This seemed like the perfect forum to post this. My father-in-law was stationed in the South Pacific for 4 years during WWII. He was a very talented guy, and while he was there he made this ashtrat out of brass and copper casings and cartridges, as well as part of a downed Zero. I don't know if he saw the pattern somewhere else, or came up with it on his own, but whichever, I am incredibly proud of him and it, and am thrilled to be able to share it with you.
Images are in the Hobby Talk photo album, in the model section.
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/showphoto.php?photo=3311&sort=2&cat=509&page=1

That's pretty neat Chris. At first I didn't see the cartridges on the P38, very clever.:cool:
Okay what type of monster can be made from shell casings and cartridges?:)

Beautiful!!
Man, that's a work of art, that is.

I remember reading a post on RMS by a guy upset that he had lost an exterior handle from a tank model. He wanted to know how to write to Tamiya for a replacement (the handle being nothing more than a U-shaped piece of plastic about 1/4" long).

I thought, "Geez, have modelers gotten so lazy or untalented that we can't even fabricate the most basic replacement part"? It still grates on my nerves to see posts from people who have misplaced simple parts and are at a loss about what to do.

That P-38 is testimony to what people can do if they actually set their minds to conquering a challenge. Too much modeling today is like paint by numbers...part A joins to part B with no engineering involved. You can argue that it's progress (which is true). But the price of better kits has been the decline of inventive engineering and basic manual skill.

It's just like the Hot Rod/Custom car hobby. Back in the 50s and 60s you couldn't just order up what ever you wanted from a mail order catalog. People made what they needed or fabricated what would work. And then tuned and tested things until it worked. Some of theses people later ended up selling parts and became big name companies. Today you can pretty much mail order a complete custom car.

Very cool indeed! Thanks for sharing Chris!

You got that right Brent! :thumbsup:

I've seen a bunch of stuff from WW1. People stuck in the trenches for years carved decorated beer steins out of shells and many other incredible things.

Chris,
Thanks! Great pix. How heavy is that thing? Great idea for an ashtray. :thumbsup: rr

I'm not sure how heavy it is - I'll have to weigh it when I get home...

I've done a little research (ain't the web amazing?) and have found both commercially produced variants of this type of ashtray, as well as what's called "trench art". As Terryr suggested, Trench art was produced by "the blokes over there" using materials at hand, often parts of equipment, casings, scrap, etc. There is a whole sub-genre of shells decorated by stamping and embossing. The commercial ashtrays were cast, and usually had a plane (often a p38) suspended over an ashtray that was in the shape of Australia. They were often inscibed. I haven't found any like the one my Father-in-law made, but knowing him, I can picture him seeing one of the commercial ones and figuring out how he could make one himself, and improve upon it in the process...

Chris. Do you what branch of the Service your father-in-law served? This type of art is called "Trench Art." Many guys in the maintenence end had access to materials and machinery to put this work out in fairly short order. The P-38 lent itself to construction of this type with bullet and shell caseings. I've seen several of these through out my life from several different theaters of operations so its doubtful they were all made by the same artist.

I missed out on a really nice salt and pepper shaker a year or two ago. They were made out of 30 cals. and had a beautiful,polished, green "Bakalite" base that they sat on. Didn't have $50.00 at the time.

My dad had an ash-tray made from a field howitzer shell case with a USMC EGA welded on it. It got gone after he died. I'd like to stumble over it in my next major clean-up can't imagine my mom tossing it.

It might be interesting to check out the online auctions under "Trench Art" and see if it comes up as a catogory.

Thanks for sharing your piece.

Got my couriosity up so I went by and checked out e b@y. They had around 20 or so items up.....None like yours. It interesting to look at and really reasonable when you consider what your getting.