Over 250 ship models grace the display cases of the Old Depot Museum, and a sizeable number are built by Dave Benway, the museum’s director and curator. 

Benway’s latest creations, five handmade and restored models of the U.S. Naval vessels that have bared Vicksburg’s name since the Civil War, are now on display on the museum’s first floor, which brings his half a year of work on the collection to an end.

“It started as a hobby, but it got a little out of hand,” Benway said, laughing. “I tell people I have 60 years of building experience because I’ve been making models since I was six. It keeps me young.”

The models, created out of wood, plastic, resin and pewter, are made to scale based off of pictures and other information the museum mostly gathered from the Naval Resource Center. Each scale inch of the models represents 8 feet of the actual ships.

The largest model ship in the new collection is almost 7 feet long and includes details like a handmade flag to fly on the mast. Benway said the only parts of the models not made in his personal workshop are the rigging, made out of sting.

“I don’t make strings,” he said, “but everything else is made-to order. When we need a new display, I build it.”

Benway, a certified master modeler who has been working for the museum since 1993, estimated the models range in value from $500 to $18,000 depending on the scale used, the detail of the model and the quality of materials, which cost Benway $5,000 on the largest model.

“The scale [matters] because it gives you an accurate picture of the size of the ship,” he said. “That’s what I’m about.”

He said he spent anywhere from three weeks to five months working on the models, putting in 50 hours of work a week on them in addition to his official 9-to-5 job at the museum.

“The models are a full time job,” he said. “They’re my thing, though. It’s a great hobby. It relieves pain, and gives me something to focus on other than myself.”

All five of the models will become part of a larger collection depicting maritime vessels named after a person or place in Mississippi, Benway said.

 

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in an ongoing series highlighting museums in Vicksburg.