What is scratch building in 2012?

[t-b-g]

I am far from convinced by your argument that it is a different approach to scratch building - it is still designed from scratch ie nothing.

 

Flipping your argument why are "scratch builders" (by your definition) so keen to disassociate themselves from people who create with more modern techniques? Do you also distinguish between people who build in plastic vs metal because it seems an equally spurious distinction!

 

Sorry but as soon as the word "traditional" is introduced into the argument the alarm bells start ringing...

 

I don't know who has said anything about wanting to disassociate from anything.

 

We all seem to agree that designing parts on a computer is a skilled and time consuming way of doing things and I have built many etched and cast kits designed in such ways. There are very few modellers who scratchbuild everything and most people are very glad of the range of kits and small parts available from the trade to complete their models.

 

I cannot even get my own precise definition of what constitutes scratchbuilding straight in my head and I never expected to find the answer here.

 

What I do know is that an individual item, with the major components made by the builder, fits with my ideas much more than something that can, once the design work is done, be mass produced.

 

There should be a limit as to how many parts can be "bought in" but I have no idea where that limit should stand.

 

I would be happy to include parts made on a milling machine or lathe but not on a CNC machine, as once again, mass production could be an option and I would be happy to include parts made on a pantograph milling machine of the masters have been made by the builder, (even though mass production could follow from that - before anybody points it out - I never said this was logical and foolproof!). In each case the overall finish of the model depends on the metal or plastic working skills of the builder, in marking out and cutting materials, not just in assembly.

 

Wheels motors gears, castings for chimneys/domes etc I would be happy with as bought in.

 

In fact, pretty much what Paul is doing on his F8 thread!

 

Where the lines are drawn as to using spare etched parts from kits to make up a loco that is not available as a kit, I am baffled and happy to admit it!

 

Perhaps we should have a new category, not kit built, not scratchbuilt but somewhere twixt the two.

 

Following the technology route, I see the hobby in a few (maybe many) years time, a bit like the rest of the country. Forgotten skills and relying on others to do our making for us. Each time we want a new model we draw it on a computer and have it printed out and we have scratchbuilt a new loco. Utopia to some but I hope I will still be there with my saw and my soldering iron!

[jjnewitt]

I get the impression that to some people scratchbuilding is somehow different and far removed from kitbuilding. To my mind scratchbuilding is kitbuliding. Kitbuilding is the assembly of a kit of parts as is scratchbuilding. The only difference is that if you scratchbuild then you produce the kit of parts yourself.

 

I'm still having problems following the logic that if you scratchbuild then you have to produce everything by hand except when it comes to things like castings and wheels when you can choose to buy them in. Surely in such cases the model is only mostly or partially scratchbuilt at best.

[Pugsley]

Are you saying that the Dapol Western is scratchbuilt?

Of course not, I was using it to illustrate that even laser scanning a real loco still requires many hours of skilled work, you can't just scan it, press a button and generate perfect miniature replicas.

[The Nth Degree]

This is, perhaps, a relative term to ones own experience and not a hard and fast definition?

 

I don't usually shy away from using me as an example, so let's use me as an example...

 

I've never seen a steam engine up close. There, I said it. I've seen them on TV (I do enjoy a good period drama) and I've driven past one, but that's it. So, when I set about planning a new layout, and everything that's going to run on it, I found that nothing is available off-the-shelf - I have to build from kits or make it entirely myself, most worryingly the three locos. As I said earlier, I'm not one to shy away.

 

I bought books, did what I could online and started drawing on my computer, in 2d. Only one photograph exists of the prototype so I had to do all planning from that (having made the mistake of referencing a later upgrade). When I was happy with how it compared to the photograph I then test fitted all the components on my computer. I had to straighten out curves so I could measure them, disassemble folds into individual parts, do countless revisions, and so on. It took days worth of hours for me to learn and do this. Then I set about planning it on a sheet for etching - this can be a entire skill in itself! And finally sent it off.

 

And so the story goes on. My point is, however, that to me, this loco is scratch built. I did everything but chemically cut the metal. I don't feel I have to do that myself for it still to be considered scratch built - and yes, I made my own wheels - and I'm immensely proud of what I've done and entirely happy with the result so far. By devaluing even one small part of the process as a whole, I personally feel a tiny bit insulted.

 

But, as I suggested at the top, this term 'scratch built' is relative. This project has taken me many hours to get this far and I've learnt a lot as I've gone along and I genuinely feel I've built this model from scratch. For somebody else, this could be just a days' work.

 

Steve

[RBE]

Also drawing your 3D CAD model or etch isnt getting someone to make it for you. The file you create makes the part you are just loaning the use of the machine that fabricates the part. A bit like borrowing Bob next doors lathe to make a part because you dont own a lathe. If it was being made for you you would simply be saying to the 3D printing company 'can you make me a cab front for a class 25?' and then they would produce the file and print it. I that respect if you produce the file yourself then it is your work and thus done from scratch. You ae not paying someone to make a part for you you are just borrowing their equipment.

[Pugsley]

Who is suggesting that this isn't a valid approach? it is a perfectly vaild approach, one that quite likely would give a 'better' finsihed model than cutting all the parts by hand. It is just a different approach from scratch-building.

No it isn't, it's the exact same process, but with different tools - my 'CAD designed' model is still a scratch-built model, IMO. I'm not saying that my approach is any better or worse that the 'traditional approach', just a different means to the same end. There is a definite undercurrent in some posts that the two approaches are somehow not comparable.

 

I see cutting parts out by hand as the 'hair shirt' approach as my inability to cut and file in a straight line makes for a less than pleasurable experience. I'm not saying that anyone should abandon their files and piercing saws, if they don't want to, just consider that there are different approaches to the same result.

[Guest Natalie Graham]

I am far from convinced by your argument that it is a different approach to scratch building - it is still designed from scratch ie nothing.

 

It is still designed from scratch but the term we are discussing is scratch-building not scratch-designing. The issue of who builds the physical model, and how, is key. If I were to draw up a wonderfully detailed CAD model of all the parts required to be cut out from sheet brass or turned on the lathe and assembled by soldering into a model locomotive, then sent that to a model maker to follow and he built that loco for me. I would not have built that loco. How is that different from me sending a CAD design to a 3D printer to manufacture the model? In the full size world if a railway company sent off a set of working drawings (the equivalent to the CAD design of the day) to North British Loco Company or Beyer-Peacock the finished locos had the building company's builders plates on them not those of the railway that designed and ordered them .

 

Of course there will be individual models which incorporate aspects of CAD design and computer controlled manufacturing processes as well as traditional construction methods, just as there are those which are partly built from kits and partly scratch-built and whether one calls them scratch-built, CAD modelled or kit-built will fall to judgement as to the predominant construction method of the individual model. Some will be scratch-built using some CAD modelled parts and others will be CAD modelled using some scratch-built parts and every other combination of techniques imaginable. I don't think there is much mileage in repeatedly trying to pin down the exact terminology to define ever more contrived hypothetical models.

 

As I said in my first post on this thread, I have made patterns for whitemetal kits from individual hand-cut pieces of metal soldered together, made the moulds in the vulcanising press and, on occasion, (I never liked this part) poured the metal into the casting machine. If I had then built one of those kits to completion would I have scratch-built it as I had done every single part of the process from raw material to finished model? I don't believe so. Had I soldered the patterns together as a finshed model then yes I would have called this a scratchbuilt model, but the introduction of a mechanical process to reproduce parts, in this case casting, in my view, stops the model from legitimately being called scratch-built.

 

There are those who have mentioned lathe turning as being a mechanical process. I would say that if the part is turned on an automatic lathe by the operator manipulating the cutting tools to shape the part that is a scratch-building technique. On the other hand if it is done on a computer controlled auto-lathe which is capable of reproducing that part as long as you keep feeding the brass rod in then it is not scratch-built. It is the capability to reproduce parts automatically which counts, not whether you make one or a thousand. It does not become scratch-building because you turn the machine off after it has made the first one.

 

My definition of 'scratch-builders'? Please point that out to me as I was not aware of having used the term, I may be wrong of course.Is there disagreement about what constitutes plastic or metal then? Perhaps we need a different thread to discuss it. I think it is safe to say, from the postings on this thread, that there is not a consensus as to what is meant by the term scratch-building, which is, I presume, the OP's motivation in raising the matter for discussion. My opinion is that scratch-building means physically fabricating the component parts of the model oneself without the use of mechanical processes or automated tooling capable of reproducing identical parts. If we go down the road of saying CAD design for automated production is a scratch-building technique then, as has been said, Hornby and Dapol are producing scratch-built models.

 

As to whether an individual model is scratch-built, as I have already said, if the model is predominantly built using scratch-building methods, as defined above, then, in my view, it is a scratch-built model. No, I don't believe you have to enamel your own copper wire to wind the motor armature and I do not believe that using commercial wheels or boiler fittings for example on an otherwise scratch-built model precludes it from being termed scratch-built, any more than if you build your own wheels an boiler fittings for a kit that stops it being a kit. With something like a coach, I would say that if you have the sides etched and fit them to a scratch-built body shell and maybe use commercial bogie overlays on your own built bogie frames then that is most likely still within the ethos of scratch-building but if you are using etched sides, ends, roof, partitions, underframe etc and commercial bogies you have moved too far from scratch-building to justify the use of the term.

[SHMD]

I'm having trouble with this thread.

 

I keep finding myself agreeing with every poster!

 

Kev.

(And this does not normally happen to me!)

[Pugsley]

And that is the problem with many, many etched kits. However good a set of etched part are, they still require the kit builder to have the much same skill set as they would need to build the same model from scratch.

 

Is it no wonder that some many etched kits languish in forgotten dark corners of cupboards?

I think that the quality of the kits may have something to do with that in some instances! I agree though, most of the skills required are the same.

[N15class]

Are you arguing that Dapol are not making a new model from scratch?

 

You are confusing the process of making with the final owner. I am buying from Dapol a model that they have made from scratch but which is sold to me finished and ready to run.

 

There seems to me a lot of difference in building something from scratch and scratch building. The former implies you start at the begining, the later implies you make using raw materials.

[halfwit]

Is it no wonder that some many etched kits languish in forgotten dark corners of cupboards?

 

A large part of the reason behind the amount of etched kits lying unbuilt must be due to the magpie nature of us modellers. We tend to buy kits as they become available, whether we have time to build them or not. But then who can blame us, as kit manufactorers and their ranges have an alarming habit of disappearing!

[N15class]

Also drawing your 3D CAD model or etch isnt getting someone to make it for you. The file you create makes the part you are just loaning the use of the machine that fabricates the part. A bit like borrowing Bob next doors lathe to make a part because you dont own a lathe. If it was being made for you you would simply be saying to the 3D printing company 'can you make me a cab front for a class 25?' and then they would produce the file and print it. I that respect if you produce the file yourself then it is your work and thus done from scratch. You ae not paying someone to make a part for you you are just borrowing their equipment.

What are you paying for if it is not to get the work done?

[t-b-g]

We will never get agreement on this one and I have run out of things to say without repeating myself (there is a first time for everything!).

 

I will finish with a quote from a non modelling wife of a good friend. She was shown an absoloutely gorgeous model, which was laser cut, having been commissioned and produced from drawings done on a CAD package. My friend and I enthused over the quaility, neatness and finish of the model.

 

"Very nice" she said "but it isn't model making"

[Revolution Mike]

What are you paying for if it is not to get the work done?

 

Material and the use of their very expensive machine. Just like you would have to if you wanted to turn something from brass on your mate's lathe (the slight difference being that an individual could realistically buy a lathe).

 

All the instruction is from my design work and all the skill is in that design work.

[N15class]

Material and the use of their very expensive machine. Just like you would have to if you wanted to turn something from brass on your mate's lathe (the slight difference being that an individual could realistically buy a lathe).

 

All the instruction is from my design work and all the skill is in that design work.

But if I did that I would be borrowing and doing the turning myself not letting someone else do it. With input from my hands with its imperfections. I from reading about etching the etchers still need to do quite a bit of work to produce etches from your drawing.

[54Strat]

I've been following this thread, and remembering the last time we discussed this topic (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/26909-can-3-d-printing-be-called-scratch-building/) where we also surprisingly didn't reach consensus.

 

However, Natalie's earlier post...

 

<snip>

My opinion is that scratch-building means physically fabricating the component parts of the model oneself without the use of mechanical processes or automated tooling capable of reproducing identical parts.

</snip>

 

... hits the nail firmly on the head here. I totally agree it's all about the predominant manufacturing process rather than what materials or skills are used.

 

Paul

[Revolution Mike]

It is still designed from scratch but the term we are discussing is scratch-building not scratch-designing. The issue of who builds the physical model, and how, is key. If I were to draw up a wonderfully detailed CAD model of all the parts required to be cut out from sheet brass or turned on the lathe and assembled by soldering into a model locomotive, then sent that to a model maker to follow and he built that loco for me. I would not have built that loco. How is that different from me sending a CAD design to a 3D printer to manufacture the model?

 

The end product from a 3D printing process in the majority of cases is not going to be a finished product. In many cases the kit of parts may include multiple techniques and materials eg 3D printing, etching and casting from masters - it will depend on what technique is most suitable for a particular task (a bit like choosing between a saw and a hammer). The "issue" of who builds it is a complete red herring as no one is talking about a 3rd party building the kit of parts.

 

You seem to be getting hung up on two more areas: "automation" - though I would argue the machine is only doing what I tell it to and "repeatability" - which I don't really see the problem with.

 

I don't think there is much mileage in repeatedly trying to pin down the exact terminology to define ever more contrived hypothetical models.

 

Yet you are doing exactly that - contriving divisions that don't really exist.

 

My opinion is that scratch-building means physically fabricating the component parts of the model oneself without the use of mechanical processes or automated tooling capable of reproducing identical parts. If we go down the road of saying CAD design for automated production is a scratch-building technique then, as has been said, Hornby and Dapol are producing scratch-built models.

 

I do not believe that using commercial wheels or boiler fittings for example on an otherwise scratch-built model precludes it from being termed scratch-built, any more than if you build your own wheels an boiler fittings for a kit that stops it being a kit. With something like a coach, I would say that if you have the sides etched and fit them to a scratch-built body shell and maybe use commercial bogie overlays on your own built bogie frames then that is most likely still within the ethos of scratch-building but if you are using etched sides, ends, roof, partitions, underframe etc and commercial bogies you have moved too far from scratch-building to justify the use of the term.

 

And at that point you are not even splitting hairs but just trying to create some false division to suit your view.

[Rumblestripe]

But if I did that I would be borrowing and doing the turning myself not letting someone else do it. With input from my hands with its imperfections. I from reading about etching the etchers still need to do quite a bit of work to produce etches from your drawing.

 

Odd that the argument against CAD seems to vary from "you scan a 2D photograph and the computer produces the component" to "the etchers still need to do quite a bit of work to produce etches from your drawing"!

 

I keep going on about this because no-one from the CAD-sceptics seems to want to address the "wheel" issue (sorry). But we all accept that in "scratchbuilding", wheels is a part of the process that we rarely or reluctantly do. To the extent that many turn a blind eye to differences that would provoke howls of derision if made elsewhere on a model. Miss-place the steam ejector pipe and there will be crowds at the exhibition only too eager to help you. But, use a different diameter wheel with the wrong profile and number of spokes and a big nut in the middle and no-one bats an eyelid. Yet a precision designed component of EXACTLY the right shape is in some way not cricket because a computer was used to draw it?

[Revolution Mike]

But if I did that I would be borrowing and doing the turning myself not letting someone else do it. With input from my hands with its imperfections. I from reading about etching the etchers still need to do quite a bit of work to produce etches from your drawing.

 

I am sure there is a b*stardisation of a Sophocles quote in there somewhere along the lines of let no hand touch it save mine own...

 

I am sure that the etchers and 3D printers do have a small input to the process (just like the manufacturers of the "raw" materials unless you are manufacturing your own plastics and/or mining/smelting etc your metals), but the majority of the work is in the design.

 

I can't help feeling reading this that there is a complete lack of comprehension about what goes in to making a 2D or 3D drawing...all I can say is if it were that easy then why isn't everyone doing it? Or is it that people feel threatened that it might actually be easy or accessible enough for the masses?

[Karhedron]

My opinion is that scratch-building means physically fabricating the component parts of the model oneself without the use of mechanical processes or automated tooling capable of reproducing identical parts.

 

I think that this is where we fundementally disagree. Your definition sounds more like hand-made than scratch built.

 

To me, scratch building means making something not available as a finished item or a pre-produced kit. It means taking on the process of designing something as well as assembling it. To me it does not matter what tools or processes are used along the way. If you happen to use a process that allows the reproduction of parts, I do not see why that suddenly prevents the project from being considered scratch-built.

[N15class]

I am sure there is a b*stardisation of a Sophocles quote in there somewhere along the lines of let no hand touch it save mine own...

 

I am sure that the etchers and 3D printers do have a small input to the process (just like the manufacturers of the "raw" materials unless you are manufacturing your own plastics and/or mining/smelting etc your metals), but the majority of the work is in the design.

 

I can't help feeling reading this that there is a complete lack of comprehension about what goes in to making a 2D or 3D drawing...all I can say is if it were that easy then why isn't everyone doing it? Or is it that people feel threatened that it might actually be easy or accessible enough for the masses?

I think the use of anything to make model making easier is a bonus. The CAD to etches is a great bonus, and I have had a few bits done for me. When and if I can do the CAD work myself, I will us it more. But I would not term the models I make from the end results a scratch build.

 

I also get lost when it is said that makinf 1 set of parts is scratch building but when more are done it then becomes kit manufacturing.

 

I cannot get over how many different forms of scratch building you can have it seem there are more than we have members on here.

[billbedford]

A large part of the reason behind the amount of etched kits lying unbuilt must be due to the magpie nature of us modellers. We tend to buy kits as they become available, whether we have time to build them or not. But then who can blame us, as kit manufactorers and their ranges have an alarming habit of disappearing!

I don't think so. People who buy RTR are just as likely to be 'magpie' purchasers as anyone else, but they are not likely to put their new goodies away in a cupboard for years because 'it isn't ready for the layout yet'. The fact is that buying a kit is akin to buying a promise of the wanted model, and the more more complicated the kit is perceived to be, the most distant the promise is to being realised.

[N15class]

I must get on with some work so back to my scratch built carriage with bought in bogies wheels and buffers, and to my kit built A1 with all it's scratch built parts.

See you all later.

[54Strat]

<snip>

If you happen to use a process that allows the reproduction of parts, I do not see why that suddenly prevents the project from being considered scratch-built.

</snip>

 

However, such a process is contrived to mass produce. Would you draw a distinction between whether a project is scratch built if only one copy was made or manufactured if more than one copy was created?

 

This whole business really is a grey area.

 

Paul

[Karhedron]

However, such a process is contrived to mass produce. Would you draw a distinction between whether a project is scratch built if only one copy was made or manufactured if more than one copy was created?

If someone creates the a model (or part of it) using CAD then I would say it is scratch-built. If someone else came along and printed out a set of parts from the same design I would consider it a kit because they had not been involved in the design process.

 

You could argue this is an illogical distinction because the 2 models would be the same. However for me, the key part of scratch-building is the process of designing a model which is not available commercially. A kit builder put the parts together, a scratch builder makes the parts.