the page are the latest additions to the project—an air cleaner by Dave Eggert and the front cover that Tom just completed.

March 13, 2008—For a long time we have been hoping to add Gary Conley of "Conley V-8" fame to the web site. When you read his page you can see why it has taken a while. Making a living producing a small production gas engine in your home shop is not a job that leaves you a lot of spare time for writing and photos. Add a tragic foundry fire that destroys years of your hard work and you have to be pretty determined to stick with it. Luckily for those who love the sound of a 1/4 scale V-8 Gary has stuck with it, and this new page chronicles the development of his latest V-8, the Stinger 609.

March 10, 2008—A few new parts have been completed for the V4 Engine project. Dave Eggert sent photos of himself and the air cleaner cover he built for the engine. Also, Tom Boyer and Fred Smittle have finished some of the timing gears.

February 26, 2008—For those of you following Lou Chenot's Duesenberg build, eight new photos of the progress on the bodywork and interior have just been added to his page. This amazing project is reaching the final stages and almost ready for paint.

February 20, 2008—Two new photos of the completed distributor have been added to the Howell V4 build page. In addition, the page for Clarence "Clarry" Dawson has been recreated in the Model Engineering (Steam Engines) section. After his death in 2005, his tools and his large collection of interesting engines was sold at auction. We feel the engines themselves are interesting, and the disposition of his life's work poses some interesting questions for other craftsmen to ponder.

February 15, 2008—Will Neely just sent photos of his latest hotrod model, and they have been added to his page. It's a stripped down, Offy powered dry lake racer from the early days of hotrodding.

February 13, 2008—Be prepared for a departure from the usual subject matter when you visit the page of Tatjana van Vark. Yes, you will see superb craftsmanship, but it is applied to objects that are not your usual machining projects. They include cipher machines, an improved version of the ancient Antikythera Mechanism with attached Hypothetical Planatarium and scientific instruments you will recognize (and some you won't). You will probably want to follow the link to her own site to learn even more. Tatja was a research problem-solver for industry and the military for many years and now builds and improves on the scientific instruments that interest and challenge her. While some of us might restore a vintage steam engine or automobile, she has reconstructed entire telephone/telex relay switching complexes and bomber computer navigational/radar systems in her own home. Her expertise extends to many areas, and you will be challenged to think as you enjoy the beautiful workmanship that went into each piece. The unique quality of this work has also created the need for a new section on Scientific Instruments and Models to be added to the museum.

February 12, 2008—It is with great pleasure that we announce that the winner of the Joe Martin Foundation's Metalworking Craftsman of the Year for 2008 is Ron Colonna of McKeesport, PA. Ron already has a page in the museum web site, so his work will already be familiar to those who have visited there. If you haven't, please click on the linked name to take a look at his work. In honor of his selection several new photos were just added to that page including those of his contest winning Whizzer motorbike, plus his V-twin motorcycle engine, his Hercules and his current project, the Novi V8. Ron will display his engines and be on hand to accept his gold medallion and $2000.00 cash award at the Foundation's booth at the North American Model Engineering Society Expo in Toledo, OH April 19-20, 2008.

February 7, 2008—A photo of the brass distributor spark advance arm has been added to the V4 engine page.

January 30, 2008—Who makes the "World's Smallest Steam Engine?" See Jerry Kieffer's page for photos of the latest addition to our museum in Vista, CA thanks to a donation from Jerry. Another donation by Denny Bevis of Oceanside, CA has added a Cox .020 "Pee Wee" engine to our model engine collection. Along with the engine were a spare glow plug, three props and an "Engine Starting Kit," all new in the box and unopened. Also just updated is the Howell V4 project page to include the photos of Tom's finished distributor housing cover.

January 29, 2008—New photos of the kick start mechanism for Jerry Kieffer's 1/8 scale Harley Davidson have been added to his page. Also, a new photo has been added to Michael Dunlap's page showing car owners Jeff Gordon and Rick Hendrick with Michael and Nextel Cup winner Jimmy Johnson as Jimmy poses with the award.

January 25, 2008—Another addition to the Vista museum arrived today from Michael Dunlap. He has sent us an electroformed Penske/Dallara body to display along with the NASCAR Dodge body. This unpolished body illustrates a middle step between the mold itself and the polished, semi-finished Dodge. A photo of the finished trophy which was presented to Helio Castroneves for winning the 2002 Indy 500 in this car is also included so you can see the final results of Michael's work.

January 23, 2008—A new was added today on Guillermo Rivera of San José, Costa Rica. Guillermo started building model cannons at age 14 and 50 years later is still adding to his collection. Visit the model making section to see his work.

January 22, 2008—Michael Dunlap, builder of the Gold Car Trophies presented each year by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company to the winner of the top NASCAR division has recently donated molds and a sample body in progress for display in the Vista museum. They are now on display, and a photo of the car and display have been added to his page. Also, at his suggestion we duplicated some of the "in progress" photos from his own site so you can better see what goes into the making of one of these masterpieces that become the possessions of only the world's best drivers.

January 15, 2008—Two photos of Larry Simon's Manitowoc crane have been added that include Larry himself scaled down to 1/32 scale to illustrate its size. The Links page was also updated to include a source for extremely tiny brass and stainless steel nuts and bolts for modelers.

January 11, 2008—The page featuring the 2006 opening of the museum has been recreated to cover all articles and press coverage of the museum and Foundation. It can now be found HERE. Links to scans of the articles are included. A list of other articles about the Foundation and its craftsmen is also included.

January 8, 2008—A new link was added to the LINKS page. I won't even try to explain this one. You just have to visit www.tatjavanvark.nl and judge for yourself. This one's way out there...

January 7, 2008—Over the weekend a nice article by Matt Rodriguez was printed in the San Diego Union Tribune about the museum. See http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080105/news_1mi5muse.html for a link to the on-line version. Also, Roger Ronnie's completed 1/2 scale 1910 Lefever 10-gage shotgun can now be seen on his gun page.

January 3, 2008—Two new photos of the latest progress on the Howell V-4 engine have been added showing the fins cut in the heads. Two photos were also added to Roger Ronnie's page on miniature guns showing the tiny gold inlaid lettering on the barrel after bluing.

December 12, 2007—Thanks to contributions to Bill Brown historian Jack S. Conrad, I have been able to add a number of new images to Bill Brown Junior's engine page. Included also is an old Brown Junior company newsletter and plans of some early engines as well as some photos of Bill in his shop in the 1970's.

December 7, 2007—If you get the Micro-Mark tool catalog you may already have seen the work of Will Neely. One of his race car models was featured on the cover of the Early Fall 2007 issue. Now you can learn a lot more about him and see some of the many cars this professional model maker has done over the years for his own pleasure. Will's page marks the 60th addition to the museum.

December 7, 2007—Several new photos of CO2 Engines designed by Bill Brown IV have been added to his page.

November 26, 2007—I had been waiting for a photo of the builder standing in front of his model, but rather than hold up the whole page just for that, we are introducing the work of Larry Simon, our Monday volunteer at the museum. Larry started on a 1/32 scale model of a giant Manitowoc Lift Crane many years ago. It took him many years to complete it, and he recently brought it out, reassembled it and donated it to the museum, where it is now on display. You can examine it on-line, though and learn how he built it by visiting his new page. As soon as we can get a photo of Larry next to his crane, we will add that too.

November 20, 2007—Just in time for Thanksgiving, a historically significant page has just been added. Bill Brown IV is credited with being the first to build a practical gas IC engine that could power a flying model in the 1930's. Later on, motors from the Brown Junior Motors Company were among the first in the hobby. Thanks to a history from the site of the Academy of Model Aeronautics and engine photos from Tim Dannels of the Model Engine Collector's Journal, we have just added this new page to the section on early model engine innovators.

November 16, 2007—Two videos have been added to Harold Manwaring's page showing the wooden steam locomotive in action. Thanks to Veronica Cooper for sending them to us. The links are hear the bottom of the page in the photo section.

November 9, 2007—The museum has grown to the point we felt it would be a good idea to add a page with an alphabetical listing of all the members along with a brief description of what they do. It's another way for you to find somebody you are looking for.

November 8, 2007—Jerry Kieffer's page had become so large we finally split it into 6 separate sections to highlight the various areas of his craftsmanship. His page now leads to a sub-menu that goes to the various sections. The pages have also been updated and a number of new photos added. If you haven't been there in a while, be sure and review the new layout.

November 8, 2007—A PowerPoint slide show has been added with a link from the home page. It will cycle through some of the best projects in the museum to give you an idea of what you will find there. if you don't have the Microsoft PowerPoint program, you can still download a free viewer so you can view PowerPoint presentations. To do so, CLICK HERE or do a Google search for "free PowerPoint viewer." We will soon be adding additional slide shows to pages of some of the more prolific craftsmen as another way to view their work. If you wish to view the show full screen rather than in a web browser window, right click on the slide image and choose "save file as" to save the file to your desktop or wherever you choose. Then open it using PowerPoint or your free viewer program to see it full screen.

October 28, 2007—Six new photos have been added to Roger Ronnie's gunsmithing page that show the progress of the engraving on his 1/2 size Lefever shotgun.

October 24, 2007—Jerry Howell and his work have now been included in the Model Engineering section. Although he is included in the Internal Combustion Engines section, he has also built steam and Stirling engines as well. Visit his new page to learn a little about this prolific craftsman who not only builds engines but now provides kits and plans so you can too.

October 9, 2007—Jerry Howell and his wife drove down from Colorado Springs to visit the museum. Jerry brought by the prototype of the V-4 engine we are building as a shop project. See the latest photos of Jerry's visit and Tom's progress on the Howell V-4 page.

October 5, 2007—Two additions today: 1. Five new photos of Roger Ronnie's progress on engraving the 1/2 size 1910 Lefever shotgun were added to his Engraving Page as well as his Gunsmithing Page. 2. Six new photos of the progress of Howell V-4 shop project were added as Tom takes the block from a billet of 7075 aluminum to what is starting to look like a V-4 block with the first bank of cylinder holes bored to size.

September 11, 2007—A new craftsman has been added to the Wooden Projects section of the museum. Former railroad employee Harold Manwaring of NSW, Australia built a model steam locomotive from wood. It is not just a good looking model, however. It actually runs on compressed air, the pistons and valve gear duplicating the function of a real steam engine. Even the piston rings are made from wood. If you appreciate fine woodworking and also like steam engines, you will find this project satisfying on both levels.

September 4, 2007—A new page has been added to document the progress of our latest engine project. Joe and Tom have decided to build the Howell V-4 as the museum's next shop project. Plans have been ordered, but you can see what this good-looking engine will look like, as we have included photos from designer and builder Jerry Howell's web site. Like the recently completed Seal engine project, a number of the parts for this engine will be built by volunteer model engineers around the country (and world?). See the page for details on how you can become involved in this project. Even though you may not have the time or tools to build a complete internal combustion engine, you can contribute a part and be forever associated with the eventual success of the engine that will remain on display in the Foundation's museum.

August 31, 2007—After looking further into the plans of the Hoglet Joe has decided we would continue to look for a more challenging project. Although we will definitely make some of the key parts in our own shop, other parts may be available for a group build again as was done on the Seal engine recently completed. Once we have made a final selection on the engine to be built we will post an announcement here, so STAY TUNED!

August 31, 2007—New photos of Roger Ronnie's latest project were just added to his page in the miniature gun making section. Roger has modeled a 1910 Lefever 10 gauge shotgun at 1/2 size. After about 1200 hours of work the gun is now complete and the engraving has been started. It may take even longer than making the gun, but you can at least see the fine job he did on the wood and metal pieces.

August 23, 2007—NEXT ENGINE PROJECT. Now that the Seal project is pretty much completed, we are ready to move on to another challenge for the museum shop. Joe has decided that the next engine will be the Hoglet V-twin featured in Model Engine Builder. This particular project will not be a group build like the Seal. The group participation concept worked great, but on a simpler engine like this Joe wanted to control all parts in our own shop both to speed up the project and so that we can better document each setup. We will be using tabletop machine tools on all parts possible as well to show what can be done with relatively small and inexpensive but accurate equipment. Watch for a new page to be started on the project as soon as we get material and get started. We still plan to build other projects in the future that will invite the participation of others.

August 21, 2007—VOLUNTEER SOUGHT! The Foundation is looking for someone with skills with a 3D modeling program like SolidWorks or SolidEdge to help create 3D drawings for parts to be cast in our Z-Corp 3D printer. If you know of anyone who would like to be involved with the museum and can contribute time to document engines and other projects that will eventually be build by the Foundation craftsmen, please contact Craig Libuse at Craig@craftsmanshipmuseum.com or call (800) 541-0735 to discuss the position.

August 17, 2007—The Seal engine is now fully operational. Minor tuning issues have been resolved and a video was just posted on the Seal Engine Page showing Tom firing it up with a twist of the flywheel and operating the idle adjustment and throttle. Now it's on to the next project--possibly the "Hoglet" V-twin, the plans for which are featured in the current issue of Model Engine Builder magazine.

August 17, 2007—The LINKS page has been updated to include a listing of magazines available to model builders and model engineers.

August 17, 2007—A very fine miniature lathe only 9" long has been added to the collection of machines from the past. Donated by pen restoration manufacturer, Peter Amis the tiny lathe is most likely a patent model submitted many years ago along with a patent application.

July 23, 2007—The Seal "First Pop" on July 21st was a partial success. "Close, but no cigar" is what Joe had to say. To read about the event in more detail see the bottom of the Seal Engine Page. We have a few details to iron out and will make a second attempt soon. As soon as it is running better we will post more video.

July 19, 2007—The newest addition to the museum was placed in the "Metalworking as Art" section today. John Gargano found a love for machining metal early in life but had to put off fulfilling his dreams for many years. After 20 years as an architect he finally bought a Bridgeport mill and started doing what he had dreamed of since architecture school—sculpt metal into precise forms. We recommend all craftsmen read his story from beginning to end as well. He has made some very significant observations that will probably strike a chord with many other craftsmen.

July 18, 2007—The address for the webcast of the first running of the Seal engine has been updated. It is now http://sherline.web2cam.com. Time is still 10 AM (Pacific), July 18, 2007. (See message below.)

July 18, 2007—A couple of updated photos of the Seal engine mounted to it's new wooden base were added to the Seal Engine Page.

July 16, 2007—FIRST POP" OF THE SEAL ENGINE will be webcast live at 10 AM (Pacific), Saturday, July 21, 2007. Tune to http://sherline.web2cam.com to see the streaming video webcast from our "SealCam." (Pacific time is GMT minus 7 hours.) This represents the culmination of a year's work by Tom Boyer and all the other builders who made parts for the engine.For more on the engine project, see the Seal Engine Page. In case you miss the event, photos will be posted on the Seal page on Monday, July 23rd. (Please note this address changed on July 18th. This is the current address. If you made the old address a favorite, please replace it with this one.)

July 13, 2007—The Foundation has just presented a second "Lifetime Achievement Award" for 2007. This time the recipients are the publishing team of Robert and Frances Washburn, who published the popular and informative Strictly IC magazine through 84 issues. Strictly IC was an important force in bringing many builders of MICE (Miniature Internal Combustion Engines) together from around the world to share their hobby and exchange information. Robert and Frances have received a check for $500.00 and an award plaque which Robert says now hangs in the living room below his many military awards and decorations.

July 10, 2007—The Seal engine now has spark. We're almost ready to fire it up for the first time. See the Seal Engine Page for the latest update and a tentative time for the webcast of the "First Pop" of the engine.

July 10, 2007—Two new tools have been added to the Vintage Tool Collection: both by toolmaker Phil Gerrard. Phil donated a machine vise he made plus a special rotary indexer he designed and built to do special marking projects when he worked for Bell & Howell. (Listed alphabetically under "Gerrard.")

June 14, 2007—How about something a little different? We have opened a new section called "Unusual Projects and Skills" with the introduction of Daniel White, who is a maker of micro flint-knapped points or arrowheads. Daniel works under a microscope and chips the stone points as they have been done since pre-historic times--only MUCH smaller. We think you will find the projects in this section both interesting and different. Miniature craftsmanship comes in many forms, and we will be highlighting some of them in this section in the future.

June 8, 2007—The Model Engineering section gains another masterpiece with the addition of Louis Chenot's 1932 Duesenberg SJ—a project in progress. Rather than wait until it is done, we thought it would be interesting to catch up on the last six years Lou has devoted to this spectacular 1/6 scale miniature automobile and then follow along as we periodically update his page with progress toward final completion. The bodywork is now being pounded out and the struggle is on to get the tiny 32-valve, twin cam, 12-cylinder engine to run. Bookmark this page and keep checking back for updates!

May 31, 2007—Meet Ingvar Dahlberg of Sweden and see the 40% scale 1910 Mercer Raceabout he built totally from scratch. This project also ushers in a new section in the museum. The Model Engineering section is now divided into four parts, with "Model Engineering Masterpieces" being the fourth section. Ingvar's project joins those of Pierre Scerri and Jerry Kieffer, and there is another in progress that will be added soon.

May 24, 2007—Photos of the latest miniature carbine created by Antonio Rincon have been added to the beginning of the photo section of his page. This .18 caliber rifle features a wealth of gold high relief carving and ivory inlays.

May 17, 2007—Photos of Iqbal Ahmed's contest winning Sherline lathe and mill models have been added to his page, along with a photo of him presenting the lathe to Joe Martin for display in the Foundation's museum.

May 14, 2007—Prolific Steam Punk inventor I-Wei has added another incredible flight of fantasy to his growing army of steam powered robots. The Turbine Steam Tank uses a Jensen steam turbine and a clever set of gears to power it. A link to more photos and a video is also provided.

May 10, 2007—New photos have been added to the Seal Engine page showing the nearly completed engine in assembled form.

May 1, 2007—New photos, a video and more information about Pierre Scerri have been added to his page in the Model Engineering section. After spending the weekend with him at the NAMES show, we were able to add some interesting new items to his page.

April 26, 2007—On Sunday, April 23rd at the NAMES show in Toledo, the Foundation announced a $5000 scholarship program for young artisans wishing to pursue a career in metalworking trades. To read the rules for winning this scholarship CLICK HERE. The initial funds have been contributed by a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, but the funds will be administered by the Foundation. Additional tax deductible contributions to this worthy fund are welcomed.

April 12, 2007—Thanks to the efforts of Jim Clark, a collection of Model Engineer magazines put together by Stirling Dourghtey of Sugarland, Texas has been added to the Foundation's library. The collection is complete from the first issue in 1898 through 2002. Many of the years are in hardbound form. We now have a subscription, but would like to fill in the collection from 2003 to present. Anyone wishing to donate issues of Model Engineer from that period please get in contact with Craig Libuse at craig@craftsmanshipmuseum.com. The current back issue price from the publisher is $5.00 each, so we could provide documentation for the IRS for that amount as a tax deduction due to our 501(c)(3) status under the US Tax Code. If you would like your issues to be preserved as part of our library and to get a tax deduction for them too, please keep the Foundation in mind. By the way, we also now have a complete collection of all 84 issues of Strictly IC magazines as well. Back issues of Strictly IC are still available from the publisher, Robert Washburn at www.strictlyic.com.

April 11, 2007—For those who enjoy the "Steam Punk" work of robot builder I-Wei, see his page for two new projects: R2S2, which is a twin steam engine powered version of the R2D2 robot from Star Wars and also a new Steam Beetle with moveable wings running on an R/C truck chassis.

April 11, 2007—Kozo Hiraoka has just published his latest book on building steam locomotives. It is entitled Building the New Shay and is available from Village Press. A photo of the cover of the book has been added to his page in the museum.

March 28, 2007—Seal Engine Progress! Tom is doing final assembly on the short block. The pistons, rods, crank, valves and camshaft are installed. New photos have been added along with links to two short videos of the pistons and valves being run in using a Sherline lathe for power.

March 26, 2007—We've received many compliments on the fine miniature truck models built by Joe Enriquez. Over the winter he completed a Kenworth C-500B that has just been added to his page. It is worth taking a look at.

March 26, 2007—Roger Ronnie sent final photos of the two Bergmann pistols—the full size restored original and the 1/2 size model. New grips have been carved from ironwood and hand checkered to match the original pattern, completing the project. See Roger's gunsmithing page for the latest photos.

March 6, 2007—Ron Chernich has been added to the AWARDS page as a winner of the Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award for 2007. Ron has devoted a great amount of time and energy to create an outstanding web site for model engine builders at www.modelenginenews.org. Take a look at the awards page for more on this energetic Australian's accomplishments.

March 6, 2007—Engraver and gunsmith Roger Ronnie has been working on a new project: a 1/2 scale model of a rare Lefever shotgun. To see the first photos of this work in progress see his page in the gunsmithing section.

February 21, 2007—Just added to the Model Making section is a page on William Gould of Fallbrook, CA. Bill came to our attention as the builder of a wonderful model of a famous telescope from 1823, but it turned out his talents extended far beyond that. His background was as a professional modeler in the aerospace and model railroad industries but his interests extend from unusual musical instruments to engines and clocks. Most recently he took up 3D CAD drawing and has been bringing back to life in virtual form some of the great inventions from the past. He calls it "Industrial Archiology," and he has taken his talent in working with the program SolidWorks® from student to award winner in a fairly short time. Check out his shop, his models, his CAD artwork accomplishments as well as a really thoughtful essay on craftsmanship on his new page.

February 16, 2007—Here's a new page with a real "WOW" factor. Don't miss viewing the work of Pierre Scerri of Avignon, France if you like cars in general and Ferrari's in particular. Pierre's 1/3 scale Ferrari 312 PB is functional in every way and took 15 years to construct. It has recently become famous on the Internet as many bloggers forwarded copies of photos and videos of the car around the web. In addition to adding Pierre to the musuem, Joe Martin has selected him as the Foundations 2007 Metalworking Craftsman of the Year. Pierre will attend the North American Model Engineering Society Expo in Toledo, Ohio in April to receive his $2000 award and will be bringing the Ferrari model with him. Make plans to attend the show and meet Pierre in person and share this rare chance to see this one-of-a-kind car in America.

February 7, 2007—The Seal Engine page has been updated to reorganize the builders and their projects to make it easier to see who built what.

January 10, 2007—We are proud to introduce a new craftsman to the museum, and one not easily classified at that. His work actually fits into two categories: woodcarving and gunsmithing. Robert A. Talbot of Encounter Bay, South Australia has created quite a collection of historically significant revolvers carved entirely in wood. These full size replicas have functioning parts and even springs made from wood. The models are detailed down the smallest screw and are displayed with carved bullets and full presentation cases. They are notable for the choice of woods, quality of carving and also for their accuracy historical significance. Because of this the page is linked from both the woodcaving opening page and the gunsmithing opening page.

December 13, 2006—13 more photos of the work of miniature gunsmith Antonio Rincón have been added to his section. These include his models of various cannons and siege weapons from history.

December 8, 2006—Thanks to many more photos and related descriptions sent in by Mr. Jim Hamer Sanchez, a friend of Antonio Rincón we have added more photos of Mr. Rincón's miniature gunsmithing work.

December 5, 2006—A new craftsman has been added to the Gunsmith section of the museum. Antonio Rincón has produced quite an extensive collection of miniature weaponry in his studio in Bogota, Columbia. We hope to be adding more photos and descriptions to his page soon.

December 5, 2006—Seal Engine progress photos of the gear lapping process and latest shots of the block with the camshaft installed were added.

November 20, 2006—Bill Gould was kind enough to dig though his back issues of The Model Engineer magazine from England and come up with three of the articles that covered the building of the Seal Engine. See The Seal Engine page for copies of the articles.

November 9, 2006—The Seal Engine group building project is coming along nicely. Check out the 3D CAD drawings and photos of the parts that have been made so far. The eventual intent is to try to do a live webcast of the initial firing of the engine. Watch this page for updates.

October 27, 2006—Joe Enriquez sent in some photos of his latest model, a Talbert tag trailer, and they have been added to his miniature truck model page.

October 26, 2006—A number of new photos documenting the progress of the team build of the Seal Engine have been added. Also, a video of the cam being ground using Joe Martin's specially developed CNC cam grinder has been added.

October 26, 2006—A photo from 1957 of Jaures Garofali has been added to the Super Tigre page along with comments from the person who visited the factory and met him at that time, Dave Harding.

October 3, 2006—Roger Ronnie has completed both the restoration and engraving of the full size 1896 Bergmann pistol and the 1/2 size model. Photos of the finished pair have been added to his page on gunsmithing.

October 3, 2006—In an effort to make the model engineering section a little easier to navigate we have divided it into three sections. You can see what they are and get to each section from the opening page of the Model Engineering Section.

September 29, 2006—Chuck Hoggarth of Michigan has been added to the section on Wooden Mechanical Projects (formerly wooden toymakers). Chuck's large wooden construction vehicles impress with both size and quality.

September 27, 2006—The Links page has been updated to include other museums that craftsmen might find interesting in the area near Vista, CA.

September 14, 2006—Completed just in time to be shown at the Black Hills Model Engineering show in South Dakota, Roger Ronnie has sent final photos of the 1/2 scale Bergmann pistol.

September 11, 2006—Joe Enriquez makes truck models...very small and detailed ones. See his new page in the Model Making section to view some of the models with scratch-built trailers. Included are some shots of parts under construction too.

August 28, 2006—Multi-talented Roger Ronnie, winner of the Foundation's 2004 Craftsman of the Year award has moved into new territory with the construction of a miniature gun. Although the project is being covered in addition to his other work on his engraving page we also felt it merited a page in the gunsmithing section, as people interested in miniature guns might not otherwise find it in the museum. Visit either or both pages to see Roger's 1/2 size 1896 Bergmann pistol as it moves near to completion.

July 25, 2006—The Seal Engine Project has begun! We are inviting model engineers from around the world to participate in the building of this 4-cylinder internal combustion engine. Each person who builds a component that becomes part of the running engine will be credited in the display when the engine is completed and run in the Craftsmanship Museum. Click on the page link above to learn how you can be a part of the build group.

July 14, 2006—The FACILITY page has been updated to announce the addition of craftsman and tool maker Tom Boyer to our staff. He will be working on projects in the museum shop and hosting tours for visitors.

June 21, 2006—Links to two video clips from the 2006 RoboGames showing I-Wei's award winning "Steam Walker" robot in action have just been added to his page.

June 20, 2006—A third gunsmith has been added to the museum, Xu Yan of mainland China. His miniature replicas of significant historic firearms have a difference—they actually fire accurate projectiles, but without the use of gunpowder in order to meet Chinas strict regulations regarding how much power a miniature gun can produce. His models have won several awards at shows in China.

June 8, 2006—A page on the Grand Opening Celebration of our new on-site museum has just been added.

June 8, 2006—A C.S. Carlstrom watchmaker's bow lathe has been added to the machine tool collection.

May 4, 2006—Young C. Park recently donated his just-completed 1/16 all aluminum P-51 Mustang model to the museum. Ninteen new photos have just been posted on his page. Don't miss this one! This is the jewel of the Foundation's collection.

May 1, 2006—A new project by Barry Jordan has been added to his page, and it's not at all what you would expect.

April 11, 2006—For a little something different, see the new section on the steam powered robots by inventor and animator I-Wei Huang. Visit the links to his own site to see some of these imaginative creations in action.

April 3, 2006—A new room has just been opened on automotive model maker Michael Dunlap. Mike has the honor of making the gold plated scale model of the NASCAR winner's car each year that is presented by GoodYear at the NASCAR awards banquet. He also makes IndyCar trophy models and other unique gold-plated vehicles. His works grace the trophy shelves of the top names in auto racing.

March 27, 2006—The Foundation is pleased to announce that we have just received the generous donation of the second aluminum Corsair model built by Young C. Park. The model will soon join the first as part of the display in our new museum in Vista, CA. Photos of the model are already available on Mr. Park's page in this on-line museum.

March 27, 2006—Clock maker William R. Smith has just created his own web site. After you have visited our page on him, you can learn more at www.wrsmithtelegraphkeys.com or www.wrsmithclocks.com.

March 21, 2006—More photos of the work of wooden toy maker Jim Balestreri have been added to his section.

March 21, 2006—The Foundation offices now have a unique phone number separate from Sherline. It is (760) 727-9492. Please note this number should you need to call us in the future.

March 2, 2006—A new gunsmith from Paris, France has been added to the Gunsmith section. Michel Lefaivre is an award-winning craftsman who is an amateur only in the sense that he builds his projects for pleasure rather than to make money.

March 1, 2006—Press releases have been sent out and notices should appear in some of the model engineering magazines before the event, but we hereby announce that the first day our new on-site museum will be opened to the public will be Saturday, May 20, 2006. A dedication ceremony and conference attended by previous winners of the Foundation's Craftsman of the Year award will be held May 19th. After the 20th, regular weekday hours will be established. Until that time, tours are available by appointment. The featured exhibit at the opening will be the Rudy Kouhoupt engine collection.

December 9, 2005—Help us build a database of information on model sales. If you have sold a custom made model gas or steam engine or other valuable handmade model or know of someone who has, please send us the details. We are starting a reference database of auction and other sales results in order to help establish values for custom built projects. Send a photo of the item along with details on its construction, the builder's name and when it was made (if known) and what it sold for and when. If you are putting an item up for an on-line auction, send us the link to the page. One of the goals of the Foundation is to help show that custom machined items are valuable in the same way as other works of art like paintings or sculpture and to help establish a system of evaluation. We are mainly interested in custom made items rather than assembled kits. E-mail photos and information to craig at craftsmanshipmuseum.com or craig at sherline.com.

November 28, 2005—The latest video of Jerry Kieffer's John Deere tractor has been added to his page. This 13 Mb Quicktime Movie file may be slow to load, but it will be worth the wait once you see how nicely it runs. Jerry fires it up and then runs it both forward and reverse. He then throttles it back so you can hear it idle. What a masterpiece!

November 22, 2005—The smallest lathe in our collection has been added to the Machine Tool Collection page. The SEL lathe from England is only 4.5" long.

November 17, 2005—A new page detailing the new physical facility in Vista, California was posted along with photos of the machine tool collection, new shop facility and an exterior photo of the building.

November 16, 2005—The official announcement has been made on this web site that David Kucer has been selected as the 2006 Joe Martin Foundation Metalworking Craftsman of the Year. Press releases have been sent to major model engineering and miniature gun making magazines and journals. See the Awards page for more on the award.

October 17, 2005—Several new photos were added to Livio De Marchi's section. These were sent as an exclusive to our web site and offer a view of the artist at work in his shop..

October 5, 2005—Added to the wood carving section is Italian artist Livio De Marchi. His craftsmanship is impeccable, but his choice of subject matter might surprise you.

October 5, 2005—Two of the latest photos of Roger Ronnie's V12 engine-in-progress have been added to his page.

September 12, 2005—Added to the Metalworking as an Artform section is an interesting new artist and craftsman from Amsterdam named Mark Ho. We think you will find this newcomer's work an interesting departure from the usual things machined in metal.

August 29, 2005—An entirely new section on Miniature Firearms Makers was opened today with the introduction of master miniature arms maker David Kucer. See many examples of his miniature guns and also learn how he goes about making them.

July 28, 2005—Four photos of a V-12 engine Roger Ronnie is building have been added to his section. Though not yet complete, it is taking shape nicely and will be a "proof of concept" for a model of a Rolls Royce Merlin V-12 he plans to build next.

July 9, 2005—William R. Smith is not only a noted clockmaker, he has also been a ham radio operator for over 73 years. He has recently designed a unique speed key for sending code, and photos of it have been added to his page. In addition, a new clock, the Strutt Epicyclic Train Clock, the construction of which has been documented in book form has been added.

June 10, 2005—The Dremel 701 and Craftsman 80 lathes have been added to the small machine tool Collection page.

June 9, 2005—A tiny "Super Adept" lathe from the 1930's has just been added to the small machine tool collection. The list was also put in alphabetical order to make searching easier. A formerly unidentified lathe has been identified as a Wolf Jahn from Germany, and two slightly different versions have been added. There is also a new unidentified lathe that we could use some help on. It looks great, but what is it?

May 3, 2005—Several new machine tools have been added to the museum's historical small machine tool collection. They are the ManSon, Master, Mattel, Unimat 1 and a watchmakers's lathe of unknown manufacturer.

April 28, 2005—Two new photos of model airplane engine designer Clarence Lee were added to his page.

April 26, 2005—We regret to announce that master modeler Augie Hiscano passed away April 21, 2005. Some new photos have been added to his page and it has been updated to include his passing. His obituary can be found online at http://www.legacy.com/Herald/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=3459020.

March 15, 2005—A new tool has been added to the Historical Miniature Machine Tool Collection. This small Cincinnati brand benchtop lathe has the interesting distinction of being make entirely from sheet metal.

March 3, 2005—A special "Lifetime Achievement Award" for 2005 has been presented to Kozo Hiraoka of Japan. Read more about this and other awards presented by the foundation on the AWARDS page.

March 2, 2005—After a visit from Gerald and Phyllis Wingrove to the home offices of the Joe Martin Foundation, some additional photos of Gerald, Phyllis and an Alfa engine have been added to the Wingrove section.

February 16, 2005—Francisco Pulido of Spain builds 1/10 scale automobile models from scratch to a level of detail not often seen. This young newcomer to the field shows great promise and already has some fabulous cars to his credit. See his Blower Bentley in all stages of production.

February 16, 2005—A video of the first firing of Jerry Kieffer's John Deere tractor model has been added to his page. Click on Jerry's name to go to his section. There you can watch a 45-second video of the tractor engine being started from the flywheel just like the real one and running with no external electrical connections. Congratulations Jerry!

January 26, 2005—A number of new photos of his model cars were added to the section on Gerald Wingrove. It was also announced that Mr. Wingrove has been selected to receive the 2005 "Metalworking Craftsman of the Year" award presented each year by the Joe Martin Foundation. Mr. Wingrove is the 9th winner of the award.

January 11, 2005—A new page has been added to the Model Engineering section on Kozo Hiraoka. Mr. Hiraoka builds live steam model locomotives and has published three books on their construction.

January 5, 2005—Five new photos of Augie Hiscano's latest project have been added to his page. Check out his 1/15 scale Browning M2 machine gun on a tripod.

December 10, 2004—Many new photos of Alan Ingersol's Curtiss biplane and V-12 engine have been added to his page. Dr. Bob Kradjian of the Bay Area Engine Modelers was kind enough to loan us the binder of photos collected by Alan during the construction of the museum quality model. Additional details of the finished engine were shot at the Men, Metal and Machines Show in Visalia in October, 2004 where the engine was displayed.

August 26, 2004—NEW PAGE! Steve Lindsay has been added to the Engraving section. His outstanding work has been applied to the work of some of the best knifemakers around. He has also engraved guns, jewelry, watches and other objects like flutes and even golf clubs. See his engraving and his drawing skills on this new page. A link to his own site will lead to even more images of his work.

August 23, 2004—Two photos of a 1/3 scale Rentz spark plug have been added to the page of Roger Ronnie in the engraving section. Though the plugs are not engraved, they do demonstrate the flexibility of Roger's interests and talents in metalworking.

July 23, 2004—We apologize for the photos that are not showing up in the historical too exhibit. They are stored in a separate folder on our server and permission to that folder has been denied. We are working on the problem through our co-location facility and hope to have it solved soon. Some photos of Jerry Kieffer's miniature spark plugs have been added to his page along with an explanation of their use.

July 20, 2004—A link to a page on the construction of a giant 1/10 scale C-17 flying jet model has been added for the R/C flyers. See the Model Making section.

July 12, 2004—A miniature Lunkenheimer oiler project has been added to Roger Ronnie's page.

June 21, 2004—Mel Anderson is one of the early pioneers of model engine building. See the new page on his work. Anyone knowing more about Mel Anderson or having photos of him or his engines is invited to contact us so that we can add to the page.

June 2, 2004—Four new photos have been added to Roger Ronnie's engraving page. These were taken at the NAMES show in April.

May 20, 2004—Some new photos of Clif Roemmich's latest project, an 1890 American La France fire wagon, have been added to his page in the model engineering section.

May 19, 2004—With regrets we announce that engine designer Bob Shores, 2004 winner of the Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award passed away on May 18th.

May 14, 2004—A big part of what the Foundation does relates to Awards for craftsmanship. A new page has been added highlighting the awards and their past winners.

May 13, 2004—New photos have been added to the section on Iqbal Ahmed from India. After taking a very respectable third place finish in this year's Sherline Machinist's Challenge in Detroit in April, he traveled to California to visit with Joe Martin and brought some projects and photos with him.

May 12, 2004—A new section has been added on Bill Brown in the model making section. This former body shop man scratch builds some of the finest steel pedal cars you will ever see. Some have been featured in the Peterson Automotive Museum.

April 29, 2004—Photos of Roger Ronnie receiving his check and award for being selected as the Foundation's 2004 winner of the Metalworking Craftsman of the Year have been added to his page. It was presented at the North American Model Engineering Society Expo in Southgate, MI on April 25th. You can also see more photos from the show on Sherline's web page.

March 26, 2004—The Bay Area Engine Modelers Club has been included to introduce the "clubs" section of the museum. This section will feature not the work of individuals but rather groups who gather to share an interest in craftsmanship.

February 27, 2004—Seven new photos of the work in progress on the John Deere tractor model were added to Jerry Kieffer's page.

January 23, 2004—Photos of four new miniature antique woodworking tools were added to Paul Hamler's section.

January 2, 2004—The Joe Martin Foundation announces the selection of the 2004 Metalworking Craftsman of the Year Award. The 8th person to be selected for this award is Roger Ronnie. You can see his work in the "Engraving" section.

November 18, 2003—A Drummond Type A lathe has been added to our TOOL COLLECTION page.

November 12, 2003—A new section for Engravers has just been opened, and the first person to be featured there is the multi-talented Roger Ronnie. His skills go beyond engraving to include clock tools and model engines as well.

November 4, 2003—Two new photos of Jaures Garofali were added to the section on SuperTigre model engines.

October 31, 2003—To see a wonderfully complicated 18-cylinder (36 piston) model engine with three crankshafts, visit the new site featuring Clen Tomlinson of England. This CAD-designed, CNC machined model is a preview of the future of model engineering.

October 29, 2003—Clif Roemmich was displaying his engines at the 2003 PRIME show in Oregon when they caught Joe Martin's eye. Now you can see them for yourself and learn how he came to be able to build them. He is the latest addition to the Model Engineering section.

October 22, 2003—A new section on Craftsmanship Around the World was opened with the work of Iqbal Ahmed of India. With no opportunity for formal training and little or no support system of fellow craftsmen, people in far-flung areas of the world use the tools at hand and come up with their own solutions to fabricate their creations.

September 4, 2003—Six new photos have been added to Augie Hiscano's section featuring his finished and painted 1/25 scale motorcycle chopper model.

June 11, 2003—Three more photos have been added to the models of Augie Hiscano. Shown are some shots of his HO scale EMD 567 Prime Mover engine to super-detail a model train.

May 27, 2003—More photos have been added to the section on Jerry Kieffer. Included are shots of his 1/6 Harley Davidson Knucklehead engine, a new photo of the magneto side of his Stover hit 'n miss engine, first shots of his John Deere "D" tractor project and his cam grinder.

May 22, 2003—Gerhard Spielmann has been added to both the miniature machine tool section and the model makers section because his talents extend into both areas. A lifelong machinist who has some of the parts he made now sitting on the moon as part of the lunar lander, Gerhard now applies his skills to smaller but no less precise projects.

May 20, 2003—Two new tools have been added to the TOOL COLLECTION. A Hardinge "Cataract" lathe and an old Sears AA109. Check them out along with the other miniature machine tools from the past in our collection.

April 30, 2003—Another item was added to the LINKS page. It is a large aluminum sculpture of a flying horse. While this site is normally dedicated to items at the small end of the size scale, this one is interesting because of the problems presented by its large size.

February 26, 2003—Many additional photos and a more complete life story have been added to the page on Mooney Warther, known as "the world's master carver."

February 24, 2003—Just posted is a new page for metal artist Abrasha. He makes a unique kind of precision machined jewelry in his San Francisco, CA studio. A link from his page to his own web site offers a video and a photo step-by-step demonstration on how he creates his pieces from 3D drawing to finished work.

February 24, 2003—Ship modeler Andrew Green has sent several new photos including some of himself at work in his shop, a detail of St. Ninian and a shot of the Centaur under way. He also sent an autobiography and some details on how he makes his ship models, so the page has been completely updated.

February 20, 2003—A Links page has just been added with direct links to some other pages that will be of interest to craftsmen.

February 20, 2003—A new section on woodworkers and carvers was opened with the first craftsman being Mooney Warther, a cutlery maker whose hobby was carving wood and ivory into highly detailed steam engine models. More photos of Mr. Warther's work are on their way to us right now and we will soon be adding to this room.

January 28, 2003—Paul Hamler is the latest addition to the section on makers of miniature tools. Paul specializes in limited production runs of ornate miniature vintage woodworking tools.

January 23, 2003—Fifteen new photos of Wm. Dubin's latest mechanamorphic sculpture, "Jenny" were added.

January 15, 2003—Augie Hiscano is working on a new 1/25 scale V-twin chopper. Three new photos of the "work in progress" were added to Augie's page.