MOOSE JAW — Visitors to the Spring Fling Show and Shine at the Sukanen Ship Museum June 3 will get two shows for the price of one.
Besides the car show which last year attracted over 140 cars and trucks from the early days to 1980, the event has a model engineering show.
The models are complex machines built to scale, often with thousands of hours entailed.
“Some of them build from kits,” said show organizer Dean Redman. “Some are built from scratch.
“The rivets and parts are made by the model builder.
“Typically they operate lathes and are like machinists. It was their job.”
The old hobby, as he calls, takes a lot of time and patience.
“We see fewer of them every year, unfortunately.”
Show displays are coming from Estevan, Weyburn. Saskatoon and North Dakota.
A model steam tractor donated to the museum by the Tony Leschinski family took between 12,000 and 14,000 hours to build, by family estimates.
A display of Leschinki’s models is in the museum at the rear of the office building.
This year the model show will be located in the new shop, also behind the office.
The show is dedicated to Leschinski.
A heavy-duty mechanic at the Gardiner Dam project and Estevan drag lines, he built models and machines for 30 years.
The car show and model show start at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m.
Ron Walter can be reached at [email protected]
