Can 3-d printing be called scratch-building?

[tebee]

I've just ordered my first coach body for my planned new narrow gauge railway layout.

 

I'm producing this using 3-d printing.

 

But the question is, seeing as how I did all the cad work for the drawings and converted them to a 3-d structure file myself can I claim this as a scratch-built model?

 

At the moment I'm having the actual printing done by an outside contractor, Chris Ward (http://www.chrisjward.co.uk/) , but in a couple of years it's very likely the printers will be cheap enough to have one on my desk.

 

Is this technology blurring the boundaries again?

 

 

Tom

[Stubby47]

Is it an RTR model ? No

Is it a proprietory kit ? No

Is it a bespoke piece of work - Yes - I'd call that scratch built.

 

In the same way the client of Gravy Train and his Delph station is scratch built - not necessarily by the owner, but certainly a bespoke model.

[54Strat]

Scratch building means different things to different people, where you draw the line as to what is a 'raw' material often defines how pure the definition is; would you regard using embossed plastic or pre-printed paper as a raw material, or would you define it as a 'processed' material, a scratch aid if you like?

 

Maybe it's the same with 3D printing, it's a question of where you draw the line. Though the underlying concept is fabricating something new from raw materials. I'd say In this context, 3D printing is scratch building in that same way I regard printing out your own creations of brick paper or decals. You are creating a prototype from scratch, however, you're not building it in the traditional sense, more in a virtual sense.

 

Paul

[Guest jim s-w]

You have designed a kit. Its a set of parts that make into a model of a specific prototype not a sheet of materials that can be anything you want it to be.

 

Think of it like this. If you designed it and did all the work by hand its scratchbuilt and would take you just as long to do it again if someone wanted a copy. This way you just order another kit form the supplier.

 

Let me give you an example. I scratchbuilt this.

 

 

but I designed this

 

 

Ultimately does it matter what label you stick on it though?

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[Kris]

Interesting question. If you had printed it yourself I would say that you had scratch built it, in much the same way that I would describe printing a paper or card model that I had designed and printed as being scratch built by myself. If someone else makes the card model that someone else had designed you'ed call it kit building. What ever you call it, it's still modelling.

[Pinkmouse]

Does it matter? If you're happy with the end result, why do you need to classify it by some arbitrary and continually changing concept?

[Guest jim s-w]

Hi Simon

 

It depends what you are doing. Drawing a 3d object, once you have learned the software, is going to be easier than looking at a 3d object and figuring out it's net (what shape it needs to be when flattened out). Factor in considerations of how this is assembled (potentially by a stranger) and there is much more to etch design than a few brain cells.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[roger440]

The more interesting question is whether or not 3-d printers will revolutionise the hobby. In theory anyone with a computer and more than two-brain cells could pick up enough insight, information and skills to use a basic drawing packages to get their own etchings produced, but in practice this has not happened much: third parties are involved (the etchers) and generally the costs of a photo-tool mean that unless a batch is produced, the per item cost can be prohibitive. Then the parts need to be assembled into somethign with more than 2 dimensions.

A home-based 3-d printer is a much more interesting proposition, although I suspect we are a few years away from having them cheap enough with a high enough resolution to be of much use to us. But the down-side is that (I am told) 3D design is more involved, so that may reduce the impact.

 

There is a potential market in people selling their designs on-line, where you place an order for a part and it is printed at home on your own 3D printer. No post, no delays, just an on-line ordering system. I mean, if you look at the 3D printing being done by Simon BR Blue, then rather than him producing one pattern for replacement cabs for the Bachmann 25s and having them injection moulded in resin, he could simply sell his 3D drawing, saving everyone else from having to go through the learning curve. And if drawings are done properly, then different scales can be catered for automatically. (You do the drawing using full-size dimensions, but do the printing to the specified scale. Some design work would be needed to accommodate the thickness required for a model, but this can be brought into the development phase.)

 

For anyone prepared to put in the effort to learn how to do all this, and to then sit and wait awhile for the rest of the world to catch up, there is a business opportunity there! There is also an opportunity for someone prepared to sell the "prints" as a service to people without a printer.

 

Interesting this! I think it will revolutionise the hobby when they become affordable with good resolution. It will i suspect lead to a lot of individuals offering product/kits of more obscure stuff, rather than "proper" commercial concerns. Sounds great on face value, but it will reduce the money that can be made from such activities in the longer term. This will have downsides, not least for the big boys.

[peach james]

I posted about this in one of the copywrite threads- either on here or on the last version of the site.

 

I view 3D printing as being a fabulous way to get good designs of oddball items. I don't think the price of a "home" 3d printer will be low enough to do away with factories of widget makers in low relative cost countries within the next 30-50 years. There are items which the present 3D printers can do- bodyshells and so forth- right now. A lot of what has been produced seems to need some careful fettling at this point- so if you drew your own artwork, and used it to make a item, then fettled it to finish it, I would describe that as "scratchbuilt", in so much as anything is. (see above about refining ore...). Really, "scratchbuilt" to me is a state of mind, rather than a medium used to make something. Jim S-W's OLE above may be etched by a 3rd party, may even be assembled by a 3rd party (unlikely in his case!), but if he comes up with the design, then makes a way forward that he likes, that, I would call scratchbuilding.

 

Tim Warrens (CNJ NY) has on his page the building of the engine shed as a entry. He describes how it probably takes as long to design the building in 3d cad, as it would on paper. That then translates to a accurate model of what he is drawing very quickly (via a CAM LASER), but that the actual build time is probably not that different.

 

The advantage that I can see is that with plastic type parts, if hobbyists design something in 3D CAD and release the file under GNU or similar, there would be less time spent faffing around. Instead of having to write to a 3rd party for the bodies for my UVY's, I would just hit "print" in 4mm scale, x16...assuming someone else had drawn them to fit the chassis that I have. Buildings are another area I could see a lot of timesaving via 3D CAD.

 

I do not see 3D cad as replacing metalic portions of models in the short term. (~15-20 years). That means that etching artwork will probably still be used where metal is required for strength, conductivity, or formability.

 

James Powell

[Bloodnok]

I've just ordered my first coach body for my planned new narrow gauge railway layout.

 

I'm producing this using 3-d printing.

 

But the question is, seeing as how I did all the cad work for the drawings and converted them to a 3-d structure file myself can I claim this as a scratch-built model?

 

If you produced the artwork yourself, then I'd say yes. If you got the artwork from someone else, then I'd say no.

 

To me it doesn't matter if the work is done by filing away at lumps of plastic to form shapes, or manipulation of vertices in a 3D cad package. Either way it required skill, took time, and involved a lot of research. It's doing that work yourself that makes it scratch-building.

[S.A.C Martin]

As someone trying his hand at 3D modelling - it's hard if your grasp of maths is minimal at best! But the potential for free progams like Google sketchup, and 3D printing to make the masters for, say, resin kits or help in the process of designing tooling for a model (as we have seen with the model companies) are limitless.

 

If it's a one-off print, it's a scratch build. If you reprint it, it's manufacturing...?

 

Either way, it's a further development in this hobby of ours where the possibilities are endless.

[tebee]

Thanks for all the replies folks, although I was asking the question slightly tongue-in-check - I consider myself more as an inveterate kit-basher more than a skilled scratch-builder - it's good to see I may have gained some more kudos in the latter.

 

As someone who's been involved in computers for around 35 years I'm always fascinated by the way they affect our everyday lives and our perceptions of the world - and by the adoptions our society is having to make to cope with those changes.

 

The technology is still in it's infancy, we're probably at the equivalent of the dot-matrix era in printing now, but quality is improving and prices coming down at a fair rate - there are printers for personal use at about the $2000 level in the US and a home-brew version for around $700. I'm reminded that, sitting in my garage, I've still got the colour laser printer my then business paid £6,800 for in 1998. These days you could buy a new one for less that the cost of a replacement cartridge(currently £288 - and there's 4 of them!) - though the engineering may not be as good.

 

It's already possible to have your objects printed in stainless steel - Shapeway's do it, though it's $10 per cubic cm, so even metal objects may not be that far off.

 

As regards software , I'm amazed at how far it's come on in the last few years. Now I've used Cad before but not for some years and never in 3-d but within 5 days of downloading a trial version of the latest software I'd managed to produce the files for this (and 8 other variations)

 

[coachmann]

40 years ago I hand lined a strip of thick brass with cellulose panelling, then etched it in feric chloride to produce a master for a narrow gauge coach side for GEM Models. I would say that was starting from scratch. Today the artwork is done on computer and someone else does the etching. No difference in either approach, but I bet most people think the latter is not working from scratch!

 

 

Today, I am only involved in design work, much of it to ease assembly. Thank goodness the actual CAD 'drawing' and etch-factor can be left to someone else.

[Bob Reid]

What will become even clearer is that without a lot of initial research, accuracy and time put in (much like the present understanding of "scratchbuilding") as many (if not more) duff models will be produced by the hobby builder as do the major manufacturers from time to time. Maybe there'll be a better understanding of how Tubby Duffs appear on the market.....

 

Producing the 3D models are no big deal, but making them accurate / technically correct is quite a different matter!

[Guest jim s-w]

Hi all

 

With seemingly increasing calls for the rtr chaps to produce this loco, in this livery weathered as it was on that date (an over exaggeration) will ready to print modelling ever be any more than a niche market? My bet is those scratch building stuff now will take to it but sadly it's still going to be too difficult/ expensive/ time consuming for a vast majority of people. It will become another tool for the scratch builders but I can't see it getting any more mainstream than that if I am honest

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[peach james]

Jim,

 

I view it as being like etching was 25+ years ago. When I "started" to get serious about modeling, etching would have been well beyond what I could have done @ home. I knew about the process, because of PC boards for building electronics on, but to do artwork would have been well beyond what I would have expected at home. Now, if I want a etched whatever, I can draw the artwork on this computer, send it around the world to the UK, have the etch done, and get the product in ~4 weeks or so. The resulting scratch aid would be much quicker than making multiples of something out of brass.

 

I don't know how much it will be taken up by modelers, but I would see it as being heavily used by model builders, rather than collectors, or people who play with trains.

 

I can see great things for 3D printing in my future- that it should make more able the use of skills of modelers around the world to make a more accurate model railway.

 

If you didn't have access to etching, and similar "mass" ways of doing things, would you be attempting BNS in P4? Or would it be a much quieter layout that you'd be building?

 

 

James Powell

[BR60103]

Tom:

I may pass this question to the NMRA. As far as I can see it's a moot question unless you enter the model in a contest. The contest definition of scratch building allows the use of certain commercial parts like wheels, motors and maybe couplings. Extra points are awarded for making these parts. Points are scaled down, as I interpret it, for amount of effort not done by the modeller like buying certain detail parts. Where it gets sticky is when someone else does a bit of the work. Making a mould for a coach end from a RTR coach is definitely the wrong end but where would drawing up a driving wheel and asking Mike Sharman or Ultrascale to actually make the item count?

[Guest jim s-w]

Hi James

 

Hand on heart the answer would be yes. I etched the ole I showed earlier as an experiment to see if I could get it fine enough. I it didn't work I fully expected to have to scratchbuild the lot. When I started the project I didn't know how to draw anything for a photo tool so the project hasn't changed. Although what I have learnt (and what I am learning) along the way has sped things up.

 

I started this project knowing full well there were things I couldn't do and things I couldn't get. I knew would have to come up with solutions along the way (electro magnetic dingham couplings for example). These are just the things I knew I didn't know! There will be problems to solve that I don't for see yet.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[Poggy1165]

Whatever you call it, I think this technology is truly exciting. When it is fully evolved, anyone will be able to model anything and the days of most layouts looking similar to one another will be gone forever. Prototypes that are currently the preserve of the skilled, the determined and the rich will be open to all.

[Guest jim s-w]

Really? It's just a tool

 

Do you believe that as pencils are easily available and cheap everyone can draw? If it's just the presence if the tool then you are still relying on someone else doing the research or providing the files for you.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[Neil]

3D printing, scratchbuilding? I think not. That's not to denigrate the time, skills and effort put in at the keyboard, which quite frankly would be beyond me, but whatever it is, it isn't scratchbuilding. I understand scratchbuilding to be working in resistant materials, and while it's understood that some components can be bought in, and some materials can come in handy shapes and sizes (tube, angle etc) the bulk of the item starts out as something very different from the finished object. The best comparison I can come up with is the difference between a photo and a painting where both result in an image but the methods and skills brought to bear differ.

[jonhall]

I went to the model engineering exhibition at Sandown Park yesterday, and notices a sign by a very nice aero-ebngine, to the effect of 'no CNC machining used in this model' which struck me as an interesting parallel. CNC clearly being seen as cheating!

 

Jon

[AMJ]

I'd be tempted to say that the 3D printing would best be described as a 'prototype' for a mass production of a piece of CAD that has been skillfully drawn. Batch production makes the process of producing the finished item much cheaper. I can see that there will be some folks out there that they want a model of X so do the CAD and then produce it as a limeted edition kit.

 

If you want one then I'm sure that there will also be a few others that also do.

[Poggy1165]

Really? It's just a tool

 

Do you believe that as pencils are easily available and cheap everyone can draw? If it's just the presence if the tool then you are still relying on someone else doing the research or providing the files for you.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

There are tools and tools. A lump hammer is not much use in modelling. A RSI is 'only a tool' but it has revolutionised my modelling as it enabled me to successfully complete etched kits for ther first time. A computer is 'only a tool' but it has enabled me to do all sorts of things I could never have dreamed of doing with old technology. Creating track templates to give one relevant example. OK, someone had to create the software and I had to pay for it, but it's still added to my skill base. I grant you it hasn't magically turned me into a precision engineer or artist. But it still enables me to do something that would previously have been utterly beyond me.

 

This tool when it has fully evolved, please note the emphasis, will enable many people to create models they cannot currently dream of creating. Either they will acquire the skill to use it directly themselves or they will pay for someone to do it for them, because it will be relatively cheap. Compared, that is, to the current alternative of having a highly skilled person create it for you.

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

So enlighten me. What is 3D printing In laymans terms i.e. I want a print of a Dock Tank bodyshell say. How can I do that? What is the result printed on? Not paper surely as paper is 2D. Am I missing something?