{"id":3409,"date":"2014-08-19T07:41:50","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T13:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=3409"},"modified":"2014-08-19T07:45:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T13:45:56","slug":"scratch-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/?p=3409","title":{"rendered":"Scratch Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HB2-017\"<\/a>Scratch building is a term that is dear to my heart. When I was a preteen kid, my folks would buy my brother and me plastic model kits to assemble. The typical kits of the day were cars, navy ships with lots of guns, model war planes and army equipment. This was a decade after WWII in the Eisenhower era so that explains the subject models.<\/p>\n

The big question was whether to paint the plastic models before or after assembly. We didn\u2019t know it but this wasn\u2019t really modeling in the full creative sense. We had fun so the technicality didn\u2019t matter that it was just assembly. However, it was a powerful education tool on identifying the names of parts with the model parts and following assembly directions. I think it helped form a concept of logical progression and following directions as well as an ability to memorize the names of components.<\/p>\n

Along the way we shifted to model airplane construction with balsa wood and real building techniques. No more glue wheel A on post A. The airplanes were still \u201ckits\u201d with die-crunched ribs and all kinds of sheets and sticks. Also included was usually a full size drawing. Today the ribs are laser burned rather than die cut.<\/p>\n

As a teenage kid I got into building model train cars and engines from kits. My brother didn\u2019t follow me there. Actually kit building has followed me through\u00a0model building,\u00a0electronics, computers and ham radio (Heathkits) and well into late adult life.<\/p>\n

The “sacred grail” in all this kit assembly is called scratch building. That means you don’t buy a kit. You start with raw materials. If you scratch built from plans that is OK but the best of the best will design from scratch (draw their own plans) and build from scratch materials.<\/p>\n

An alternate but not a \u201cpure\u201d as total scratch building is called \u201cKit Bashing\u201d where you start with the kit and then change the design and parts to suit your own purpose.<\/p>\n

There is no shame in any stage of these construction options. Any of them are tons of fun. \u00a0For me all forms of construction provide enjoyment. Building kits is wonderful as they generally provide at least all the critical and hard to obtain (made from pure unobtainium) parts.<\/p>\n

Still, all of us who build things know – scratch building and design\/scratch build is held up as the most sacred of ground. This is usually an ultimate goal of some hobbyist and artists. Practical builders take the best road to the desired results.<\/p>\n

Consider installing a skylight. Buying one as a kit of parts to complete the installation is far more practical than starting with a pane of glass.<\/p>\n

There is a lower limit to selecting the raw materials. \u00a0Smelting ore and making the steel is not in the realm of scratch building. I do know of a sword maker who gets close to that starting point\u2026<\/p>\n

Now this explains why I have navigated my life\u2019s work into building tangible things. When I became confined to the office for employment, I was driven to building my own\u00a0machine shop and wood shop. It\u2019s why I now cast silver from pure metal in my present desire to design and make things. I build far more from scratch than from kits these days but I am no snob purist about not using kits to get the materials and results I want.<\/p>\n

Kit is definitely not a dirty word to this maker of things. It is often the best way to get things done\u2026<\/p>\n

but then\u2026<\/p>\n

Heard on amateur radio @ 40 meters, \u201cgreetings old man. Station here is 100% scratch built, yep, mined the copper ore out in Utah and\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Naw!\u2026 I made that up from scratch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scratch building is a term that is dear to my heart. When I was a preteen kid, my folks would buy my brother and me plastic model kits to assemble. The typical kits of the day were cars, navy ships with lots of guns, model war planes and army equipment. This was a decade after WWII in the Eisenhower era so that explains the subject models. The big question was whether to paint the plastic...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[133],"class_list":["post-3409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hobbies","tag-workshop-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramblindan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}