![\"Click](\"http:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/shadowbox.JPG\")
<\/a><\/p>\nActual medals were generally not issued during the war, and I doubt my father ever received them after the war.\u00a0 I applied for replacement medals from the National Archives and Records\u00a0Administration through their\u00a0eVetRecs<\/a>\u00a0program.\u00a0 Since a majority of veteran records from that time were lost in a fire, I had to provide his discharge papers and wait about six months.<\/p>\n The frame I made is 8 by 10 inches and made of 1×2 Douglas Fir stock.\u00a0 I used a router to make a rabbet on the back edge\u00a0to receive a pressboard backing.\u00a0 Inside near the front is a grove to receive a piece of stock 8×10 clear plastic.\u00a0 The inner front edge is chamfered and the outer front edge is rounded over.\u00a0 The frame is stained with a light honey oak stain.<\/p>\n Once I decided on the layout, I used a word processor to position the phrases that describe each of the wings: \u00a0Gunner, Bombardier and Navigator.\u00a0 I\u00a0printed this on a sheet of quality paper, such as one might use for scrapbooking.\u00a0 I used a subtle beige-on-beige stripe pattern, but I may change this to a blue sky and clouds motif.<\/p>\n I used small\u00a0blocks of poplar to mount the wings and medals.\u00a0 I drilled a small hole from side to side near the upper front surface of each block.\u00a0 The wings and medals each have\u00a0straight-pin backs with clasps.\u00a0 The pin slides through the hole and\u00a0the clasp is closed.\u00a0 Most of a wing’s back surface rests on the front surface of the small block.\u00a0 This keeps it perpendicular and gives it a\u00a0three dimensional look.\u00a0 Each branch insignia (winged propeller) has two pins, so I simply drilled two holes in the front of the blocks.\u00a0 All the poplar blocks are\u00a0screwed to the pressboard backing from behind.<\/p>\n I designed a “Keep ‘Em Flying” banner based on a vintage poster I saw at the Library of Congress website<\/a>.\u00a0 I printed my graphic on glossy photo paper and pasted it onto card stock.\u00a0 I then pasted that on a small strip of wood, and pasted that in turn to the background paper.<\/p>\n I repeated the same 3D-effect for the other images you see:\u00a0 I scanned, resized\u00a0and reprinted my father’s graduation picture from the navigation school at San Marcos Army Air Field.\u00a0 This was originally taken at San Marcos, Texas\u00a0in April 1945.\u00a0 Having a picture really personalizes the collection beyond just a collection of medals.\u00a0 I also scanned, printed\u00a0and mounted the obverse image of each medal.\u00a0 The viewer can thus see the back of each medal, which would otherwise not be possible once enclosed in the shadow box.<\/p>\n The shadow box hangs in my study and I can now easily view and enjoy these mementoes.\u00a0 Do you have other ideas for such displays?\u00a0 Please add your comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I designed and constructed a shadow box to display my late father’s medals and wings from his service in the Army Air Forces during World War II. Actual medals were generally not issued during the war, and I doubt my father ever received them after the war.\u00a0 I applied for replacement medals from the National … Continue reading “Shadow Box”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-woodworking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.iseeancestors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}