Japanese Solid Model Archive is an archive for preserving and presenting records, photographs, author materials, and explanatory pages related to Japanese wooden aircraft solid models.
This archive does not focus only on completed models. It also seeks to preserve the process of making: selecting materials, reading aircraft forms, carving, correcting, painting, assembling, and gradually approaching the final form.
A solid model can certainly be appreciated as a completed work. However, its value also lies in the process through which it was made.
A maker reads the form of an aircraft from drawings and photographs, carves wood or synthetic wood, checks the shape through trial fitting, makes corrections when necessary, prepares the surface, paints the model, and brings it closer to completion. In that process, the maker’s observation, judgment, skill, and experience become visible.
The purpose of this archive is to preserve such making processes and to provide a foundation for considering Japanese solid model culture from multiple perspectives.
This archive mainly preserves the following types of materials:
These materials are not presented merely to display models. They are preserved so that readers can understand how forms were made, how problems were found, how corrections were made, and how the final result was reached.
This archive includes several different types of records.
Construction process records follow the making of a solid model from the preparation of materials through shaping, surface preparation, painting, markings, assembly, and completion.
These records allow readers to see the process behind the completed model. Trial fitting, correction, surface treatment, and detailed work are especially important because they often reveal the maker’s judgments.
Reform records show the process of reconsidering, correcting, and completing a model that had already been finished once.
Even a completed model may be reopened because of deterioration over time or because the maker’s view of the model has changed. Such records show that completion is not always the end of making.
For large or complex aircraft, the construction process may not be easy to understand through a simple chronological sequence alone.
In such cases, records may be organized by parts or processes, such as fuselage, wings, nacelles, engines, propellers, armament, painting, and final assembly. These records show how separate parts and processes were eventually integrated into a single completed form.
Reading pages are interpretive pages based on original records.
Original record pages emphasize preservation as source material. Reading pages, by contrast, organize what can be understood from those records: how the process developed, what kinds of decisions were made, and how the form gradually emerged.
Whenever possible, this archive distinguishes between original record pages and reading pages.
Original Record Pages These pages preserve the structure of original forum posts and construction articles as source material as closely as possible. They emphasize photographs, original text, dates, entry numbers, and the documentary structure of the record.
Reading Pages These pages organize and interpret the meaning of the construction process based on the original records. They include editorial explanations and commentary in order to make the process easier to understand.
By separating these two layers, the archive aims to preserve the documentary value of the source material while also making the records readable for visitors.
The following construction and reform records are currently available in this archive.
This is a detailed construction process record by Kazu Fukuda. It follows the making of the model from materials, shaping, surface preparation, painting, markings, final assembly, and completed photographs.
This is a large-scale reform record of a model that had already been completed once. It preserves the process of reopening a deteriorated model, rebuilding the nose section and canopy areas, repainting the model, and bringing it to a renewed completion.
This is a parts-based and process-based construction record of a large four-engined aircraft model by Kazu Fukuda. It follows the process through material cutting, interior work, nacelles, cowlings, engines, propellers, bombs, painting, final assembly, and completion.
For a complete list of available records, see:
This archive also preserves author-related materials, not only models and construction records.
At present, materials related to Kazu Fukuda, Yasuichi Takami, and Masami Ōmachi are especially important to the archive.
Kazu Fukuda left not only completed models but also detailed photographic and textual records of his making processes. In this archive, his records are important not only as preserved documents but also as records of judgment in solid model making.
Yasuichi Takami is an important maker for understanding postwar Japanese solid model culture. His construction articles and technical records from the 1960s provide valuable evidence of solid model techniques of that period.
Masami Ōmachi is an important figure in considering postwar Japanese aircraft solid model culture. Through magazine articles and construction notebooks, he left materials that help us understand the techniques and ideas of the time.
For the author navigation page, see:
This archive is not simply a collection of existing materials.
It was created from a long-standing interest in solid model culture, personal exchanges with makers, photographs and materials preserved over many years, and the desire to preserve the making process itself as a record.
For more about the background to the creation of this archive, see:
Some aircraft subjects and markings presented in this archive belong to wartime historical contexts.
They are presented here solely as part of the historical and documentary record of scale model making.
The purpose of this archive is not to endorse any ideology or military action. Its purpose is to preserve and study the techniques, processes, judgments, and records of solid model making.
If you are visiting this archive for the first time, the following order may help you understand its structure.