Hello WOW you guy’s have some outstanding model’s and skill’s. I feel like I should remove my photos and put them at the end of the thread. I would like to ask how long you guy’s have been scratchbuilding. And what kind of tool’s do you use? And what secrets and tips you would like to shear. I really enjoy scratchbuilding and would like to improve my skills. Thanks for shearing Frank
On my WW-II Navy blimp base 2x3 foot N scale mini-layout, a vehicle maintenance facility (2/3rd the length of actual building photographed & measured on ruins of the old base)…a WW-II era concrete water tower built with minimal steel to conserve for the war effort… a fuel depot (pretty much the military equivalent of a bulk oil depot) For reference, I used some detailed drawings of standpipe fixtures from a model magazine, photos from a 1950s Navy base yearbook, and information from an interview with an actual WW-II blimp pilot who explained that the blimps’ engines used same aviation gasoline as airplanes.
Below, my first N scale model, built as a feasibility project in 1969 to see if modeling in N scale was practical, built in a hospital bed with balsa wood, an Xacto knife, a tube of airplane glue and a grade school ruler to figure measurements. And the paper from a hospital meal menu as backing under the roof. But of course not painted until I got out of the hospital. Before going in the hospital, I had taken some notes and measurements from a house being torn down in a slum clearance project.
Lat Lattimore’s barn outside Fort Worth as if appeared during a 1977 LSR Region NMRA layout tour; he stopped after painting just the front side of the barn, to concentrate on the more important work of getting the layout ready.
I cheated. Lattimore’s layout, the “Texas and Africa RR” was HO, but I built
Scratchbuilt wedge plow in On30, based upon a Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes 2 foot gauge plow:
Built upon a cut down and modified Bachmann flat car chassis.
WOW! Some impressive stuff in this thread!
In the photo below, the Silo, the silage chopper/blower, and the spring house/milk house are all scratch builds.
Impressive stuff here. I don’t have anything scratchbuilt, but have been looking at a few structures to build. I have a question though. Do you guys go from actual measurements of the structures and scale them down or do you just use a close enough to scale/actual size process? Sometimes I miss the old blueprints articles for building things that was in MRR. Of course I don’t recall any Model of the Month recently either.
I built my SR&RL On30 plow from plans and photos in issues of the Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette. Other structures from published plans or actual blueprints.
I scratchbuilt the CN double ended plow in styrene below from basic plans and on site measurements of a prototype plow, as well as photos I took:
The plow was MR’s Model of the Month for August 1999. The feature was cancelled after the next issue. That’s why you haven’t seen any Models of the Month for a while.
Further of my scratchbuilt models:
CNJ831
Incredible thread!!!
Hi,
Yes the “Model of the month” is a missing feature I think in MR; it gives me often the little impulse to scratch, because when seeing the pics I say in my mind “its faisable”.
And of course this kind of features is not the only one missing in MR…
Great work everybody.
Marc
I liked “Model of the Month” to showcase models that were probably not otherwise suitable for a full construction article, or from someone who perhaps was not interested in doing an article. In fact, when I made my CN double ended plow I didn’t take photos during construction for a possible article because I thought it was too exotic for publication. CN only had four of them, so I assumed making one would be of limited appeal. I had three other Model of the Month for structures I scratchbuilt, again too complicated for a feature article.
With my station at Naumburg I had made pictures and made my own drawings following the picture. When I finished this and started building I’ve got original drawings. Friendly in 1.87. [:)]
For this farm co-op I had only pictures. A friend told me “this is a usual door, 2m tall”. That was the point.
You will find more at my website.
Wolfgang
Here’s some of Mine.
This is a wood Great Western Caboose, I built this from photo’s in a book about the Great western Rwy.A Colorado short line.
Next is Great Western Coach #100. Also from photographs…
The interior of the same car…Still a work in progress…
And here is a Barn also still in the unfinished state…
I may have shared this previously…
It’s probably my best scratchbuilding project to date.
dlm