Building cool toys for big kids: How a military miniature-diorama maker in Ohio does his exacting work

Bert Floyd customizes from similar molds (Napoleonic, Civil War)

Our May 2010 post about a NASA design engineer in Ohio who crafts military miniature figures and dioramas remains among the most popular Picket articles. We recently caught up with Bertram Floyd, 60, of Victory Miniatures, and asked him to provide more details on how he does his work. Floyd works from his home in Sheffield Village; most of his products are available online and two larger dioramas have been featured at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, Ohio. His responses have been edited for context and brevity.

Q. Who are your customers these days?

A. This is a small hobby. The newer generation coming up has played video games and is not so used to playing with toy soldiers. Most of my buyers are between 50 and 60 something. They want the quality. They want unique stuff. Everything at the (trade) events is mostly unique.

Bert Floyd (all photos courtesy of Floyd)

Q. How does your profession fit in?

A. I work at NASA’s Glenn Research center and do a lot of space communications and quantum communications. I started off in electrical engineering, which led to fiber optics. I do mainly fiber obits for the space station, mission to Mars. When you are working with fiber optics you have to have patience. Everything is real small and tiny. That translates to working with the miniatures, even though fiber optics is smaller than soldiers.

Q. What time periods and conflicts do your miniatures cover?

A. I go back to Roman period all the way up to modern times. (Floyd’s dioramas include knights, World War II, the American Revolution, French and Indian War and the Anglo-Zulu War, including the Battle of Isandlwana). My biggest selling thing is the Civil War stuff. Then next would be the Napoleonics. I try to do everything historically accurate. The cheapest dioramas go from $150, all the way $1,000 or more. Some may have one figure, some may have several. Some people buy unpainted figures. People like the Napoleonics because of the color of the uniforms. They are uniforms to die in.

Q. You have some molds and you often buy manufactured figures and customize them to a particular conflict. How does that work?

A. Most are all-metal, made of lead, tin or pewter, especially the 40 millimeters figures. The bigger figures are made of metal and resin. If there is a pose I need, I may cut legs and arms and run wire to get the pose. For hands, I put the gun on and mold the hands around it. I may change the face around, add beards, take a hat off and put a different hat on. Small figures typically sell for $35 to $65.

Q. What about the dioramas?

A. For most of the larger dioramas, I use 40 millimeter figures. They look better and are easier on the eye. You see more detail on them. The dioramas with one or two figures, they are usually 54 millimeters and up. I start off with a green blanket, put figures and roads and add terrain pieces. I populate them with trees. I use crushed foam for bushes. I talk to the individual on what their needs are and whether it is a permanent diorama. All the trees, houses and fences are handmade. I make everything from scratch.

Q. How much time do you put into this and where do you work?

A. I put in about an hour a day. In the winter time there is a lot more time I put into it and I paint. In summer months, I design what I want to do. I do the painting in the upstairs morning room. I have dioramas set up in the basement and do most of my sculpting there.

Q. Tell me about your re-enacting, thoughts on Confederate monuments

A. I am with a group 5^th U.S. Colored Troops out of Cleveland, Toledo, Akron, Columbus and Youngstown, and Pittsburgh. Most events we do are living history. You have to get the history out there. Attending re-enactments is like a family reunion and picnic. As for the Confederate battle flag, the one (appropriate) place is in the museum and on the battlefield, the field of honor (re-enactments).

Q. You’ve been making miniatures since the mid-1980s. Why do you do this?

A. It’s a love that I have. When I was a kid I played with miniature toy soldiers. After I got married, I became a homebody and you go back to what you did as a little kid. I plan on doing this until I can’t do it anymore. You are never going to be compensated for your time. The hobby pays for itself.

• More photos of Floyd's work

Back on display in N.C.: Blockade runner dioramas are rich with riveting detail

(Photos courtesy of Town of Carolina Beach, N.C. -- click to enlarge)

Endearingly old school, four dioramas depicting scenes from Civil War blockade running – a cargo auction, a daring Union raid, the boarding of a vessel and the drowning of a Confederate spy – are on display for the first time in nearly 35 years.

The museum-quality exhibits are back home in Carolina Beach, N.C., at the Town Hall. That building is on the site of the Blockade Runner Museum, where the meticulously detailed dioramas first enthralled visitors.

The museum operated from 1967 until the early 1980s. The Cape Fear Museum up the road in Wilmington acquired the exhibits and put them in long-term storage. Pressed for space, the Cape Fear Museum last year asked Fort Fisher Historic Site to take them. It, too, lacked adequate display space for the dioramas.

That’s when the nonprofit Friends of Fort Fisher stepped in.

“It was something we felt the public needed to see,” Friends executive director and CEO Paul Laird told the Picket.  “It dawned on us to talk to the Carolina Beach Town Council.” The dioramas went on display last month in the atrium.

Daring Confederate blockade runners usually made it through Union naval ships meant to prevent them from bringing vital war goods to Southern ports.

Model maker Lionel G. Forrest handcrafted numerous dioramas in his career and several were housed at John H. Foard’s Blockade Runner Museum. (According to the Wilmington Star News, the late John Railey assisted on ship models. Foard, a textile executive, opened the Blockade Runner Museum with private support.)

Laird knew Foard and recalls the museum being open when he was a college student.

“I would listen to him tell stories. It had a personal connection to me.” The museum featured other items and paintings that focused on Wilmington’s vital role in blockade running. Fort Fisher (south of Carolina Beach) was a key to the Cape Fear River defensive system and the port. It fell to Federal forces in 1865.

The Friends of Fort Fisher raised $10,000 to have five dioramas built in free-standing units featuring LED lighting.

Courtesy of John Gregory

The fifth, depicting Confederate Pvt. Christopher Columbus Bland reattaching a flag under heavy fire at Fort Fisher (above), is on loan to the North Carolina National Guard Training Center at the Fort Fisher Air Force Recreation Area.

Forrest’s dioramas capture emotions and movement in the scenes from blockade running. The four at the Town Hall show:

-- U.S. Navy Lt. William Cushing’s raid on Confederate brigade headquarters at Smithville (Southport) in February 1864. Cushing hoped to capture Brig. Gen. Louis Hebert, but bagged another officer instead after learning the general was not at home. The raiders made off with papers and got back on the USS Monticello before their trespass was discovered.

-- Renowned Rebel spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow was on a North Carolina-bound blockade runner that ran aground on Oct. 1, 1864. Fearing capture, Greenhow and five men rowed a small boat toward shore at New Inlet at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. The craft swamped and capsized, with the spy being the only occupant to die. Her body was found on the beach the next day and Greenhow was honored with a military funeral in Wilmington.

-- A generic scene of a Federal boarding party coming on to the deck of a blockade runner. Capture of such vessels proved to be an incentive through prize money. One admiral is believed to have earned more than $125,000 during the war.

-- A lively auction of scarce items brought by a blockade runner. The Confederate government eventually moved to ban the importation of luxury items and have captains instead concentrate on bringing materiel important to the war effort. The move was only partially successful. Blockade runners, offsetting the risks of business, insisted on high profits. “Anything from hat pins, to cloth, fabrics, shoes and kitchen ware,” said Laird. “Any kind of farm implements, tools. Medicine was always at a premium.” Toothbrushes were especially in demand.

The dioramas were built into the walls of the Blockade Runner Museum. Prerecorded audio messages ran on a loop.

The Cape Fear Museum covered the diorama insets with protective material during their decades in storage. Two other exhibits from the now-closed museum – including a large depiction of the Battle of Fort Fisher – did go on display at the Cape Fear Museum.

(Courtesy of John Gregory)

“Everything was in very good shape,” Laird said of the models back on display in Carolina Beach. “There was some minor cracking on some of the plaster parts that simulated the sea. All the figurines were in good shape. There was some minor touch-up work. Overall, they were in excellent condition.”

Sheila Nicholson, administrative assistant to the town manager, said visitors often stop by to see the dioramas, which include informational placards. “They sometimes ask about where they came from or who made them.”