What happened to all of us?

[Cox 47]

Is there still anybody out there that still likes to build things? Anybody out there still use card stock? enjoy digging into a junk box and making something for the layout? Think they should charge less for something already put together?Has time passed me by or are there some of us still left out there. Remember the $ car articles in MR and the ER Moore stuff mostly in balsa in RMC ? I know times they a changi........ but they must be some of us out there O'd KZ DJ

[cwclark]

I'm here huckleberry......i love to kitbash and scratchbuild...it brings me great enjoyment to play with balsa and styrene..i also like to work with brass...all my signal targets are scratchbuilt and i'm about to start a brass sanding tower to incorperate on my layout...i don't hand lay track except for the rails on the bridges...that's the only exception...Chuck

[raynbecky]

Sure, all the time! Although now it's not so much on cars and engines thanks to the availability of so much stuff these days. Now it's buildings/cars/trucks/etc...I have had to scratchbuild things like tool boxes/chassis/etc for MOW trucks. If I need a part that isn't made commercially I'll build it myself. I still do it, just not to the extent I did many years ago. Thankfully I don't need to! :>

[Fergmiester]

We're here but time is always the issue these days. I do scratch out of necessity as I find somethings to expensive or don't meet my requirements. If the price was right and what I needed was readily available I'd be inclined to go that route. Still there is alot of satisfaction to be gained from doing things from the ground up.

Fergie

[randybc2003]

I do like to scratch. [^] I have worked a very little in brass, mostly in wood, and a little in plastic. I still think of plastic as a "new" scratchbuilding material. I don't use cardstock too much any more. Yes, they DO charge too much for pre-built structures. I like my particular designs so much, I more likeley think of scratch building than kits. I do use kits some, both plastic and "craftsman". At the local club, I get rave reviews on my shanties, sheds, and a little branchline station. One guy wanted a fruit stand for his siding, so I left him the scrap to do it. He was surprised that the woodshed that inspired him was scratchbuilt. On cars, I do modifications and kitbashing. MR has run a number of articles on scratchbuilding, and still ocasionaly shows how to modify a kit. Check out Narrow Gage & Shortline Gazzet. If you want easy "craftsman" stuff, check out the LAZER KIT stuff. Grandt Line has some good kits too, and supplies a lot of windows, doors, etc.
I don't think the art is dead yet! Here's to the memory of Ben King - CLINK!! [:D][:D]

[jdolan]

Scratch building and kit bashing are fun and good for a person to use his head.

[areibel]

We're still out here! I'm a fairly new addition to that list, since I switched scales from HO to TT. But going from a scale where almost everything was RTR to one where nothing is RTR, I'm slowly learning.

[cjcrescent]

There are a lot more of us out here than you think. I personally do not know anyone who buys RTR in our group at all, or if they do, its so substantially reworked that the RTR term no longer applies to the model in question, this includes cars, locos and buildings. I personally only have two items purcahsed RTR, and both of those have been so rebuilt, if you didn't know they were originally RTR, you'd be hard pressed to say otherwise.

I'm not putting down the people that do buy the RTR and such. Remember, please, that there is no one way to be a model railroader. I know that it did take me many years of learning and practice to acquire the skills/knowledge that I do have and some folks don't have the desire or patience to learn similar skills. But I get way more personal satisfaction knowing that one, I did it myself, and two, no one has a model exactly like it , any where. There may be similar ones, but none exactly like it. With unaltered RTR, you can't say either of those.

[Anonymous]

I'm here and have said many times I don't like the direction this hobby is headed. Too much pre-built stuff. Don't need it, don't want it! This hobby is about building stuff, to me! Just last night on 60 minutes they talked about the Echo generation, which I guess is the kids growing up now. My kids generation and slightly younger. These kids have no patience, everything must be instantaneous and they are driving the market, now. When something doesn't work, they throw it away! They have no abilities to take things apart and attempt to understand how it is built, functions and effect repairs. Both my kids learned how to model and, have a curiosity about what makes things ticks, because I was a modeler and messed with stuff and fixed things when I could.

The truly sad thing about all this is the manufacturers are simply responding to what the market wants. Therefore, none of us whom like building kits can do anything about this. I predict in a few short years no (or very few) manufacturers will offer kits anymore! It's to their advantage to provide built kits and charge more for them.

[raynbecky]

The good news about that last post is that those of us that do possess these skills and those that take time to learn them now will be in higher demand. That in turn means we can charge more for our services too. :> Take a look at how much those custom vehicles sell for on E-Bay!

[pike-62]

Here is my latest scratch build project.

This is a GE 132 ton centercab as was owned by Ford then sold to the Wellsville Addison & Galeton RR. For more pictures click on the "how to" link on my web site.
Dan Pikulski
www.DansResinCasting.com

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Cox 47

Is there still anybody out there that still likes to build things? Anybody out there still use card stock? enjoy digging into a junk box and making something for the layout? Think they should charge less for something already put together?Has time passed me by or are there some of us still left out there. Remember the $ car articles in MR and the ER Moore stuff mostly in balsa in RMC ? I know times they a changi........ but they must be some of us out there O'd KZ DJ

I'm a scratchbuildin' fool! My latest project was a brass HO scale ore bridge with a working tram and clamshell bucket. Before that, an X-large blast furnace (styrene); and before that, a selectively-compressed Great Lakes ore boat (styrene/resin).

This is precisely why I still haven't gotten anything done on my new layout besides the bench work --- I enjoy building structures a helluva lot more than... *UGH!*[xx(]... laying and wiring track! But I will summon all my willpower and overcome that hurdle in 2005 (I hope...!)

[cefinkjr]

What's this "kit bashing" people keep talking about? Do you mean mixing parts from multiple kits to create something unique? Is there any other use for kits? [:)][:)][:)] [swg]

I've done some scratch building and intend to do more now that I've retired. The distraction of earning a salary (and being on call 24x7) kind of got me away from most modeling projects.

danpik: Beautiful GE center cab!![bow] Wish I had your skill. From your web site, I see that you're into resin casting. What do you think of the feasibility of reproducing VGN (or N&W or C&O) 100 ton 'battleship' gondolas as castings? Could the basic body be a single casting or would it have to be multiple castings combined to make each car? The correct trucks would be a problem but I could live with "close".

Chuck

[cjcrescent]

Chuck;
Funaro & Camerlengo currently offer the VGN "battleship" gons. They are flat castings and are nice kits. You can obtain them two ways, in a box for about twenty, maybe a little more and out of the box for less. They even may still be on sale at a two for one price. The trucks recommended for the model is a six wheel buckeye and they recommend the Athearn buckeye for this.

[BNSFNUT]

I still scratch build or kit bash a lot. I have no problem with RTR freight cars as they save me time that I can use on other projects. I have very few kits that are built to plans I like to change a kits looks so no one can just look and say thats a Walthers kit number xxxx. I have bought one built up structure because it was the only way I could get it and even then I repainted it.

[Jetrock]

I definitely still kitbash, and occasionally scratchbuild--and, at the very least, hunt for cheap kits that can be made beautiful with a little modification.

My main problem with RTR is that someone went through all that trouble to build a kit and I'm just going to have to disassemble it! Thus went one of my Christmas presents this year--a Walthers C-30-1 caboose--I'm going to repaint it so the first thing I did was grab the screwdriver and crack it open! Now it's a kit again!

Building structures and rolling stock is definitely more fun in cold weather than doing trackwork/benchwork--while I do enjoy doing scenery, I am tempted to just build up my stock of built buildings until the weather gets warmer!

[fec153]

don't be so quick to judge. some of us just aren't handy,skillful or whatever. I have put together many BB kits but canNot get a handle on the craftsman kits. My fingers are to clumsy. Yes, I've tried but darn, can't do them. And no, I have very few rtr cars. Out of 500 maybe 12.

[Anonymous]

Well I would love to kit bash and scratch build
but it seems we are thought of as crazies who sit hunched over work benches cluttered with tiny I-beams and other angle iron replicas in balsa.
No one makes a kit for UP's roundhouse in HO scale
nor most other buildings or bridges.
I work for a home builder in the architecture dept. I love to draw and design building from old black and white photos.
Laying out the girders and beams and supports to see a structure come together. Doing it this way really puts an emphasis on the interior detail that most standard kits are missing.

[Anonymous]

We're here, just in smaller numbers. I recently was at my LHS getting some windows for a cardstock(!) freight terminal and a dummy F7A for a camera project, and the owner remarked "Modelers? We still get those?" while he cast me a wink and a grin.

The explosion of high quality RTR offerings has tempted many a kitbasher and scratchbuilder. I'll freely admit to picking up an Athearn yellow box caboose last month (one of 4 RTRs in my collection), and I haven't even thought about superdetailing a locomotive since my Bowser K-11. The threshold for me has shifted some, now that work consumes a majority of my time and energy. I have models half built and unpainted, waiting for that elusive weekend when I can devote 16 hours to the trains. I'm proud that all my structures are either kits or scratches, and that there is currently a bag of parts for a brass water spout for the eventual steam maintaince terminal on the modules. I have come to a balance I think...I don't handmake parts that I can get from the little bags on the wall at the LHS, and Plastruct is my friend for shapes, but I'll never touch an RTR building and I still weather all my own rolling stock.

My $0.02

-dave

[PennsyHoosier]

I do a limited amount of scratchbuilding, but I do love to kitbash. I don't care for RTR cars or prebuilt buildings. I had one of the latter. I tore it apart and reworked it. It looks better now than when it came out of the box.

[trolleyboy]

I will not buy the RTR's my thought is that they are weekening the hobby by cost alone in canada the athearn yellow boxes are running in the $40 to $50 mark and if you model Canadian lines like myself you have to kitbash or redetail them anyway so I go with the kit cars where available or make from scratch when needed mind you I will use bagged manufacturers parts as much as possible. unfortunatly time isn't always a luxuey I have so scratch building in my house has become a rarity anymore, on the upside since traction equipment is a mainstay in my hobby efforts I still have the need to be creative and actually build models I don't win awards but I do have fun and that I think is the point in our wonderfull hobby.[2c]Rob

[tatans]

This forum couldn't be better timed. I just got an OLD Roundhouse kit . It's a 3 in 1 to build an MW water tank car, a chemical tank car & a tower car(anyone know how old this kit is??) well, I started with one small page of instructions and a couple of really ratty blurred photos of the real thing for guides, every second line reads "Additional materials required). there are far too many strange parts--must be from some other kit-- I have to cut a reefer into 3 parts, the other part is for the other car somewhere, the parts included look nothing like the drawings, there are instructions for a car that does not exist and they keep referring to another series of cars that they sold also,Then I read halfway through the page and it quotes "Those wishing to build simpler versions of these basic cars should use the instructions on page 4 (which doesn't exist) However, if you want a Kit-bashing good time.....READ ON!" Now, I'm not complaining!!!! but I'm sure having a great time trying to assemble this monster. So if you want some fun "KIT-BASHING" pick up one of these old babies and go to it, if you have a week put aside. I'm really having a blast with it!!!! P.S. I just looked at the outside of the box, it says: "Creativity" and the purchase of additional construction parts will be necessary. the topic for this forum couldn't be have been better, along with some great responses already.

[Anonymous]

I know that kit! There's one half finished in my hobby closet [:D] I put it away after getting a set of 12 of those awesome Tichy ore cars, which are complete except for handrails and paint and couplers and trucks and...

Oops, the Akane has developed a squeaky tender wheel. Back in a minute.

-dave

[Anonymous]

Im one who loves scratchbuilding, etc.![:)]

[ericsp]

I like to build kits. From time to time I will do a scratchbuilding and kitbashing project. I will soon be scratchbuilding an oil refinery and a tomato processing plant.

I have scratchbuilt/kitbashed a Southern Pacific TEBU. I used an Athearn U-Boat for the frame down and scratchbuilt everything about the frame. I still have to make the handrails.

[dharmon]

I scratchbuild and kitbash on occasion. I also spend alot of time building up things from swap meet cast offs....a frame here, a shell there and some trucks and a motor from somewhere else. Detailing and painting are a big part of my hobby enjoyment. The number of RTR items I own might exceed one hand's worth of counting, but certainly not two.

I started modeling in the late seventies as a kid. Athearn ruled and if they didn't make it and you couldn't afford brass, kitbashing was the only way to go. The old MRs and RMCs were full of how to articles on making an X from an Athearn Y and Z shells on a reworked whatever frame. RTR was Tyco and Bachmann, everything else was a kit of some sort. RTR is a difficult concept, as I feel obliged to do something other than take it out of the box....that's just not fun to me.

[cefinkjr]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cjcrescent
Funaro & Camerlengo currently offer the VGN "battleship" gons. They are flat castings and are nice kits. You can obtain them two ways, in a box for about twenty, maybe a little more and out of the box for less. They even may still be on sale at a two for one price. The trucks recommended for the model is a six wheel buckeye and they recommend the Athearn buckeye for this.

Found an F&C battleship gon on the web for $20.95 less t/c (MSRP: $29.99). But that's a price per car as in one car -- less t/c -- for $20.95! Since these gons would only look right in strings of 20 or more, we're talking about at least $420 plus the cost of the trucks and couplers. Too rich for my pocket book. I was hoping to get away for a whole lot less per car. (another advantage of scratch building -- sometimes ).

Chuck

[twhite]

Here's to those MDC '3-in-one's' Tatans, I have a bunch of them wandering about on my layout, it's how I built my work train. They're about 10-maybe 20 years old, but you can still find them occasionally. Personally, I'm fond of 'kit-bashing', especially now that I have the time to do it. I don't mind RTR when it comes to rolling stock--in fact, after having blurred my eyes building some Intermountain and Red Caboose kits, I kind of WELCOME it--but I still like to open a box and see parts lying there saying "Okay, are you ready?". So we're still here and busily filing away.
Tom

[Anonymous]

All structures on my layout have been hand build except for a few houses and the roundhouse and engine house. Thats the only way you can get what you need. When building my layout it is modeled after the WM when it ran through my town. I model the 50-60s and could not find anything to match what used to be there so it left me no other choice. Its wasn't a bad job but every day for a year to get them done got old. Now I find myself kinda bored since I have nothing else to build. Thank heavens for plastruct, and grandtline making it possible to build each building as it was years ago. Oh yeah and my memory and some photos.

[rogerhensley]

I scratchbuild or kitbash whatever my railroad needs that I can't find easily.

It is a misconception that scratchbuilding is all pieces and parts. I have no intention of doing a board by board structure, but I scratchbuild. The idea is to build a structure that looks as intended and fits a need. This doesn't mean that it is a contest or museum quality model.

Here is some of my work from the "Tips, Tricks and How To..." pages of the Central Indiana Division, NMRA:

Scratchbuilt:
The Quonset Hut - http://cid.railfan.net/scratch_quonset.html
Suki Plastix - http://cid.railfan.net/scratch_plastix.html

Scratchbuilding and kitbashing has taken a blow with R-T-R today, and parts are harder to come by now, but there are still modelers doing it. To see that scratchbuilding and kitbashing is still alive and well, visit the NMRA home page http://www.nmra.org/ and take the Scratchbuild Showcase pages.



East Central Indiana HO Scale Railroad - http://cid.railfan.net/eci_new.html