Scratch building

Being an advocate of 16mm or SM32 or whatever it's called today I have scratch built all my rolling stock and completely rebuilt two live-steamers. All the track has been hand assembled from wooden sleepers, white-metal chairs and brass rail. So I guess I qualify.

Scratchbuilding with vacu-forming sounds like manufacturing to me!

60134

Sounds good, i reckon we should have a scratch building section so people can post their ideas and scratchbuilds.

They use vac forming to make home made slot cars and other items, they also use a machine on mythbusters to make the ballistic jelly molds

I build some of my own buildings and other structures from scratch, also have made one or two items of rolling stock, but do more "kit bashing". Do I qualify?
Would certainly support your idea of a forum, perhaps it would inspire us all to become more adept at this advanced form of the hobby.
What do our moderators think? Would there be enough support? If you are reading this and you want to have a go, "let your fingers do the talking" and post a comment.

Yep, I'm all for it. My scratch building tends to be buildings rather than rolling stock but there's no reason both couldn't be covered.

Sounds fun!

The mention of vacuum forming reminds me of Colin Binnie's early efforts at centrifugal casting in hot white metal. It was after the mould came apart during the process and his wife found the drawing room curtains perofated like stamps that his activities were banned from the home.....

60134

yeah I thought it would be great because they can be very inspiring, i dont know how many buildings and scratch built rolling stock ive seen that ive wanted to try building for my self , keep posting this could turn out to be a petition anything you design and build your self is scratch building

These days my scratch building is mostly restricted to buildings and track.

I use photographic evidence to design buildings and build them out of wood, card, plasticard and plaster.

My track is built using either copperclad sleepers, wooden sleepers with EM Society rivets or C&L components.

I have dabbled with building wooden bodied mineral wagons out of scribed 1 mm ply with Ratio or other chassis kits as well.

As far as locos go, the nearest to scratch building was a tender for a B1 before the Mainline one came out.

With so much good quality 4 mm RTR rolling stock around and in such variety it is difficult to justify scratch building anything these days. There seems to be a kit for almost everything not covered by RTR.

A good source of inspiration for me is the Model Railway Journal.

I think that a seperate category for scratch builders on this forum would be useful.

Colombo

I think your ideas are spot on Denis, I too don't want to see a "scratch building elite" forum develop, where the emphasis is just on locos and rolling stock. I've seen too many instances of modelling snobbery over the years - more than enough to last the rest of my life! Let's encourage the "have a go at something different" approach I say. I think "builders corner", or something similar, is appropriate and will prove popular. Check out the amount of replies already if you don't believe me. Can't wait to see a strong forum where good ideas and projects can be shared for the benefit of all.

QUOTE (Gwent rail @ 19 Jun 2006, 18:49) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I think your ideas are spot on Denis, I too don't want to see a "scratch building elite" forum develop, where the emphasis is just on locos and rolling stock. I've seen too many instances of modelling snobbery over the years - more than enough to last the rest of my life! Let's encourage the "have a go at something different" approach I say. I think "builders corner", or something similar, is appropriate and will prove popular. Check out the amount of replies already if you don't believe me. Can't wait to see a strong forum where good ideas and projects can be shared for the benefit of all.

Thats only going to happen if we let it. I for one would have no issues about chipping in about my pathetic attempts to scratch build stuff. If some folks want to get all snobby about their hand built brass masterpieces, I'm sure theres a few of us who would drag them back down to earth with our amatuer attempts to knock stuff up from card and plastic. I'm actually researching Whisky distilleries at the moment, (doesn't get better than that) with a view to scratch building one for my layout so I'm all lined up to stick my oar in.

Souds a good project Neil. Planning any fact finding field Trips? If so count me in and b r the scratch building for a while

QUOTE (Gwent rail @ 19 Jun 2006, 19:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Souds a good project Neil. Planning any fact finding field Trips? If so count me in and b r the scratch building for a while

make sure you taste test, you always need the best in your layout

It's doubtful that I'll be doing any scratch building myself, but I always enjoy reading about what other people are creating and how they go about it. Anything constructive tends to rub off on the reader and can sometimes lead to a new adventure that otherwise wouldn't have been considered

QUOTE (Gwent rail @ 19 Jun 2006, 19:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Souds a good project Neil. Planning any fact finding field Trips? If so count me in and b r the scratch building for a while

Funny you should mention it but I am coming back to Scotland for a month and this is high on the agenda, assuming the mrs can be talked into it. Obviously this is a fact finding mission and any taste testing would be completely secondary, but crucial, part of the trip.