3D printed replicas of Fordson High School (top), Ford Rotunda, and Wagner Hotel are available for $15 each with proceeds benefiting the Museum Guild of Dearborn. The ornaments are about 3 inches wide and are available in brushed silver or antique gold finishes.
3 custom made 3D-printed images available; sell for $15
DEARBORN – Holiday ornaments “crafted” in Dearborn are for sale for $15 at the Dearborn Historical Museum.
The 3D printed replicas, depicting the Ford Rotunda, Fordson High School and Wagner Hotel, are made by museum staff and can be shipped for an extra $4.
Shoppers can purchase these unique gifts at the Museum Office, 915 S. Brady St., or online at www.thedhm.com. Money raised from the sale benefits the Museum Guild of Dearborn, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports the Dearborn Historical Museum.
“You can hold a piece of Dearborn history in your hand, start a collection on your shelf or celebrate the holiday season with a unique ornament on your tree,” said Jack Tate, acting chief curator of the Dearborn Historical Museum.
“We have a great team at the museum and they came up with idea, the 3D printer, the program to produce the ornaments, selected which buildings to highlight and more. I’m really proud of them and this initiative,” Tate said.
The museum sold its first ornament three years ago. The idea, the brainchild of volunteer, local historian and former Dearborn Historical Commissioner Ian Tomashik, became popular immediately.
“I wanted to raise money for the museum, honor our historic Dearborn landmarks and, by making models, bring these buildings and memories back to life,” he said.
Tomashik earned his bachelor’s degree in architecture and has experience in model making.
“We used a still photo and free digital modeling software to create a rendering of the Wagner Hotel. Since 3D printers take patience and skill to operate, we had the designs printed by online services for our first two years,” he said.
Tyler Moll, the museum’s exhibit designer, had the idea to move production in-house.
“This is the first year we’ve used our new Flashforge 3D printer,” Moll said. “It melts plastic called PLA at over 400 degrees Fahrenheit and then builds the image in layers. For every eight hours we run the printer, we produce eight to 10 3D plastic molded ornaments.”
There is also assembly that must be done by hand.
“We add a thin wooden backer plate created with a K40 Laser cutter that imprints the name of the building and the year it was built,” Moll said. “I like that we use modern materials to look at history. It’s a really great idea and a great way to show off history and architecture and introduce them to a new audience.”
The finished ornaments are about 3 inches wide and are available in brushed silver or antique gold finishes. Previous years’ ornaments depicting the 1896 Wagner Hotel and 1928 Fordson High School are still available, but are now joined by the museum’s newest release featuring the famous Ford Rotunda.
“The Ford Rotunda reflects the city of Dearborn perfectly,” Tate said. “It’s our most requested subject.”
The Rotunda was built as Ford Motor Co’s. temporary exhibit hall for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and was designed by Albert Kahn.
Following the fair, it was dismantled and shipped to Dearborn where the updated building was permanently located on Schaefer Road. It was closed during the war years, and later used for research and engineering.
In 1953, it reopened for visitors as Ford celebrated its 50th anniversary. It was reported that 16 million guests from around the world visited over the Rotunda’s 26-year history, and it was one of the five most popular U.S. tourist attractions before being destroyed by fire in 1962.
It could be as popular as the Fordson High School ornament developed last year.
Fordson High was designed by architect Everett Lane Williams and completed in 1928. It features an iconic tower that mimics Yale University’s Memorial Quadrangle and the University of Michigan’s Lawyers’ Club building, crafted in granite and Briar Hill sandstone. In 1998 it was named a Michigan Historical Site.
More than 200 Fordson High ornaments sold out faster than the museum could get them, which encouraged the Museum Guild of Dearborn to buy a printer for itself.
Additional quantities of ornaments depicting the 125-year-old Wagner Hotel also will be available. Now the centerpiece of Ford Land’s Wagner Place Development, the former hotel’s signature turret has greeted travelers at Michigan Avenue and Monroe’s southwest corner since 1896. Its 2019 reopening, and the museum’s “Over The Top” fundraising event, inspired the museum’s first ornament.
For additional information, contact Paul Talpos, assistant chief curator at the Dearborn Historical Museum, at 313-565-3000.