3D Printing........Scratch Building or Not?

[Brian Austin]

8 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Basically the discussion has been just about terminology used as to whether 3D printing is scratch building or not.

It has not been about whether we should embrace the new technology of not. It is here and a good thing as far as I see it.

Perhaps, but I was reminded of the old "analog vs. digital" debate raging for years.

[Big John]

As  I see it, the basis of our hobby is to create scale representations of our favorite, historic, or fantasy vehicles.  To that end we use a vast variety of tools and materials to realize that vision.  The selection is nearly limitless in scope, paper to plastics to metal.  I think that most of us started off in our youth with commercial kits as a basis for our building and progressed to more sophisticated construction and detailing methods as our dedication to  the hobby grew. 

CAD drafting and its associated 3D printing are just a couple of the newest tools and materials to become available to us.  To those who believe that CAD drawing is “Just putting parts together” really have no concept of the amount of work that goes into our drawings.  The CAD detailer creates every nut, bolt, screw, and complex shapes as 3D solids and surfaces within the CAD program.

Just like any other discipline within the hobby, once the parts are shaped and ready for assembly we are all just putting together our kits be they machined metal, cast in resin, or printed in a plastic medium.  Going beyond the basic assembly of our kits, all the detailing and finishing is Scratch building.

Model On

[Bugatti Fan]

It's 3D Designing not Scratch Building as such as I see it.

Proficient 3D Designing requires a lot of skill, and that is of course a no brainer, and having an engineering background myself I can really appreciate that. Designing any engineered parts accurately to fit together properly is where the skill lies, even back in the days of the drawing board it was no different.

However, 3D printing has its limitations. When I scratch build any of my models I use a multitude of different materials in the same fashion as the late Gerald Wingrove. One of my scratch built models was of the Dubonnet Hispano Suiza that was planked in Pearwood Veneers marked out and holes drilled individually to fit thousands of rivets from 0.5mm brass wire. Try doing that on a 3D printer.

How can John say that detailing and finishing is scratch building after going beyond the basic assembly of kits that are basically a number of pre made parts to assemble, detail and paint?

That is not scratch building at all. It is kit assembly and finishing.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[Big John]

I stand corrected, and rightly so.  I lost my focus on the title of this thread (My wife calls it ‘playing the Devils idiot’) and I did not mean to minimize the skills, abilities, and pure dedication involved in hand fabrication of models.  I am also a great fan of Mr. Wingrove and am inspired by his books on model building, and deeply respect the work of those who are so gifted.  I hope only to aspire to a fraction of that ideal.

So I grant you then that 3D printing is simply the act of producing kit parts from which we can build our models.  I will however contend that the drafting aspect is still much more involved that just doing layout work. The 3D work we do in ‘Model Space’ and still contend are solid forms, can be used to provide dimensioned layout sheets as would be used for hand fabrication. However, we now have the technology available to have our models milled or print as a kit in any scale. 1:1500 through 1500:1 (as an example.)

To date my only 3D printed kit has been in collaboration with Mad Mike on the 1965 Indy DOHC Ford, and yes we did digitally drill every hole for the bolts and linkage.  Mike even went as far as to create all the hose fittings, linkage, bolts, nuts, and hex socket cap screws, some with holes for safety wire. The dilemma is that in order for Mike to print the model in 1:24/25 or even 1:43 he had to go back and fill all the holes and fuse/union all the nuts and bolts, etc. to the larger units.

For the sake of argument then can we also say that any machine work which involves the digital programing of mills, lathes, and routers would take those operations out from under the heading of scratch building?

[Straightliner59]

1 hour ago, Big John said:

For the sake of argument then can we also say that any machine work which involves the digital programing of mills, lathes, and routers would take those operations out from under the heading of scratch building?

 

 

I wouldn't have any argument, with that. I'd say that programming CNC is much more similar to designing parts for 3-D printing, than either is to creating parts from raw materials with your hands.

[Bugatti Fan]

My job in a former life was firstly programming in NC and then later a CNC programmer. The difference being that when doing NC the machines had to be code programmed for the reader on them to read lines of code from punched tape made on a machine like a typewriter. All the tool paths and offsets had to be developed using trigonometry to a great degree in the workings out. CNC made the job a lot easier as the drawings were prepared on computer and a post processor would do all the donkey work of code generation for the machine as well as the trig and maths involved in calculating the tool paths with required offsets.

John and Daniel have put this more into perspective in their last posts.

3D design being used with a 3D printer was a development in industry to allow rapid prototyping of concepts before tooling up something for mass production. However, the up side is that it lends itself admirably to one off and very low quantity production at grass roots leve! for our hobby, and the 'masters' saved in perpetuity that will not wear out like physical masters. So it has its place as a tool like many other things in making parts that can be built like a kit generally.

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[peteski]

14 hours ago, Big John said:

I am also a great fan of Mr. Wingrove and am inspired by his books on model building, and deeply respect the work of those who are so gifted.  I hope only to aspire to a fraction of that ideal.

I would think that if MR. Wingrove was around and building models today, he would surely embrace and utilize CAD and 3D printing in his scratchbuilt models. Actually he was already using CAD for in his model making. People, it is just another tool in your scratchbuilding tool arsenal.   You need to get over this aversion of using computer as a modeling tool.  Back in the day handheld calculators were banned from the classroom. Nowadays, calculator is built into every electronic gadget and nobody even notices when it is being used.

I really think that at this point this thread has ran its course.

Edited October 2, 2023 by peteski

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, peteski said:

I would think that if MR. Wingrove was around and building models today, he would surely embrace and utilize CAD and 3D printing in his scratchbuilt models. Actually he was already using CAD for in his model making. People, it is just another tool in your scratchbuilding tool arsenal.   You need to get over this aversion of using computer as a modeling tool.  Back in the day handheld calculators were banned from the classroom. Nowadays, calculator is built into every electronic gadget and nobody even notices when it is being used.

I really think that at this point this thread has ran its course.

Who has an aversion to using 3-D printed parts?

I don’t remember hearing anybody saying that throughout this whole discussion.

The topic was whether or not we felt that 3-D printing was scratch building or not.

Not how we felt about the technology in general.

I think you’re right.

The thread has probably run it’s course, but in my opinion, it’s because a lot of people want to make the topic about something that it was never intended to be about.

It started out as a pretty simple opinion, “yes or no” question and then, as is often the case, quickly morphed into all sorts of contortions that have little to do with the original question.

 

 

 

Steve

[bobthehobbyguy]

  .

Edited October 4, 2023 by bobthehobbyguy

[Bugatti Fan]

I have visited Gerald Wingrove on more than one occasion at both his UK workshops before he retired to Spain. 

He probably would not have used 3D printing in his scratch built models. The reason being that clients for his models would be paying thousands of pounds for each of his models, and therefore having an expectancy that each of his models be artisan made from metal along with other more traditional materials. 3D printed models that would effectively be plastic models by definition because of the material used would simply not cut it with his clientele, no matter how well 3D designed and made. His clients are in the upper echelons of the model collecting fraternity and paying top dollar and expecting something that has been skilfully made by hand and using conventional machinery, not something generated on a computer that could be repeated ad infinitum at the press of a button on a 3D Printer. Gerald and his wife Phyllis used CAD, sure. But it was 2D CAD to produce their excellent scale drawings.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with 3D printing for the sort of things that many modellers want made however.

Bob, by your version of the dictionary definition, just about everything could be described as scratch built.   Tupperware is made from raw materials. I think it would be stretching the point a bit to call it scratch built like many other mass produced items.

 

[StevenGuthmiller]

7 hours ago, bobthehobbyguy said:

First and foremost the standard dictionary definition of scratchbuillt is an object made from raw materials. No where in the definition does it say that it has to be made by hand versus using tools.

Second if this thread was meant to be a yes or no only then it should have been a poll but I think that would have been pretty boring.

 

By your definition, a “model kit” is a scratch made item.

It is made from raw materials, and with tools.

This describes basically every man made item since the beginning of human kind.

 

 

 

Steve

[peteski]

3 hours ago, Bugatti Fan said:

He probably would not have used 3D printing in his scratch built models. The reason being that clients for his models would be paying thousands of pounds for each of his models, and therefore having an expectancy that each of his models be artisan made from metal along with other more traditional materials. 3D printed models that would effectively be plastic models by definition because of the material used would simply not cut it with his clientele, no matter how well 3D designed and made.

I was not talking about the entire model being 3D printed, but just some of the model's small detail parts.  But I also see your point, and we will never know anyway.

[Bugatti Fan]

Having met and talked about model making with Gerald Wingrove a number of times when he was around, I am not sure if he would have used any 3D printed parts on his models.

He was very uncompromising when it came to quality as plastics deteriorate after a period of time. So on that basis alone I do not think that he would possibly have gone for 3D printed parts however small on his models as material longevity would have figured high on all of his model builds.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[Big John]

The one advantage that I see in the relm of 3D printing for the high end builders would be in the tooling of more accurate tires. Mr. Wingrove's process already requires several steps to tool the hard resin final mold and the level of detail will be much more accurate.  I had considered scanning the old tire ash trays that were a marketing tool and abundant in many service stations here in the states back in the day.  They appear to be 1:6 scale but have all the tread and sidewall details of full size tires.

Thank you Noel for another thought provoking discussion. 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Big John

[Bugatti Fan]

3D printed masters for moulding tyres would be quite a logical use of this technology. Tyre treads could be emulated much better and accurately this way. So I think John has made a good point here.

But the big advantage is that the master tyre moulds can be replaced quickly and easily by this method. But also being computer generated can be scaled up or down from the 'virtual' master.

The designer would however have to take into account how the master moulds are made to allow flow of the tyre material being used and engineered so that the moulded  tyre could eventually be released.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[stitchdup]

theres already tyre molds available but it seems like an extra task casting tyres when you can print 30 tyres in the time it takes to print a mold.

[Big John]

Les' comment brings us back to the question expressed  in another thread about "Why rubber tires and not cast resin."  For me it is an esthetic choice going back to my youth and the models of the 60s. But this is another subject.

[Brian Austin]

3-D printing is also useful for making investment-cast parts in brass.  The printed master melts like wax in the mold.

[bobss396]

I used to take some flak at shows (around 2011) for having machined parts on my cars. I drew them up in CAD to get the bugs out and cranked them out on manual machines or CNC equipment at work. Nothing looks more like metal that metal.

3D printing is no different that the old resin slush-casting that thankfully has numbered days. My only gripe with 3D parts is that some should be better thought out. The material is quite brittle if you have to open up a hole in delicate parts.

[Bugatti Fan]

Les, yes you can make 3D printed tyres, but the wheels would have to be made in two parts for them to be fitted.

It depends on whether you want flexible tyres that could be slipped onto a turned wheel or not.

Where are the already available tyre moulds you mentioned obtainable from? That's something I was unaware of.

[stitchdup]

26 minutes ago, Bugatti Fan said:

Les, yes you can make 3D printed tyres, but the wheels would have to be made in two parts for them to be fitted.

It depends on whether you want flexible tyres that could be slipped onto a turned wheel or not.

Where are the already available tyre moulds you mentioned obtainable from? That's something I was unaware of.

I've seen them on cults. most seem to be for off road heavy trucks or large scale aircraft.

[Bugatti Fan]

Thanks for the feedback Les.

Those are areas I would not have thought of.  Probably for working models I suspect.

[Big John]

The RC car market has had some very nice contemporary tires however they tend to be in 1/8 scale and nothing vintage.  Great for large scale hot rods.

[Texas_3D_Customs]

On 9/23/2023 at 7:54 AM, Brizio said:

Anyway... I think scratchbuilding is different than 3D printing. Scratchbuilding is more something that you born with it, like singing. Not all the people can build something from scratch, or with raw material, and like singing, you can teach a person how to sing, but will have more difficult that a peson that sing naturally. In the other hand everybody can learn how to use Rhino, Blender etc, and 3D print an object. Don't let me wrong, 3D printing is great, is great to have this tecnology. 

I notice that sometime is faster and cheaper scrtachbuild an object using raw material, that 3D printing. The cool thing about 3D printing is that you can have multiple object printed a the same time (depend of printer size) . Instead to have one and mold it and cast it. 

Scratchbuilding a the end will always be different that 3D printing, but both are a breat combo for our hobby.

 

 

Wait a minute, so scratch building can not be learned, I mean sure if you don't have arms or legs, but CAD takes no natural ability? I agree that scratch building is something that has natural skill, but CAD is no different, I have seen all sorts of "designers" use CAD that makes me cringe. Seems a little belittling to right off 3D modeling so easily as something anyone can do as I can assure you that's not the case.

[NOBLNG]

42 minutes ago, Texas_3D_Customs said:

Wait a minute, so scratch building can not be learned, I mean sure if you don't have arms or legs, but CAD takes no natural ability? I agree that scratch building is something that has natural skill, but CAD is no different, I have seen all sorts of "designers" use CAD that makes me cringe. Seems a little belittling to right off 3D modeling so easily as something anyone can do as I can assure you that's not the case.

They are both different skills that CAN be learned to one degree or another, depending on the individual involved. I can paint a house or a model car, but I can’t paint a portrait…and I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.🙂JMO

Edited November 23, 2023 by NOBLNG