Farming in miniature

Teens, mechanic

enjoy building model

farms to scale

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Two teen-agers and a tractor mechanic received lots of enjoyment from building and showing miniature farm displays at the 16th Annual Farm Toy Show this weekend at Vogel Arena.

The trio admitted that their hobbies require lots of painstaking work and don't generate big profits for their labor.

Nathan Haag, 15, of Eden Valley, is in his third year of building scale model farm displays. He created a 1/64 scale farm with homemade parts and retail items. He made the base with styrofoam and bought hobby grass and hobby gravel and painted it with a brush and spray paint.

The entire display, more elaborate and larger than the one he showed here last year, took a month to complete. Some competitors spent several months on their displays.

Haag's first display was 4x8 feet. Last year he showed an 8x8 display. His current display is 12x8.

The display includes a fenced-in silage pit. The pit cover, a garbage bag, was painted black. More than 200 small washers were used to look like tires to secure the cover.

Many cows and dairy equipment dotted Haag's model farm yard. Corn was also being loaded into a half dozen storage bins.

He fashioned a rock picker, trucks, a corn planter and a Terragator out of parts from other toy farm implements and trucks.

Haag attends the New Ulm toy show and one in Litchfield in mid-July.

"Most farm toy shows don't include people with farm displays. Most of them are just people selling farm toys," Haag said.

"It's fun," Haag said. "I'd like to get a job in the business of agriculture some day. We'll see."

Aaron Starz is a 26-year-old mechanic at New Ulm Ford Tractor Inc. Prior to last year, he showed 1/64 scale displays. He has a 1/16 scale farm display of International tractors and implements. A cultivator is new to his display this year.

He has been building displays since high school and has entered the New Ulm show a half dozen times.

"It's the farming stuff. I just can't get away from it," Starz said. "I'm a tractor mechanic during the day. At night, I go home and play with it on a smaller scale."

He built the display with 1 1/2-inch thick styrofoam. Then he added enough dirt to cover it.

This April, he showed his display at Mason City, Iowa. He also shows it at Fairmont.

"I don't really keep track of how much time I spent on it. It might make me think I should do something more useful with all that time," Starz said. "It's like the real thing in many ways. Everything that is bolted, soldered or welded together on the display is made that way at work too."

Andrew Windschitl, 16, of Comfrey entered the New Ulm show for the second year. His 1/64 scale farm included beef cattle and cows. He made the buildings by cutting pine wood in his shop at home, saving a good amount of money.

He made some of the trees on the display and bought others.

"It's a fun hobby," Windschitl said. "It keeps you out of trouble. This year's display is better than the first time I came here last year."

Windschitl is thinking about attending a farm toy show in Redwood Falls later this year.

The farm toy show continues 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today (Sunday) at Vogel Arena. Best displays for 1/16, 1/32, 1/43 and 1/64 scale scratch built and customized models will be awarded.