The Forum of Fargo 

 

BARNESVILLE, Minn. -- Gordon Shulstad keeps busy in the summer with a little farming, a little gardening, some fishing and time with family.

 

In the winter, though, he's often in a little world all his own. And a beautifully crafted world it is.

 

Give the 80-year-old enough pieces of oak and a set of plans, and he'll turn out handsome models of dump-trucks, backhoes, construction cranes, bulldozers, graders, combines, farm tractors -- even a steam locomotive with cars -- all of them with precisely cut, fitted and sanded parts that give them the articulation of their real-world counterparts.

 

"It takes lots and lots of patience," he said. "That's the secret to it. Just take your time."

 

Shulstad has worked with wood for years but started serious modeling about two years ago.

 

Before then, he made outdoor chairs, a lawn swing, settees, a replica barn and a 6-foot windmill for the gardens that he and his wife, Maxine, plant.

 

"I like working with wood, that's fun," the retired farmer said. "It's a great pastime."

 

He doesn't sell his models, though he easily could.

 

"I've given away several of them," he said. "I don't even try to sell them. It's just a pastime."

 

He measured his father's one-horse buggy and re-created it in wood. He's built a chuck wagon, a Conestoga and a stagecoach just by looking at photos.

 

For his most complex models, he buys kits from a catalog. The kits include a few dowels, steering wheels and some road wheels, but they're mostly several pages of plans. In some cases, he has to make hundreds of precision cuts.

 

For example, each cleat on the tracks of his bulldozers requires him to cut and glue four wood parts, plus two dowels. Dozens of cleats are required for each model.

 

He made and glued 320 treads for the wheels of an articulated four-wheel-drive John Deere tractor model.

 

"That took a long time to get that done," he said, though he enjoyed the project "because that's what I drive for my nephew."

 

Parts that offer articulation, such as the hydraulic pistons, swing arm and bucket of a backhoe, require precision sizing and drilling to work smoothly, he said.

 

"With a mechanism like this, everything has to be the right thing or it won't work," he said.

It took him several months to make the train model, with its locomotive, coal car and three passenger cars. The cars and trucks that got him started in modeling no longer have the same appeal.

 

"I love something that looks complicated. It takes lots of studying, lots of patience. And your hands have to be steady," he said. "I love the challenge."

 

Shulstad's most recent project, a combine, drove him to distraction when he found he had to guess the order of assembly for the completed parts and subassemblies.

 

At one point, he glued too much together, which required plenty of drilling and reworking and tested the patience of the genial perfectionist. "That made me quite angry," he said.

 

The models are largely made of oak and get a coat of lacquer to highlight the beauty of the grain, he said. But they're not tough enough to play with.

 

For the kids in the family, Shulstad makes more durable items, such as push bikes that look like trucks or playground-style sand scoops that children can sit on and pretend they're working a backhoe at a construction site.

 

Shulstad's wife, Maxine, is a full supporter of Gordon's hobby, but that doesn't get him out of the honey-do list.

 

"You need to get out here and dust, Gordon!"

 

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