Matchstick Models – Amazing Matchstick Creations
Matchstick models come in all shapes and sizes, some as simple hobbies and others as life long passions that take on epic proportion.
Matchstick model creators do not come much better than a certain Patrick Acton from Iowa who doesn’t make matchstick models, but rather incredible works of art. This gentleman puts together thousands of matchsticks to lovingly make intricate and amazing sculptures.
Acton’s matchstick models have been seen all over the world and regularly on TV on such programs as ABC’, Extreme Makeover and Home and Garden TV.
Since 1977 he has used over 3 million matches and his work is featured from America to Australia and Asia and has even been featured by Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
Matchstick Models are created by Patrick Acton, who was actually born in Iowa and is presently a career and employment counselor and the matchstick models are his hobby and passion. He has apparently always been interested building and tinkering.
In the beginning, in 1977, Acton used to cut all the heads of the top of the matches, about 100,000 of them. That must be boring and laborious at least. He started building a small country church and then went on to ships and very soon the passion was burnt into his soul!
After nearly ten years of model building and cutting the heads off 100,000 matchsticks, Acton contacted the Ohio Blue Tip Company, where he learned that matchsticks could be purchased without the sulfur tip. After this discovery, Acton was able to work much faster, so that the size of his models increased from inches to feet, and from hundreds of matchsticks to thousands.
By 1994 when Ripley's Believe It of Not began purchasing models from Acton, he had established a fully equipped woodworking shop in his home, and was spending hundreds of hours each winter building models.
Matchstick models are painstakingly put together one piece at a time, but Acton has speeded up his process by using his own techniques such as using needle nose pliers to bend matches and sheets of acrylic to hold them in place while putting them together.
For more information see matchstick models here.
There really is almost nothing that cannot be built to make incredible matchstick models.
A wood ship model is most likely to float. After all there are not only ships, but they are also made of wood. So one would hope so!