As a beginner in the hobby, I understand that with the advent, and improving 3D printing industry it has never been easier to create the shell bodies of locomotives you want to build, rolling stock, and structures. However I have also come to realize, and ask you fellow fourm memebers, is scratchbuilding still is an import skill to learn? I am guessing that there are things 3D printing cannot build and have the effect of copared to say, an entirly scratch built trestle out of real metal, like the CPR Stony Creek trestle build I saw featured in an article in an older issue of MRR I discovered on the digital archives.So, regardless of the advantages 3D printing has, is still imporant to learn scratch building from basic materials, and kit bashing as well? I feel this has an advantage, as you mean, feel and actul create with many materials instead of the basic 3D printing stuff.What do you think, and what would your advice be?
Yes, because it teaches you to develop and hone your hand-skills and that is always invaluable - no matter where your skill level is at.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
yup, it's important to remember that once you learn a new skill, you don't automatically forget the older one ..
From the title of your post, I would have guessed this was your first and last post, expecting to get 100 replies.
Your forum name implies you like to stir the pot and so do I.
I think we are still early in the development of 3D printers. They are not cheap, they are not fast and objects, such as HO auto bodies, still have a grainy experience. Nevertheless some people are making component parts for larger structures.
You still need, and probably will for some time, a vision of what you want to create. How many windows, doors what size and where will they be? You need construction and painting skills.
I think one could jump from assembling Walthers kits to assembling a 3D printed "kit" but I think we are along way from having a program where we can program a 3D printer to build a 60, 80, 100' Pratt truss bridge, or build a coal mine spanning 2, 3 or 4 tracks by making some selections in a computer program, with no assembly required.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Scratchbuilding is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby AFIC. I can't think of anyone who has said that they didn't like it, even those whose first attempts were, let's say, "to be improved upon".
Personally, my scratchbuilding has mostly been for structures but I have also made lots of machine tools and workbench accessories like vises and grinders. I have also made critters out of brass like the one in my avatar.
Some of the details are finer with 3D printing, but I don't think that those details are absolutely essential to conveying the message. For example, here are some machine tools that I scratchbuilt:
Here are some cast models which are similar in detail to what 3D printing can do:
Certainly the difference in detail is noticeable up close, but put those same tools inside a shop where you are looking at them through a window and the detail is much less noticeable. The scratch built models cost me next to nothing. They were all made out of scraps. The cast models were $6 - $8 each, and 3D printed models can be more expensive than that.
Scratchbuilding is far superior to 3D printing when it comes to structures. Larger structures would be prohibitively expensive to print in 3D, and they would have to be printed in sections in many cases. Some of doctorwayne's huge scratchbuilt and kitbashed structures would cost hundreds of dollars to print. Even scratchbuilding smaller structures is more cost effective. The walls and roof of this engine shed are made out of pine slabs cut from a solid block. I doubt that there is $0.50 worth of pine in the whole thing:
If I wanted exposed stud walls on the interior that could have been done with a few dollars worth of scale lumber.
The biggest aspect of scratchbuilding is the pleasure derived from it! Whether the item is an exact copy of something or a one-off doesn't matter. Modelling involves working with your hands and scratchbuilding is one of the things that modelling is all about IMHO.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
My son-in-law has a very good high-end 3D printer. He has offered to make some things for me.
I don't see me taking the offer. I enjoy the scratchbuilding.
There's a satisfaction for me in cutting the styrene sheets, measuring angles, changing details, etc., that I wouldn't have if I designed it on the computer and then "printed" it.
Even if printing was cheaper, and if the quality of the finished project was better, I'd still enjoy making it myself better than printing.
It takes me weeks to scratchbuild a building. It would take me two minutes to order a ready-built building online. Which will I enjoy more?
hon30critterScratchbuilding is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby
I agree!
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
I pretty much agree with BigDaddy Henry on every point, up to and including pot stirring.
3D printing is not yet there. Even high end commercially produced double extra smooth products are grainy. They are also friable and as delicate as spider spun glass.
I cheat at scratch building. I use a milling machine and a laser engraver/cutter to fabricate components, and my buildings and structures have many pieces and parts; as many as, and very often more than, any Walthers kit. So for me, scratch building and kit assembly are pretty much one in the same.
I'm not sure I understand the precise point of your post, but I can say that sharp eyes and steady hands will never be replaced.
Welcome to the forum. Welcome to the World's Greatest Hobby.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
BigDaddy From the title of your post, I would have guessed this was your first and last post, expecting to get 100 replies. Your forum name implies you like to stir the pot and so do I.
Just because you have ''fast food'' on every corner, with delivery.
You gonna throw out your stove?
You can 3D print all the parts you want, piles of em
But if you lack scratch building skills and mindset, you just have a pile of parts
Hi random_id
Yes learning to scratch build is still important.
I don't have the skills to produce a print program in fact when it comes to computors I don't have a lot of the knowledge or skills for it.
So if no one does a print of something I want I have to make it myself comercial 3D printing will end up being like the current comercial models only popular subjects will be comercialy done.
I have this mad idea that at least one item on a model railway should be scratch built as that is the bit that makes it different from every one else's and is also the bit that truly makes the layout yours and yours alone.
It doesn't have to be a spectacular scratch build but it has to be there.
3D printing will have its place if it hasn't already found it, but I don't think scratch building will fade out there will always be that "whatever" if you really want it you have to make it your self and a great deal of personal satisfaction can be had even from the simplest scratch build.
Added to which no learned new skill is a waste of time it allways comes in handy for something.
regards John
You can of course learn to make your own 3D printed items. I once spent many hours of company time learning to do 6 pen graphic plotting. That is using a printer to plot points on a graph.
Learning to design and print 3D items will be time consumming, and get them printed, or buying your own printer costly.
And as pointed out if the item is too large to be printed in one piece, you still need the skill to assemble it.
Either scratch building or 3D design and printing will have a learning curve.
Have fun doing which ever, or both.
I've always enjoyed scratchbuilding, although not the older style stuff, where you plant a seed, wait until the tree grows, then cut it down and into scale lumber, making your own multi-paned windows with real glass held in place with HO scale glazier's points and real putty.
I do scratchbuild in styrene, though, using the varied strip and sheet materials available, along with door and window castings - the old timers, even older than me, might poo-poo such travesty, but I take great pleasure from it (and from annoying those old guys, too).I seldom do monumental projects (most of those are kitbashing projects - and just as enjoyable as scratchbuilding), but I recently finished a number of small railroad-owned structures, and will, of course, bore you with some photos...such as this switch-tender's shanty...
...or this building for the MoW crews...
...and an LCL warehouse for a small town...
...or this fueling and maintenance group for the Erie Northshore's "BEE" doodlebug....
I must confess, though, that I cheated a bit on the support for the fuel tank, as it's from an old Revell group of locomotive service-structures, while the tank is a plastic tube, which formerly held office-machine paper.I'll now return you to something hopefully more interesting.
Wayne
I find that to print something propperly so that you can assemble it without problems takes a skill. Askill gained in scratchbuilding. The process. To think through creating sub assemblies and how to construct them and when to add trim/ details isvery important. If you dont design the sub assemblies right, it just wont go together right. A skill gained in scratchbuilding. Ig is the same for painting. Much better to paint in sub assemblies one color than to have to paint multiple colors with edges and masking. Knowing how to scratchbuild makes 3 d a more effective tool. for parts to difficult or time consuming to do the traditional way. i am scratch a building now where i wished i could have printed the windows to make a cleaner look and faster build.
Shane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
NVSRRI find that to print something propperly so that you can assemble it without problems takes a skill. A skill gained in scratchbuilding.
Excellent point!
I basically gave up the hobby when I went away to college, but I saved my old trains and eventually returned to them in my 50s. Until then, most of my play time had been virtual, on the computer. I remember the sheer joy I got from making Hydrocal castings and then other projects. It was a great feeling to actually make something physical again.
The first thing I built was my subway system on the lower level of my layout. When I started to post pictures here, someone asked if the subway stations were scratchbuilt. I though for a while, and realized that everything in my subways was scratchbuilt, except the track and the trains. I never thought about it being scratchbuilt, but I just realized no one made anything like that and would have to make it myself.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Over the years, 3D printing has developed into a veritable scratchbuilding tool. 3D printing has emerged into an ideal method for making intricate, well detailed models in low volumes, thus offering the possibility to substitute handbuilt brass engines. The days of "edgy" design and coarse grain prints are long gone. 3D printing requires a lot of knowledge in construction using CAD tools, which has quite a learning curve to it. While the price for 3D printers has come down a lot, printers producing high quality prints (way above the Shapeways stuff) are still quite expensive.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
An interesting variant on the OP's question is, just when IS the design and creation of your own 3D printed parts "scratchbuilding?" How have, or will, NMRA contest and achievement award criteria and point systems react to the introduction of home-created 3D printed parts into a model? (I do see a distinction between buying 3D printed parts from someone, versus doing all the work yourself on the computer and hitting a "print" button. the brain work should count for something surely.)
I know a number of modelers who got their NMRA achievement award points for handlaid trackwork only after Fastracks made building their own turnouts practical and available to them and a wider group of modelers. And I know that some guys who handlaid their turnouts and crossings the old fashioned way tend to resent that.
We are not as purist about what constitutes scratchbuilding as we once were. I remember an editorial in MR by long-time editor Linn Westcott, who was a stickler for correct vocabulary, saying that a structure using commercial window and door castings was not a scratchbuilt structure, and that some new phrase was needed to describe what it was. Scratchbuilt to him meant everything had to be scratchbuilt, although for rolling stock using commerical wheels, motors, gears, couplers was so common and allowed by the rules and by common definitions of scratchbuilt. Yet there were guys who for contest point and other reasons laboriously cut their own gears, or made their own couplers!
Westcott wrote that well before the availability of Evergreen and Plastruct styrene building materials -- would he have said using commericial "board and batten" material isn't scratchbuilding (now that I think of it there was milled basswood in Westcott's time - scribed siding came earliest but there were good siding options in wood by 1960. E L Moore in fact did make his own scribed siding and his own board and batten, just to keep things cheap).
I guess my point is that we regard things as scratchbuilt today that modelers in the past might not have even called scratchbuilt, but rather only partly scratchbuilt.
But let's use today's common understanding. If I use Tichy windows in an otherwise scratchbuilt structure, we'd call that scratchbuilt. If the windows are 3D printed and the modeler did the design and the input into the printer I'd say that's even MORE scratchbuilt.
If a modeler makes a pattern and creates cast resin parts (say, repetitive decorative exterior on a "cast iron" building) that's still scratchbuilt. In terms of thinking and working is it any different if he designs that same repetitive part for a 3D printer?
Except for contest fanatics and certain prototype modelers for whom any compromise is unacceptable, scratchbuilding has changed from what it once was and the world has adapted. Sure you CAN make your own windows and doors but if a Tichy or Grandt Line part is perfect and exactly what you want and need, why? I think similarly 3d printing might well change and enlarge the scope of where we say "why bother?"
You'd like to think that we'll be seeing better and better models once 3D printing is really advanced.
Dave Nelson
MisterBeasley I basically gave up the hobby when I went away to college, but I saved my old trains and eventually returned to them in my 50s.
I basically gave up the hobby when I went away to college, but I saved my old trains and eventually returned to them in my 50s.
I knew there was a reason college was not for me.............
Well, I don't see myself buying a 3D printer............
Guess I will keep building models the old way.........
Sheldon
Resin printing, then using a lost wax molding method can actually be used to converet 3D printed material into high quality brass pieces. I wouldn't really say 3D printing hasn't replaced scratchbuilding... its just become a new tool for it. Be it printing detail pieces, or custom car bodies, etc. As previously mentioned large structures are still impossible to print, so old school scratch building will remain essential for scenery; although I am sure 3D printing is going to supplement the actual detailing more and more as years go on.I have a friend who for $250 bought his own resin printer and the quality is already looking better than Shapeway's commercial available stuff... this is tech that is soon going to be not much more difficult to obtain for a modeler than airbrushes or a DCC system currently are
when they showed what CGI could do when making Jurassic Park, the clay-mation guys said they were obsolete
but the CGI guys said we need the clay-mation guys because they know how things move
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Good afternoon
I finally read through this one.
I want to start by saying what a string of agreeable replies as I found very little to disagree with if any. And I took my time looking through all your photos. Fine pieces of art each with their own individualism that is so typical of scratch building. I even think scratch building is similar to a fingerprint of someone's character or personality, ... Let's see a computer do that!
For me it's the gratisfaction of thinking of something, drawing two-dimensional plans of the concept in my head. Then making it come to life for pennies on the dollar. The hours of enjoyment, patience and taking your time to make sure something is just the way you envisioned it. Then when you're all finished, the sense of accomplishment and the admiration with pride you take in what you created.
Ain't nothing like that. There is such Talented Craftsman here. It always takes one to know one. I can admire and appreciate someone else's craftsmanship looking at their builds just as well as mine. I don't think I can ever remember walking by a computer feeling that way.
TF
I have yet to do proper "scratchbuilding" per se, but I have done quite some building with 3d printers. I'm modeling the contemporary Korean National Railroad (Korail), and there's almost nothing avaliable commercially, so I'm 3d printing my own rolling stock. Here is a collection of the freight cars I have done so far. These were printed on a $200 FDM printer in PLA, and the results are surprisingly good. Not perfect, but good enough for my needs.The cost of printers has gone down enormously in the past three years, while quality has increased.
The locomotive is not printed.
Scratchbuilding skills are something that I hope to build up over time, and printing definitely helps with that. Parts such as grab irons are hand bent and installed, and details such as stirrups and ladders are printed seperately and glued on. I'm currently working on a locomotive shell that I'm planning on printing in resin if I can and superdetailing with aftermarket parts, which counts towards something in terms of scratchbuilding I would think.
I'm waiting until resin printers come with more safety measures for resin fumes/waste to start using them.
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
Tinplate Toddler While the price for 3D printers has come down a lot, printers producing high quality prints (way above the Shapeways stuff) are still quite expensive.
While the price for 3D printers has come down a lot, printers producing high quality prints (way above the Shapeways stuff) are still quite expensive.
This is not necessarily true. Resin Printers are getting really cheap (<$500) and they are way higher resolution than FDM printers. My resin printer (an anycubic Photon S) produces very high resolution prints. I can get .010" dia. rivets to come out on it.
I think 3D printing can complement scratchbuilding. It is another tool in the arsenal.
Here is one of my first attempts of 3D-printing this caboose. I didn't do a very good job with the post processing (hence the shiny finish) on this one. but subsequent prints are way better (sorry no photo yet).
There is only so much you can do with the 3D-printer though. Grab irons and stanshions, ladders, etc. for the caboose are still fabricated from phosphor bronze wire. Underbody detail is another thing that needs quite a bit of work.
I spent probably 20 hours and had about 60 photos that I worked from to produce the CAD model of the caboose.
Here is my complete scratchbuilt version (prior to getting the resin 3D printer). The roof on the 3D-printed version is coming out way nicer.
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
[quote user="dknelson"]
An interesting variant on the OP's question is, just when IS the design and creation of your own 3D printed parts "scratchbuilding?" How have, or will, NMRA contest and achievement award criteria and point systems react to the introduction of home-created 3D printed parts into a model? (I do see a distinction between buying 3D printed parts from someone, versus doing all the work yourself on the computer and hitting a "print" button. the brain work should count for something surely
[quote]
Oh look a new model catagorie DSB Digital Scratch Build
But you do have to design upload and hit the print button yourself
I don't know but I do know.
Every weekend I go to WPF to see skilled craftsmanship. A picture is worth a thousand words and every week I see craftsmanship that blows my socks out the door.
I guess I understand the time and skill that went into Old School crafting.
I am old school and appreciate the hours and time that people put in to their craft.
Old School Art
Scratchbuilding with basic tools and materials is a marvelous skill, and I hope to develop them and progress. I started in the hobby after it became feasible to use CAD & 3DP to try to realize complex projects I wanted to model, couldn't buy commercially, and had no idea how to make with a sheet of styrene and a #11 blade. I'm fine with what (little) I've done having an asterisk tacked on or being referred to as "digital scratchbuilding", whatever. But I think encouraging people to make their own, however they decide to approach it, is a good thing.
dknelson An interesting variant on the OP's question is, just when IS the design and creation of your own 3D printed parts "scratchbuilding?" How have, or will, NMRA contest and achievement award criteria and point systems react to the introduction of home-created 3D printed parts into a model? (I do see a distinction between buying 3D printed parts from someone, versus doing all the work yourself on the computer and hitting a "print" button. the brain work should count for something surely
The NMRA has already defined this in their AP documents.
"The term "scratchbuilt" carries the implication that the builder alone has accomplished all of the necessary layout and fabrication which establish the final dimensions, appearance, and operating qualities of the scale model. This definition does not prevent the use of any tools or jigs as long as the builder alone has done the work necessary for the tool to make the part. This would include drawings or computer files to control CNC, automatic lathes, laser cutting machines, 3-D printers, and other tools. If a third party changes the builder's inputs, then the parts are not considered to be scratch built."
(Link:https://nmra.org/definitions#scratch)
I do most of my 3-D printing at home from my own CAD drawings. Every once and a while I send out a part to a third party (ie Shapeways) to be manufactured.
Based on the definition above it can be a bit tricky to know if they modified the part to be able to print it.
For example, when using my Resin printer, I have to import my CAD file and then add additional supports to make the model printable. With me adding these supports it can be considered scrtachbuilt since I designed, modified it to be 3D Printable and printed myself. Where it gets fuzzy to me is on the last line of the definition above.
"If a third party changes the builder's inputs, then the parts are not considered to be scratchbuilt."
To me this means if they have to add supporting material to my CAD model to make the part printable, its no longer scratchbuilt. In the end we may receive the part and it will match the drawing we sent them but there are intermediate steps their production engineers take to make it a viable printed part (such as support material).
Renegade1cResin Printers are getting really cheap (<$500)
I wouldn´t call that cheap!
Renegade1c The NMRA has already defined this in their AP documents. "The term "scratchbuilt" carries the implication that the builder alone has accomplished all of the necessary layout and fabrication which establish the final dimensions, appearance, and operating qualities of the scale model. This definition does not prevent the use of any tools or jigs as long as the builder alone has done the work necessary for the tool to make the part. This would include drawings or computer files to control CNC, automatic lathes, laser cutting machines, 3-D printers, and other tools. If a third party changes the builder's inputs, then the parts are not considered to be scratch built." (Link:https://nmra.org/definitions#scratch)
I did not know this; it is actually good news. Not that it will change anything I do or how I do it, but now I feel a little better about cheating.
Tinplate Toddler Renegade1c Resin Printers are getting really cheap (<$500)
Renegade1c Resin Printers are getting really cheap (<$500)