im new to model railroading and have only recenty started reading MR and have heard people talk about scratch building things like cabboses and trucks but i tryed making my first scratckbuilt thing a cross bettween a wheat storage facilaty and a petrol station i dont know how u people do it my instict tells me to stick with kit models can u’s tell me what to do
CodyR$
I’d say stick with Kits for awhile, once your comfortable with them, move on to detailing them with non-standard parts, then when you feel you really understand how a building goes together, you’re ready to try a scratch build. I’d start small, take the measurements of your house, scale it down and build a replica of it. if it looks good and you think it really looks like your house, then your ready to try more. it takes alot of practice and alot of patience to get a scracth build up and running.
Jay
I bet the first time you tried to drive it was hard too. Don’t get discouraged, it takes time, pratice, and learning of some methods and skills. Check out http://www.the-gauge.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=29 for some help and examples. A scratch built building can give you pleasure in having built it and also be one of a kind. After you been in the hobby a while you get to where you can spot a kit a mile away as there are only so many kits ever made. Don’t toss your first try, fix it later as you develop more skill and later you will come to cherish it. Also try a kit from http://www.dpmkits.com/ and work your way up to craftsman kits and use them as a jump off point. FRED
The DPM site is good - it also has templates of all the building parts they make. If you have access to a photocopier, and some cerealboard (cardboard from ceral boxes) you can make yourself some pretty good mock-ups. They can be coloured with pencil crayons or dollar store craft paints. If you make them too good, they may be there for a while!! [;)]
While you are at The Gauge site above, look for structures built by “Matthyro” - he does all his N-scale stuff with cerealboard and other readily available materials.
Wood “craftsman” kits are another way to go. It’s just like scratch-building, but someone has assembled the materials and plans for you. You still have to do a fair degree of cutting and assembly. The advantage is once you’re done, you can get more supplies and build another…
Good luck… and practice, practice, practice!
Andrew
Memories
I “scratch built” my first structures when I was 11 years old. They were a gas station and a motel made out of red paper with the windows and doors drawn on using a ball point pen.
A few years latter I built an “HO” brick meat packing plant based on a Frank Ellision “O” model in a book about modeling with Lionel trains. This time the walls done on white paper glued to cardboard. Doors, windows and bricks were drawn using a pen once again, but the indvidual bricks were painted using paint from a paint by number set. It actually looked pretty good.
The best way to learn to “sccratch build” is just to do it.
I started scratchbuilding in similar fashion–I built a small trackside shanty out of cardboard, colored the walls and roof with a set of colored pencils, and used masking tape painted black to simulate tar-paper.
Start scratchbuilding SMALL things–trackside shanties, small houses, sheds, roadside signs. Work your way up from there, rather than trying to build a steel mill from scratch with no experience.
Building a few kits, and taking the time to apply more details and personal “flair” to it, is a good way to gain scratchbuilding skills too. Kits can give you good ideas about how to fit parts together and make your own “kit.”
I suggest trying a laser wood kit structure. Scratch building with wood is nice because it glues nicely and takes paint well. A small garage or shed is a good first scratch building project and you can almost rough out the dimensions on a sheet of paper without having an elaborate drawing.
Dave Nelson
If there is a model kit you like, but its not in your scale, you can often use it as a pattern to duplicate the parts in your scale.
Kit bashing can also lead to scratch building, and there is nothing wrong with using suitible kit or commercial detail parts to build the model you want.
I’m sorry to have to rib ya a little here, but if it’s a kit it really isn’t scratchbuilt. But I agree with what you are saying. FRED
Don’t get disheartened, there will come a time when nothing else will get you what you want but to either kit-bash or scratch build. Nobody is born a genius modeller, except maybe Da Vinci, so don’t get discouraged, keep trying and have fun.
Heh heh Flee/Fred I meant start with a laser wood kit as a way of getting to work with wood, and then scratch build something easy out of wood. But I was not clear.
Dave Nelson
Don’t wait to start scratchbuilding! Do it now! Its easy and much more fun than a kit. You’ll improve your skills faster, too. I highly recommend Evergreen Scale Models book on scratchbuilding in plastic. A very good book, even for the expert.
It might be easier to start with some kind of storage facility featuring large tanks - these can be easily made from plastic piping from a DIY store. Use brass wire to make pipe runs between the tanks. The results should be very impressive and also reasonably simple to build (and also very reasonably priced). I’m planning to build a plastic pellet storage facility using this method - a reason to run my Athearn ACF hoppers!
I agree
my first atempt was a shead and it looked realy funny as well as the second one.
then i tryed diffrent things to make them out of and is a firm beliver in balsa wood, card and paper
hi me again since i started this tread i have tryed to “scratch builds” and i think im getting it my first one looked a bit budget i made it out of wood and i found a use for that fluff stuff that comes with atherns trains u stick on the board and paint it green looks like grass my second one was a petrol station/wheat proccesing plant/ steel works i dont know what it is i will post a picture soon for u’s to laugh at or admire
codyr
It is often a good idea to have an idea what it is you’re trying to scratchbuild before you build it. You don’t find too many gas station/grain mill/steelworks in the real world, after all. While it’s certainly possible to create plans for scratchbuilding purely from imagination, having a real-world thing you’re trying to model can be very helpful, as well as providing a model to determine dimensions, details, etcetera.
well im not the planning type and it was ether that or nothing cause i used every thing i have on it but its pretty good why im here anyone know how to makt trees
codyr