Any scratchbuilders outhere?

That´s my question ;-)

Regards and thanks in advance Edgar (from Paraguay)

Reply to
Edgar Warnecke
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I'm one! Just got back into it after a 30 year absence. I'm having a blast. Finding scratch building supplies is a chore though. Thanks Mike Mueller

Reply to
mike mueller

What sorts of scratch building?

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Reply to
Robert Heller

On 8/14/2008 11:32 AM Edgar Warnecke spake thus:

Yep, one here. I like to build things out of common household materials, especially paper and cardboard. I also like to make replicas of actual local structures, from photographs.

What do you build?

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Yep, me too.

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...Gary

Come visit my PRR Pages:

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Reply to
Gary Mittner

I guess that depends on if (or where) you draw the line between scratchbuilding and kit-bashing. At present I'm working on a free- lance 0-10-0 switcher. Wheels are from two Mantua switch engines. Chassis - same source - cut, reenforced then epoxyed and screwed together. The body/cab is from an old (pre WWII ?) lead Varney 2-8-0 unit which was shortened five scale feet. I found a large brass steam chest in my scrap box, source is unknown. I'll fabricate the rods and valve gear. I also believe I have all necessary small parts (mostly Cal-Scale) on hand. The tender will derive from a Pennline low side unit with an extended vision coal bunker added on.

Almost all these items were procured at local swap meets, some as far back as twenty five or thirty years ago. I think late October is a reasonable completion date, but, I'm in no particular hurry.

Thank you.

Jerry

Reply to
trainjer

Yup. Structures, mostly.

Annaeus Seneca

Cool! Who knew Seneca the younger spoke German?

-Pete

Reply to
Twibil

Edgar Warnecke wrote in news:16buy0ixd07d7 $.p1s21ngehyh8$. snipped-for-privacy@40tude.net:

I do some scratchbuilding. However, I usually start off with a kit, and modify it to fit my desires.

I found a Harbor Freight "mini cut off saw" to be a very useful tool in my model building. It's much faster than scribing and flexing for cutting pieces less than 1" or so in depth.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

I very rarely scratchbuild these days, and if so, it's usually something like a bridge (kit or ready to use bridges never fit, for some reason....) I do build kits, upgrading rolling stock quite often, and always applying at least light weathering. Plastic structure kits are always at least painted and/or weathered, and usually hacked about a bit. I can't recall the last time built a plastic structure kit as designed, actually.

HTH

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

I've built a couple of bridges; the first was a long curved trestle using thin, 12" dowels. I made a jig to assist in keeping things uniform. Later, I made another bridge with long matchsticks like you would use to light your grill or fireplace.

While it's not quite scratchbuilding, I have experimented with some simple buildings made from photos. I take the photos as "square on" as I can, then resize them and touch them up as necessary. Then, I print off the major pieces on my PC and glue them together. They don't look too bad in photos but do lose a little when viewed in three-dimension.

Don't know if you would call making trees scratchbuilding, but I've dabbled with that a little as well.

The bridges and the one building I mentioned above can be seen at my blog. It's located at:

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if you are interested. The two bridge posts are in the March, 2008 archive; the one building, a tower, is located in the June, 2008, archive.

Thanks for asking... I think there are too many buyers and too few builders in this hobby today.

dlm

Reply to
Dan Merkel

Yes, when I can move around in my workshop. The mess has gotten out of hand, and my next project is to organize and/or throw stuff out. I have a locomotive to finish and several stationary steam engines.

Reply to
<wkaiser

I will expand I guess. I am a true scratch builder. I just finished a water tank based upon the Campbell scale models plans. I am in the process of building a single engine house . I drew up the plans on CAD and it is board on board construction. My big project is a saw mill complex. Th building design is based on plans I found on line for a small mill from the 1890's. Mill equipment will be a combination from Sierra West, Keystone locomotive works and Western Scale Models. All are HO scale.

I will post some picture shortly. Thanks Mike Mueller

Reply to
mike mueller

Am Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:32:12 -0300 schrieb Edgar Warnecke:

Geee, it´s overwhelming. 10 responses.., thanks!

Please understand, that I can´t answer to all.

Indeed, I came back to scratchbuildung after 30 years too. There are many reasons.

@David:

So do I. First of all, I do not have a supplier next. I do not even know wether there is a supplier in Paraguay. Because of this kit-bashing is not my thing.

I am dreaming of a modelrailway but I think there will go a lot of water down the Rio Paraguay before I can start with. So I´ll do like you do. Structures and buildings from the same materials you use.

I have problems building from photos. How do you handle the perspective? I can´t run around the buildings using my meter...

@twibil:

Thanks a lot for compliments, but I´ve just turned 50 ;-)

@puckdropper:

What the heck is that? Do you have an URL with a picture so that I can imagine?

@Dan:

That´s my thing too. One problem is that you often do not reach the backside and sides of the buildings or have problems with the perspective, the angles. Sometimes you can improve by try and error but not everytime.

For construction works I use the formerly(?) free.version of "solid edge". That works fine for me. In the next step I switch to an old version of Corel Draw for coloring or I do it freehand.

If you got the right cardbord and use digital printing, sometimes I do so outhouse, I think it works fine.

Wow, that sounds interesting for me. Will you tell me more?

I will visit the next days because I have to vivit an Ineternt-Cafe. Thanks for the link.

What matters? In German they say "One likes the owl and the other the nightingale" ;-)

@Bill:

Don´t remember me. I can see the angy face of my wife. :-( "Do you really need all this rubbish??? I have some free wastebags!"

I think this is nothing for me because of missing tools. A model steam engine I built 30 years ago. It expolded at the first try. Geee, what a bang. Since then I prefer electricity. Silly little valves, grrr....

I choose the first! Which price I won? ;-)

Thanks a lot to all. On Monday I will start crawling threw the pages and sack ideas. If I got results I will publish photos.

BTW: A hint to all the photographers of you. If your models come up very red, use daylight-type luminescent tubes. The normal bulbs have a smooth warm color which only appears on fotos and is hardly to correct with the computer.

Last word: Fine community here.

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Warnecke

On 8/16/2008 11:32 AM Edgar Warnecke spake thus:

Pretty simple.

  1. Take pictures "head-on", not at an angle, if possible. That way proportions stay consistent from end to end.
  2. For scaling, all you need to do is to measure *one* feature on the building (for each view, unless all pictures are taken at the same distance). This could be a door, window, or something else. The longer the thing is, the better.

When you get home, you can do one of (at least) two things:

  1. Print the picture, then determine the size of things proportionally, based on the size of the thing you measured. In other words, if the thing you measured was a doorway 12 feet wide, and the doorway is 3/4 of an inch in the picture, then your picture scale is 12 / .75 = 16; multiply the size of any feature in the picture (in *inches*) to determine the actual size in *feet*. Then you can use your scale ruler to cut pieces to size.
  2. Size the picture so that it corresponds to your scale; for example, if you're building in HO, scale it to 1/87. This would require scanning (in the case of photo prints).

In either case, I find it best to make a scale drawing to work from, since I have a drafting table and tools. You should at least make a rough sketch, to figure out what pieces you need.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

If you know the lens characteristics (specificly the view angle) and the distance you are from the building, you can use the camera calculation program, AnyDistance, which is included as part of the Model Railroad System.

Reply to
Robert Heller

On 8/16/2008 2:20 PM Robert Heller spake thus:

wrote:

So what does that do for me that my simple system doesn't?

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

wrote:

It allows you to know just how far to stand from the building you are modeling and then know just what size enlargment to make the print. Although the original idea behind this program is to create scale photographic backdrops, such as photographing a large rail yard to put behind a foreground containing a small number of actual (modeled) tracks.

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Reply to
Robert Heller

Am Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:23:45 -0700 schrieb David Nebenzahl:

....your words, yaeh... :-/

If possible..., yeah.

Okay, I understand the method. In German we say "Strahlenbuendel", equal angels, will make proportional widths and distances. Uhhhmmmm.... Shame on me, what poor English :-(

Hey, you are to quick! Don´t forget the hight of the building. But I think I understand the priciple.

Possible, but a little bit difficult and not ever really exact.

Okay, I got my decision. First of all I will take the pictures, then I will print them out to resacale. For cardboard-models I will reconstruct them with Solid Edge an then print them out. If needed, I can give the finish with Corel.

...and now wish me luck to get enough distance to the objects I want to build ;-)

For a first view you may have an eye on this site:

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For more images go there:

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I´m sorry, only available in spanish at the moment.

Thanks

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Warnecke

Am Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:14:05 -0500 schrieb Robert Heller:

wrote:

...

Nice idea.., I did so with my landscape backgrounds in Germany. Nowerdays in Paraguay it´s a little bit of "overkill" ;-)

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Warnecke

[..]

And why should it be exact? If it looks right, it is right.

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

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