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Sweet dreams!
I try to minimize my rivet counting tendencies because I seem to do more collecting (packratting old brass) as opposed to operating or having a permanent layout.My problem isn’t with rivet counters but with highly detailed locomotives and rolling stock that often are easily damaged from handling from something as simple as putting it back on track after a derailment. I like the detail but sometimes it seems a bit absurd how easily deranged the “scale correct” bits are, I am not a total clutz but I’m not a microsurgeon either. Thanks for letting me rant off subject. My "cure "for rivet counting double heading Big Boys with SD40s or MAC90s on well cars with cabooses with helpers to make the grades on the concrete continental divide (basement floor).
This hobby is big enough for everyone.
Personally, as a professional railroader, I find the emphasis on prototypical operation, and detail a little obsurd. To me cars are simply tools, and I don’t car if the boxcar is a PS or ACF or whatever, as long as it’s the right car for the load. And likewise after 8 hours of treading traffic though my yard, dealing with customers, and making sure the right car gets on the right train, the last thing I want to do when I get home, is do it all over again. All I want is to turn my models on, and watch them roll through my scenery.
Having said that, I do have the utmost respect for those of you that care that the car has the right number of grab irons, and run your models like the big boys. It takes a great deal of skill to make that happen.
I just request that you don’t tell me I’m doing it wrong. Respect the way I chose to practice the hobby and I’ll repect yours.
Nick
The problem here is the term “rivet counter” which can mean darn-near anything, as has been discussed.
The word we’re looking for, I think, is “judgmental”. It’s a word that cannot be decoupled (no pun intended) from attitude.
And that, I think, is the point here. One can, using the exact same words, offer advice and point out areas for possible improvement; or, be judgmental, condescending and parochial.
Example: “Oh, did you know that 24” radius curves are impossibly tight and would almost never be used on a real railroad?"
Tone, attitude and context can turn the contextual meaning of this phrase into anything from “… so enjoy your trains and quit fretting that your 80’ cars hang over too much” to “…so since you don’t have a football-field sized outbuilding for your trains, you may as well give up now” and about anything in between.
While I don’t like to see any post that lashes out at a group, I will say that I have often encountered too much judgmental attitude within this hobby… in which I include both blanket condemnations of “rivet counters” as well as what I think the original poster meant by the term: those with condescending attitudes about those-who-are-not-sufficiently-prototypical.
Both are equally wrong, both are equally damaging to the hobby, and both (I fear) drive inexperienced folks out of the hobby. To me, that is the greatest damage of all.
If you mean the really annoying, judgemental type who will gripe if one little thing is wrong for the era, then what I do when confronted by one of those is to hide the single-malt and imported beer and get out the Keystone or Micky’s.
I’m a rivet-counter. But only when it comes to my own equipment. I really dont give a *** what other people run, model and spend money on. I just like to strive to have a level of detail on my models that some people dont bother with, or dont have the skills to do.
Goes back to bending grabs
Wretched as those are, it’s still technically beer and thus too good for them.
i say they get tepid tap water in a dixie cup and no more.
Hahhahaaaha
Redneck Boy you get around…ya touched the 3rd rail of large scale with your question about scale preference.LOL
Now ya gotta go stick your foot in it with the dreaded rivet-counter issue here. LOLROF
OK everyone cut Red some slack…[;)]
Checking his profile it says he’s only 13 so he couldnt have had any idea he was throwing rocks at a hornets nest…
This is another touchy subject. While I agree with those who say that “Rivet Counters” are important to the hobby because they are often the ones who’s marketing demand get manufacturers to produce highly detailed and very accurate models, I dont have a problem with these guys, its the Holier-than-thou in-your-face types who go after your freelanced kitbash with a vengance becasue “There aint no such prototype ever for that so its nothing but a piece of pure sheee-ite!” types. Beleive you me, I’ve encountered them and it makes no difference to them if your layout and everypiece of equipement is completely freelanced, or whimsicle which they also consider less than dirt, and will tell you so often vugarly. Now so far I’ve only encountered a very few of them but pity the poor newbie who runs afoul of them before they’ve built up the Rhino-like hide most of us older types have excreted over the years. I now have learned to simply smile, extend a certain finger and kindly ask them to “Jump on this and Spin”[:0]
Dont worry too much Redneck, personally I find these subjects are often the most interesting so THANKS from me for posting it…feel that Rhino hide growing yet?[:D]
You know, given that, I have new perspective. His view about “rivet counters” may in fact be a symptom of exactly the standoffish attitude being discussed right now in “Why Open Houses” thread.
So, while I stand by my comment that being over-judgmental is one of the problems in this hobby, I apologize if I harshed on you, Redneck.
concerning the san juan archbar trucks; any opinions on why some have the full 52 rivets, while others only 51?
I think when uses the term “rivet counter” they are not referring to all scratch builders or Proto 87 modelers. I think what they mean are the people with poor social skills you run into from time to time at a hobby shop, train show, swap meet or club. They can be rude, eavesdropping on conversations then butting in uninvited to offer some sort of unsolicited criticism of a layout or piece of equipment.
Most modelers who have mastered a skill or did the legwork to become an expert on a given railroad just wi***o pass on the skills to others. These are the type of people who provide the market for all of the railroad books we enjoy. Heck, many of these people wrote the books themselves. These people may get labeled “rivet counters” but they are hardly the ones being referred to when people use the term in the perjorative.
Rivet counter?
I personally am only a “Rib Counter.”
Without rivet counters, you wouldn’t have excellent weathering from the likes of Mellow-Mike, MrKluke, Aggro, etc. Although, MrKluke HAS admitted he’s only a rib counter, like I! [;)]
I think rivet-counting is fine. As stated previously, you wouldn’t have Intermountain, Atlas, P2K, maybe even no Athearn.
David-
Well said. You explained it perfectly, in a manner anyone should be capable of understanding.
And you used correct grammar, that’s two points in your favor![;)]
Thats a very good point, there is a huge difference between a swap meet Rivet Counter and an NMRA Master Modeler[;)]
How many rivet counters? I’d say 28, 562… No, I missed one… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …
How about the counter-rivet-counters? The one’s that criticize those that want to get as close to scale accuracy as possible? Are these types just as bad as the “holier than thou” rivet counters?
What, I wonder, would be an appropriate nickname for the habitually anti-rivet-counter model railroader–the one who flies into a rage if someone mentions a prototypical detail, and rants about their right to pull bi-level Superliner cars with a diamond-stacked 4-4-0 and a string of 36’ wood boxcars with an AC4400?
“Tycos” perhaps?
Making fun of the way other people enjoy themselves only shows us your own insecurities.
I could say for example that those who just buy RTR are not model railroaders but rather just toy train collectors and that one has to actually build something to qualify as a model railroader. But I wouldn’t say that.
We all should be able to enjoy the hobby without being put down by others. Rivet counters observe and comment to enlighten others, not to makle fun of or put others down. They may sometimes be misguided in that all of us may not welcome their critiques, but they are not trying to be malicious.
If they are as obnoxius about it as some of the swap meet riveters we’ve discussed, than yes, I’d agree . I’ve never encountered one though. In large scale whimsy and shear fantasy can and does run amok with many modelers yet everyone seems to admire a well crafted accurate model, and those that make just the cheesiest looking things are just pleased as punch that the dam things make it all the way around the track! [:D]