Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 16, 1993 TAG: 9309160315
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JONATHAN HUNLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He doesn't like to worry over detailed plans and instructions. Simple is better in his opinion. This is the approach he took when he built a wooden model that won him the Best in Show award at the Salem Fair craft show. He's taking the truck to Richmond Saturday for exhibit and competition at the Virginia State Fair, beginning Sept. 23.
Barton, 54, built a model of a Pepsi-Cola tractor-trailer truck as a gift to his brother, Wallace, who drives a life-size version. The truck was built from observation only. No blueprints or written plans were used.
"I would see a truck out on the road and remember how it looked so that I could reproduce it. Someone asked me what ratio I used when I built the truck, and I said I didn't have one. I made the wheels the way I liked them, and then I made the fenders to fit the wheels and the cab to fit the fenders and so on," said Barton.
Besides giving Barton ideas and help on the design of the truck, his brother painted it.
"The paint really adds to the truck. I spent at least 2,000 hours building the truck, but Wallace probably spent two or three weeks painting it," said Raymond Barton.
Barton, assistant director of the Salem Water Department, became interested in woodworking by watching his father, Walter Barton, build things out of wood.
"Dad was my biggest influence, because he could make anything, and he never needed a pattern," Barton said.
Barton didn't start woodworking heavily until three or four years ago. He started out using a saber saw in his attic; now he has a complete workshop. His first creation with his current equipment was a Pendleton cradle, an heirloom comparable to a grandfather clock, but Barton has made quilt racks, race car beds, hat trees, bookends, birdhouses and feeders, rocking chairs, Christmas items and toys. His favorites are still the models, though.
"If there is no challenge, I don't want to do it. I don't want to make something that is really easy to make," said Barton, who has had no formal training in woodworking.
Barton's first entry into a craft show was a model of a Ford Model A roadster, which won him first place in his division at last year's Virginia State Fair. The roadster, which took 400 to 500 hours to make, was Barton's prized possession until he built the Pepsi truck, which race car driver Richard Petty has signed.
Barton's next challenges will be to build a 1914 Volvo roadster and to build steam engines.
"My biggest goal now is to build a model of the old Norfolk and Western No. 4 engine, which my father drove."
Completing his models is like anything else, he said: "You've got to get your mind clear and concentrate and you can do exactly what you want to do."
by CNB