Hi,
I am wondering if there is any software out there that can help me with scratchbuilding, in that i can draw up a plan, and then have the dimentions scale out so i know how big i need to cut the materials needed to scratchbuild the structure?
Am i making sense here?
Thanks
Alexander
Just draw plans on paper with a pencil and a ruler, much easier. While I have a low-end CAD program, I would never bother with the effort of preparing plans with the prorgam as it just takes too long.
Any structure that I’ve scratchbuilt was first laid out on cardboard, with waxed paper placed over it. The the actual length of the framing members could be determined and glued together right over the plan. Such plans don’t need to be overly detailed.
You could also follow published plans from magazine articles.
Bob Boudreau
Probably not…certainly none that I’ve ever seen. However, older MRs and RMCs were filled with such building diagrams accompanying their scratchbuilding articles.
CNJ831
You may want to check out Google’s SketchUp (www.sketchup.com). The intoductory version is free and makes it easy to put together quick drawings of buildings. There is a nice set of tutorials that go along with it and take about a 1/2 hour to walk through.
I was quickly able to create a drawing of a building within a couple of hours of installing the program. BTW, I have no experience using any type of CAD software. Click on the pick shown here to see what I did.
As you can see, the software will give you dimensions of anything you draw. However, it gives them in “real” distances. You would have to scale the values down for your scale buildings.
I highy recommend it for simple drawings like these.
Here’s a link to a photo album of mine that shows how I scratchbuilt a copy of a FSM kit: http://tinyurl.com/h5yll
There are photos showing me using a pencil drawn template for making some of the wood framing.
Bob Boudreau
Excellent work Bob!
Thanks to both Bob & Ed. Put both into my favorites, and downloaded program!!
David
You’ve had good advice to draw with paper-and-pencil or a simple CAD program if you would like to come up with your own designs. Since most people I know who scratchbuild use pre-made elements like doors and windows from a variety of manufacturers, it often makes sense to choose these first, then sketch out a drawing to match them. For my few crude scratchbuilding efforts, I’ve sometimes laid out the drawing by sketcing on the styrene itself after laying out the door and window castings.
Of course, there are still drawings of buildings being published in modeling mags, but much richer resources of drawings of real buildings also exist, at least for the US. There are probably similar resources elsewhere.
In the US, one of these is the Historic American Buildings / Historic American Engineering Record (or HABS/HAER). This is part of the US Library of Congress and more of it is being digitized all the time and placed on-line. Here’s the link:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/
You may search on location or for other words.
For example, searching on the HABS/HAER site for the word “depot” turned up hundreds of entries. Most of these have only extensive photo studies (although these would be sufficient after you’ve done your first couple projects, I should think). But some come complete with drawings, as does this one of an Illinois Central freight house later tunred into a two-stall enginehouse:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=hhsheet&fileName=il/il0700/il0720/sheet/browse.db&action=browse&recNum=0&title2=Illinois%20Central%20Railroad,%20Freight%20Depot%20No.%201,%20North%20of%20First%20Street,%20east%20of%20Union%20Street,%20La%20Salle,%20La%20Salle%20County,%20IL&displayType=1&maxCols=2&itemLink=D?hh:10:./temp/~ammem_JpC6::
Here’s an example – one of the three view drawings from this listing:
Byron,
Awesome link. I’ve never seen this material before. Thanks.
Bob,
Awsome!
Thanks everyone. I am going to have a try of sketchup.
Alexander