What is scratch building in 2012?

[Worsdell forever]

And my Q5 has parts from a Lancaster Q5 kit, this one is more confusing...

[Kenton]

I've decided that the definition of scratch building is as elusive and controversial as the definition of "fine scale" and will likely result in the same conclusion - we all have a singular idea of what it means to each of us, which is slightly different from each other.

[The Nth Degree]

Does that mean I'm still in the Scratchbuild Challenge?...

[ArthurK]

I have to say after reading all of the above - if we get the result we want does it matter?

 

To each his own!

 

ArthurK

[Guest Natalie Graham]

I have to disagree Natalie, as a proffessional CAD operator and degree educated engineer I would consider CAD a tool to create a finished model as much as a scalpel or peice of emery cloth. The difference is in when the tools are applied.

 

Yes CAD is a tool to create a finished model but by a method other than scratch-building. CAD computer Aided Design is applied at a different stage, the design stage. Building is what turns the design, be it CAD or more traditional means, into the finished model. If you don't build it you are not, by definition, scratch-building/. Photography is an excellent technological means of producing pictures and needs a great deal of skill and expertise to do it well, but it isn't oil painting. Nor does it need to be, both are perfectly valid art forms in their own right.

 

Sctatch-building is what it is, building models from scratch. 3D printing is a good method of producing models, as is kit-building, rtr detailing or any method that produces good results. Scratch-building is another, different, one.

[N15class]

A milling machine or a lathe makes making parts a LOT easier. CAD could be just used to produce a drawing, it can be used to produce artwork for etching. If it is to be argued that a degree of "hand crafting" is neccessary to produce a true scratchbuilt model then surely you cannot allow the use of a lathe? Certainly a bought in driving wheel is certainly far more difficult to produce whether by CAD or turning up on a lathe. Would it not be more in the "spirit" of scratchbuilding a locomotive to produce a 3D printed wheel of the exact pattern required for a particularly obscure prototype than to use the nearest match from the Romford range?

Using CAD to produce drawings is not a problem but paying someone to cut out all the parts is not scratch building.

[Rumblestripe]

So Natalie.

 

Let's consider two imaginary models

 

Model one is made from scrap brass sheet, soldered up but using Romford wheels, bought in cab fittings and buffers

 

Model two is also made from brass sheet that has been cut out using a CAD/CAM machine and uses fittings created using 3D printing

 

Under your guidelines neither are scratchbuilt...

[mikemeg]

Using CAD to produce drawings is not a problem but paying someone to cut out all the parts is not scratch building.

 

As someone who has done both i.e. scratch building and etched kit building, I know which I prefer. I am/have actually built models of the same class - LNER A6 - using both approaches. To me it is the end result which is important and, to that end, I don't believe that I can cut out brass and nickel silver parts to the same level of accuracy as etches can produce. I certainly can't produce the level of embossed detail which etching can produce, and would therefore always opt for a kit build wherever a reasonably good kit is available.

 

As someone else said, each unto his own.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

[RBE]

In 3D CAD you are building the part albeit in virtual space, I dont know if you have any CAD experience but it isnt a case of 'computer make me a class 47 cab roof please!' and one pops up If the part didnt exist beforehand its scratch and when it is digitally built it is built, it is not design as the part you are making was designed already by brel or some other railway company. Your not drawing a pretty picture for someone to cut out as you put it you are putting in place all of the instructions to a machine that cuts the parts. A bit like say giving a file or a lathe an instruction as to how much to take off or grind cut or sand using a turn of a dial or a push with your hand. Youll be saying next that it isnt scratchbuilding unless you scratch the metal out of the ground with your bare hands and squash it to shape with the strength of your grip. All of these nice bits will eventually need traditional skills to assemble into the finished model anyway.

[Guest Natalie Graham]

If we are to accept that CAD design to a computer-controlled machine which produces parts which are then assembled is scratchbuilding what is to stop Hornby advertising their models as scratch-built?

 

So Natalie.

 

Let's consider two imaginary models

 

Model one is made from scrap brass sheet, soldered up but using Romford wheels, bought in cab fittings and buffers

 

Model two is also made from brass sheet that has been cut out using a CAD/CAM machine and uses fittings created using 3D printing

 

Under your guidelines neither are scratchbuilt...

 

If I take an etched kit and build my own wheels and motor and cut my own gears does it cease to be a kit? As I said earlier I would consider how the bulk of the model is created. I don't think there is a need to build one's own wheels or fittings to scratch-build if for no other reason than these have been accepted by convention to be part of scratch-building but again, as I already said, there is always going to be some individual scenario where the borders betwen kit-building and scratchbuilding overlap and some models won't fit either description. To turn Bill Bedford's question on its head, why is it important that 3D modelling, for example, is considered scratch-building?

 

In 3D CAD you are building the part albeit in virtual space, I dont know if you have any CAD experience but it isnt a case of 'computer make me a class 47 cab roof please!' and one pops up If the part didnt exist beforehand its scratch and when it is digitally built it is built, it is not design as the part you are making was designed already by brel or some other railway company. Your not drawing a pretty picture for someone to cut out as you put it you are putting in place all of the instructions to a machine that cuts the parts. A bit like say giving a file or a lathe an instruction as to how much to take off or grind cut or sand using a turn of a dial or a push with your hand. Youll be saying next that it isnt scratchbuilding unless you scratch the metal out of the ground with your bare hands and squash it to shape with the strength of your grip. All of these nice bits will eventually need traditional skills to assemble into the finished model anyway.

 

If CAD isn't design why is it called computer-aided design? When did Brush design a roof in 4mm scale for a class 47? When London Road Models design their kits for LNWR locos, for example, are you saying Mr Webb of the LNWR really designed that kit? When did I mention drawing a pretty picture for someone to cut out? As for your comments about digging metal with your bare hands that is just silly. I have tried to put forward my opinion in a reasoned and polite manner. Please do me the courtesy of doing likewise. Yes I have designed and built computer models and it is a very enjoyable way of working, but virtual computer modelling isn't building model railways. If it was just think of the layouts we could have without needing a large spare room or large sums of money. CAD is a means of drawing components. Yes it advanced but it still a design tool. It is no more building in reality than if you were to draw the model on paper. As you say you are putting together all the information for a machine to make the item. The machine makes the item not the modeller. All those nice bits will need traditional skills to assemble them? Yes indeed, just like building a kit.

[t-b-g]

How long will it be (if it isn't here already) that you can feed a photo and/or a GA drawing into a computer and print a 3D image. Will that still be scratchbuilding?

 

A "virtual" model on a computer hard drive is not real. There seems to be a certain amount of confusion over this point. You cannot pick it up, touch it, feel it or put it on a "real" layout to see how it runs.

 

It is a set of pixels/bites or whatever arranged in a certain pattern on a computer.

 

It is certainly a design as the chances of the model part being an exact copy of the real thing are miniscule and unless every single part of the real loco is reproduced in exact miniature, some design work is required, certainly over the way the parts fit together.

 

Also, all you are really doing is a "home" version of what Hornby/Bachmann or various kit manufactures do. Designing something, which could, if required, be mass produced. Is each Bachmann A2 scratchbuilt because somebody drew it on a computer? I think not!

 

If anybody ever submits a 3D CAD drawing on a CD or memory stick as an entry into a "Scratchbuilt loco" competition, I like to think it would be disqualified.

 

Pass me the piercing saw and the soldering iron please.

 

As before, there is no right answer and I know others hold their own equally valid views but I am enjoying the debate!

 

Oops! some overlap with Natalie's post! Apologies but we must have hit the post button at the same time!

[SHMD]

In the best school boy traditions of helpful, amusing and informative pictograms, I have scribbled together a quick illustration for a more wholesome/rounded view of how each point of view in the argument, (usually two), may be perceived by others and neutrals.

 

Let me explain:-

 

All boys learn about Venn Diagrams at school but rarely use them later in life.

A Venn Diagram is the best way to illustrate the relationship between 3 different variables – all be it in 2 dimensions only. A 3D model here is much more preferred and although, admittedly, some research/experimentation is undertaken in our later informative years, in finding a suitable “structure†to work with, we later lose that “in your face feeling†of a well constructed Venn Diagram.

 

In my, hopefully helpful Venn Diagram, you will notice that society is made up of normal people (surprising but true), serious people, and happy-go-lucky people. This gives us the rounded full bodied shape in which we can perceive the developing relationship. This also reflects the Model Railway community quite well and so I have taken the liberty to 'cup' us all together in one embrace of humanity and love. Some of us, too, are quite normal and so the Venn Diagram is a little open at the top and perhaps centre – if viewed fully frontal.

 

Centred around the great mass of the average is the “Good Areaâ€, where it may be said that things are a little more sensitive, and indeed, things do get a little more interesting as you advance. Some, quite a lot really, are a great deal more sensitive here and things can get quite 'touchy' so be prepared. Nevertheless, if you have got this far then things can only get better as confidence improves dramatically and we - ultimately - head for the “Sweet Spotâ€. The pinnacle, the height of achievements – where we all aspire to be.

 

So, instead of getting on each others... nerves... we should really be helping each other and showing a united front to the general public as we, as part of a body, need all the support we can get.

 

 

Kev.

(I hope this helps! ...Take cover - INCOMING!!!... )

 

 

In summary, I hope that we all now know how we look to the general public!

[billbedford]

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

 

Max Planck

[billbedford]

To turn Bill Bedford's question on its head, why is it important that 3D modelling, for example, is considered scratch-building?

 

Does anyone actually think that? It sounds like another straw-man argument.

 

There is a continuum of modelling from making everything, including wheels and motors, at one end to fitting the little plasticy bits you find in Hornby boxes at the other. Where lines are drawn to divide this continuum in into 'categories' of modellers is completely arbitrary, and so has little real meaning.

What I expect to increasingly happen in the next few years is that more and more people will use computers to produce their models. Not because such models are 'better' or more 'accurate' or because computer drawing makes some things such symmetry and copying but because error correction is simpler and less likely to be prone to a feeling of 'preciousness' for a physical object.

[billbedford]

A "virtual" model on a computer hard drive is not real. There seems to be a certain amount of confusion over this point. You cannot pick it up, touch it, feel it or put it on a "real" layout to see how it runs.

 

So is the money in your bank account -- doesn't stop people treating it asa real money though.

[N15class]

I have had an interesting days reading so far. I am not suprised how many different views we have had. Aswell as some very amusing ones too.

So what have I learnt today about scratch building.

1 CAD work is OK

2 Paying someone to cut out the brass or nickle silver for you. not sure how this will work with plasticard.

3 Buy a motor Gearbox and wheels

4 Buy the castings and sundry parts

5 Has any one put forward paying someone to put it together.

 

My thoughts on the above.

1 no problems here, it must be more accurate than pen and paper. Just wish I was better at it.

2 Don't agree here, I feel if it is to be called scratch building you should at least cut the plastic or metal yourself. Or cut the templates when using a pantograph machine.

3 This is acceptable as not many can do these, and not everyone has a lathe. As a clockmaker I would struggle with the gears as they are completly different to the ones I taught about.

4 Buying castings I feel is OK but to fabricate as much as you can, it is suprising how much can be done with flat sheet.

5 Don't ask

 

I know we will never have agreement about what scratch building should encompass. But to me it is begining to look like it is actually doing less and less of the work oneself. Following the way soceity seems to be going

[N15class]

I have to disagree Natalie, as a proffessional CAD operator and degree educated engineer I would consider CAD a tool to create a finished model as much as a scalpel or peice of emery cloth. The difference is in when the tools are applied. When traditionally building something you gradually shape and stick on or rub off bits until you have the desired shape you want, the only difference in CAD modelling is you do that in the computer first using the slicing shaping tools in the program and then the 3D printer or etching solution does the physical bit first time to what you have spent those same labourful hours telling it to do whilst using the CAD program and its virtual tools. The skills are still there only in a different no less meaningful way.

 

Cav

I can see using a CAD package to make a drawing and the design of the parts that you require, no different from doing it on paper, only more accuratly.

But what then is your input on cutting out the shapes. None at all, how then can something be called scratch built. When you have had no dealing with the raw matterial, and on top of that paid someone else to do it for you.

I think the CAD etching method is an excellent way of doing things, but for me it is kit building when it comes to making the model.

[woodsworks]

Marking out parts on a sheet of brass and painstakingly fret-sawing them out is only one way of shaping parts to build a model, but those who can do this command huge respect from me because I cannot do it. However, as a professional CAD draughtsman, I can use RP to create a beautifully flared funnel with every bolt-head included, for a model that has never been produced commercially. Who is to say that using CAD to draw an etch or create a 3D model so that a part can be Rapid-prototyped is not a task requiring skilled hands, and is not scratch-building? I believe it takes considerable skill to get it right.

 

The point that everyone seems to be missing is that there is no black-and-white definition of scratchbuilding, but many different shades stretching from rebuilding a commercial model to taking a lump of brass and cutting away the bits that don't look like a steam locomotive using a hacksaw made by bashing teeth into a table knife with a triangular file - If you think I am making that up, read up on Frank Roberts, whose 1/24 scale models of NZ railways equipment now reside in the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand.

 

Perhaps there needs to be a new distinction introduced to the art of scratchbuilding, between hand-building and machine-building? (oh no, I have probably just sparked off another war of words!)

 

Regards

Paul

Whangarei, NZ.

[Guest]

If I was to design and manufacture a plastics injection mould tool, lets say for a locomotive, I then purchase a small injection moulding machine, a bag of styrene or ABS and mould hundreds of locomotives. Are the locomotives I produce scratch built ?, I don't think so !.

When I worked as a product designer for a small plastics injection mould company in Darley Dale, I never considered the resin models created from my computer generated designs to be scratch built. The information contained in a computer generated design can also be used to create cavities in an injection mould tool, does that mean the designer has also scratch built a mould cavity ?, of course not. Models created by a process are quite different to scratch building.

[dikitriki]

What a fun discussion.

 

I have periodically mused upon this as I don't know how to describe some of my work, as I will use brass castings and etchings from all over the place, whichever seems best for the current project. I am not comfortable describing these particular models as either kit-built or scratch-built, and I normally settle on 'scratch-built using commercially available components'....which is a bit of a mouthful.

 

I am in the near future going to 'scratchbuild' some locos using a pantograph milling machine. The trouble is, I have a mate who can scan in drawings and use a laser cutter to produce the masters. I guess that means it's not scratchbuilt......

 

In truth, it doesn't matter. It's just a case of using all the available tools in one's armoury, and trying to make better models, however they are described.

 

Richard

[Happy Hippo]

Please Lord, let's put this to bed!

 

Perhaps we should re-define to be come, assemblers, builders or a combination. of both.

 

We could then all be classified as:

 

A-: Assemblers that just stick things together

A+: Assemblers who also add small bits to enhance the finished model

 

B-: Builders who build a kit that requires some parts to be shaped by the builder.

B+; Builders as above but who also add additional parts or refine the kit of parts to enhance it's finished appearance.

 

AB+/-: Those who both assemble and build, and are prepared to hybridise both types in order to achieve their finished product. The level of finish being the +/-.

 

O-: Someone who has done everything themselves apart from hewing ore from the rocks

O+: The modeller who evolves from single atom, and creates the entire world as we know it with their bare hands

 

After that what do you want?

 

Blood?

 

Regards

 

Richard

[halfwit]

I know we will never have agreement about what scratch building should encompass. But to me it is begining to look like it is actually doing less and less of the work oneself. Following the way soceity seems to be going

 

Which is why I suggested the term 'handbuilt' to cover those models which fall into the grey area between kit and scratchbuilding.

 

Who is to say that using CAD to draw an etch or create a 3D model so that a part can be Rapid-prototyped is not a task requiring skilled hands, and is not scratch-building? I believe it takes considerable skill to get it right.

 

I don't think that anyone would sat that designing a part on a computor doesn't take a lot of skill. I coudn't do it and I have great respect for those that can. But its not making, and therefore not scratchbuilding, its designing.

 

Please Lord, let's put this to bed!

 

Why? Its an interesting and long overdue discussion.

[Karhedron]

It seems we have broadly split into 2 camps. Those who define scratch building as making something by hand and those who define it as making it "from scratch" (which may include using tools such as CAD or 3D printing).

 

Since it all comes down to personal oppinion about the meaning of a phrase, I suggest we put this one to bed. All the relevant points have been covered and I doubt people in either camp are likely to be swayed.

 

Now where did I put the plastic weld?

[Guest]

If I were to enter a scratchbuild competition, I would like to think that my entry was being judged alongside similar entries made in the same way. Unless you are comparing like for like, then what is the point for competitions. I once saw two similar signal box's entered in local competition, one fully scratch built while the other had etched brass window frames. Judges declared the latter as the winner , which to my mind was wrong, consideration was not given to the methods used in construction.

[Coach bogie]

I do not think there will ever be a conclusion to this one. Scratch building was necessary as there was no commercial kit or parts available.If a kit was available (and buildable), I would buy a kit. If a kit does not exist but I can use another kit as a starting point, then I go down that route (see DeGlehn 102 out of 103 -not scratch building but not far off). I used to buy Rod Neep 'scratch builders aids, which were higher quality than some complete kits. Time is precious, especially as you get older. I am not going to waste time cutting metal if acceptable kits/parts are available to vastly reduce the building time. I still 'scratch' the few locomotives I want that are unlikely to be available in any form by any of the approriate methods above. Current project, GWR Pannier no 309, so obscure, even Russell did not include it in his plans book so I had to prepare my own. Significant metal cutting required but, as a standard wheelbase commercial frames have been used, as have the standard Swindon fittings. To me, though others will clearly disagree, it is scratchbuilt.

 

As technology develops and access becomes more affordable, the cutting out of 'everything' is going to reduce. If you look a Guy William's building career, he made everything apart from wheels, motor and gears. As time went on more and more commercial parts were included. By his final models, especially GWR, complete commerical kit tenders were used, commercial boiler fittings, even damaged boiler etches, that he repaired. Does this make him less of a model maker - of course not, did this make him less of a scratch builder - I do not think this thread can answer that one.

 

I am really enjoying everyone's views.

 

Mike Wiltshire