Ben,
In my opinion, scratchbuilding can be defined as building anything that isn't a pre-made kit.
Dave
-- From: Benjamin Barby ( snipped-for-privacy@sympatico.ca) Subject: Model Railroad Philosophy: What constitutes Scratch Building? Newsgroups: rec.models.railroad Date: 1999/03/10
I was just wondering how 'scratch' something had to be for it to be scratch built.
I wanted to scratch build a car, so I went and bought some nice metal trucks and wheelsets for it, but someone told me that it wasn't scratch build because I purchased parts. So I went to make my own; I got some metal stock and just as I was about half way through, someone told me it wasn't scratch because someone had manufactured the metal. So I went out and got some ore and smelted my own metal, cast it in to ingots, & rolled it down into stock and sheets I could use. OK so far. (There was some grumbling though, because I hadn't made my own lathe)
Then I went out and purchased some scribed wood to use on the car itself. Welll, you can't do that, it's purchased; someone else did the work; so I went and bought plain stock and scribed it myself. Not good enought. So I went and purchased a 2x4... Same thing. So off I went to the forest, and chopped down my own tree, dragged it home and started to dress the wood, when someone informed me that it didn't count, because someone else had grown the tree. So I took a seed, went outside, planted it.....
Years later I was informed that my efforts were in vain because even though I had put the seed in the ground, someone else had created the seed. Not only that, but it wasn't me who personally made the seed grow, it was God, so it didn't count any way.....
So I'm wondering, how scratch does something have to be before it's scratch built?
Benjamin ;-)
I've got waaaay too much time on my hands! :-)
-- Benjamin Barby
snipped-for-privacy@bbqsympatico.ca
Please eat the tasty Barby-Q provided in the e-mail address! That way I don't have to eat the spam later! :-)