Mid-Century Tiki Architecture Kits for Model Train Sets!

I have always wanted to do a Tiki bar diorama with a smoking volcano and the mid century Tiki bowling alley would be a perfect addition. I paint a lot of Murals in my job and I worked on the restoration of a 1939 Diorama of Mission Dolores in San Francisco in the 90's. It was originally at the 1939 Treasure island worlds fair and stored in a basement for many years. It had water damage and the rats had chewed up the Pomo Indian population. We re-made them with Super Sculpey and did a lot of tree and landscape repair. I had to bring Godzillia for a photo-op of course. The Diorama is now installed at the Mission Dolores and only has a few spider visitors now.

On 2010-12-23 15:31, leleliz wrote:
Whoa this is amazing. Do you happen to know whats the size of this display?

Liz, Kai had this in the art show at Hukilau 2008. I'm pretty sure it was at least if now wider then 3 feet and at least 2 foot or so high.

An incredibly detailed piece, inside and out.

[ Edited by: Lake Surfer 2010-12-24 01:03 ]

On 2010-12-21 22:49, Bora Boris wrote:
I want a tiny Mai-Kai, a tiny Kahiki and a tiny Waikikian or if they were restaurants in a hotel I want a Beverly Hilton with the Trader Vics entrance and a Dallas Sheraton! The list goes on and on - Canlis Honolulu and Seattle, a Don The Beachcomber UFO.... COME ON!
It's not impossible and they would be incredibly cool.

In answer to the above, I just stumbled upon this thread :) :
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=33960&forum=18&start=15

A tiny Mai-Kai:

Where little bitty rum barrels and little bitty mystery bowls await you...

Love it! :D

Thanks Rob!

Micromodels USA makes tiny paper models of various landmarks that you put together yourself. The original company started in England during the 1930's. They did release the Maori Assembly House and Maori War Canoe and they're planning on releasing the Maori Village in the future.
I haven't purchased these so I can't comment on how easy it is to put them together or what it involves.

From their website: http://www.micromodelsusa.com

Today we are celebrating the Centennial of the Treaty of Waitangi!

We are just a tad bit late, though. The Treaty of Waitangi, between the United Kingdom and the Maori people was signed on February 6 1840, so the actual centennial was February 6 1940. (Hey that only makes us about 72 years late.) But here at MicromodelsUSA our un-official motto is “Better Late than Never!”)
At this point you are probably thinking we might have spent too much time inhaling fumes from our glue. But seriously this makes sense. In 1940 the Centennial was probably big news in the UK. As part of the celebrations in New Zealand many historical Mãori sites were restored or rebuilt. At the site of the Treaty signing two special creations were made to honor the occasion, a new Wharenui, ("meeting house”) and a Waka Taua (“War Canoe”).
To honor this occasion Geoffrey Heighway planned to release 3 Mãori Micromodels. He released one, The Maori War Canoe, and afterward he meant to release the next two; The Maori Meeting House and the Maori Village, but he ran out of time. So 71 years late, we have taken Geoffrey Heighway’s original unpublished sketches and photos of his working models, and while leaving them as authentic as possible, we have finished them and are happy to release the newest Micromodel, Set ARC 25, The Maori Meeting House, in addition we are re-releasing the Maori War Canoe (including the liner notes and the Beach).

Does any one know if Mike Cozart has released his tiki kit yet? I too am a model railroader, but after looking at his blog, that kit would be super on it's own. I already have some ho scale palm trees!!

I just found this thread which is amazing since I was at a big model railway show this afternoon and had all kind of ideas for a tiki theme train set diorama. If I only had a bigger basement.

If anyone wants to draw them up in Illustrator or CorelDraw, I can laser cut anything.
There was a guy at work that did a LOT of model railroading structures in his free time.
I wish I had the time to draw them up myself.

Also, that diorama is awesome.

What's the progress on this project? Anyone?