Kit bashing vs. Scratch building

[Jairus]

Everyone has an opinion. So, tell me yours please!

My definition of Scratch building is making something out of raw materials by carving, molding, machining, forming, sanding and casting. I.e.: Not kit parts!

Kit bashing is using kit parts to make something other than the manufactured model kit whether they came from the same kit or many different kits.

[Harry P.]

I agree exactly... sort of.

Scratchbuilding is literally building a part or parts "from scratch"... from raw materials like sheet plastic, rod, tubing, wood, brass, aluminum, whatever.

But kitbashing is using existing parts from two or more kits to create something different than any of the original donor kits. If you're just using the parts from a single kit in a way that's different from the instructions, to me that's not "kitbashing." There has to be at least two different kits involved, IMO.

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

Scratchbuilding is building a part or a whole model from scratch, using plastic, wood, metal, etc. Simply modifying a kit part does not constitute scratchbuilding in my opinion, unless you are Juha Airio. Anyone that can convert a Johan 1975 Cutlass into a 1973 Pontiac Grand Am scratchbuilt it.

Kitbashing is using parts from two or more kits to build one model. From the time I had my second model kit as a child, I started kitbashing and have been doing so ever since. Every model I have built as an adult features parts from at least 5 or 6 different kits. Every kit I purchase, regardless of its cost or collectibility, I consider a parts kit.

[MrObsessive]

Would these qualify as either/or Jairus?

Scratchbuilt working window mechanism.............

Scratchbuilt working front and rear suspensions using kit parts..........

Kitbashed roof section to turn a '56 in to a '55 Ford...............

I guess I do a little of both to my builds..............I can't just leave well enough alone!

[Jairus]

Hey, I have no problem with any of your suggestions so far! Being a modeler I have grown up with the acceptance of the Wiki and Webster definition of "Scratch building" and believe we here do too!

On another forum (Slot cars unfortunately), the moderators have a section of the forum labeled just "Scratch building" and it is chock full of ready to run cars which were taken apart and re-painted. They accept that as scratch building and I find that sad. I was told that I should accept the "changing of the language" and the fact that the forum is open to worldwide that it is an accepted label.

I disagree with them by the way.... and suggested the header changed to read "Scratch building and Kit bashing".

[Harold]

I wind up doing both. On my '69 Thunderbird, I had to scratchbuild all the ribs on the trunk floor. On my '65 Lincoln air cleaner, I used the center section from a '58 Edsel and the outer housing from a '58 T-Bird, along with some Evergreen strip, I consider it to be scratchbuilt. On that one, I also scratchbuilt the windshield from a 2-liter Faygo bottle. A kitbash would be like one of my F-150's, where I'm just mixing and matching bits from several kits to make one.

[RodBurNeR]

scratch building is definately taking materials of any kind, even kit plastic to make a part which didn't exist in in a kit or in your own stash. sometimes a person doesn't like the part that came in the kit, so they will make their own to satisfy their needs. sometimes the person can't afford to buy after market , so they make their own to the best their abilities. as mentioned "even kit plastic"..meaning to take spru or other parts and remodel them to make a new part or a part that is specific to your needs. however if you take a part and just change it, that's "modification"....not scratch building. scratch building will always mean to start from scratch.

kit bashing is just that....taking parts from other kits and adding them to another. if you take wheels from one kit to another, that's bashing.

as for them slot cars you spoke of, that's just rebuilding. it's kinda like some guys do to diecast, taking them apart and repainting them and maybe adding some small details. that's not really building at all in my opinion. if that's what you like, do it...but to me it's no challenge unless every part of the build has your touch.

Bill, that is some serious scratch building on the working windows!

[Scott Colmer]

Seems like we all pretty much agree here - at this site anyways.

Scratchbuilding is taking raw materials and creating what you need. (By the way - a great source of fun!)

Kit bashing is taking molded pieces from one kit and using them in another kit. Even if you modify them - such as drilling lightening holes, or trimming them up, or even using them for another purpose - it's still kit bashing. (Also fun.)

I am always impressed by guys who take some household material or item and turn it into a cool part.

Not so sure about the slotcar working of the definition of scratchbuilding, but OK, that's their show I guess.

Scott

[Slim Louis]

Interesting topic! I like to "scratch build" tube race car chassis, but I still use kit or after market suspension parts, sometimes I can scratch my own springs, coil overs, shocks, radius rods, etc. I admit I'm using the term "scratch building" very loosely. Fabricating is another vague term. So I came up with the term "Scratch Bashing"! That's what I mostly do, to get the job done! It's all fun!

[Foxer]

I'm in fill agreement with everyone here, but that slot car declaration is a bit of ego it would seem. While I am aghast when I see the level of building in the slot car forum here, I suspect most slot car people are more interested running them on a track rather than spending 18 months getting just the right look!. So, I guess they would consider completely building a coat of paint up from scratch as.. scratch building! How sad....

Edited March 31, 2009 by Foxer

[MikeMc]

Back in the old days I used to scratchbuild slots.....Lotsa brass tube, rod and sheet. Throw in some piano wire and silver (or Tix) solder, wind a new motor and throw on any old body now that is scratchbuilding!!!!

Kit bashing needs at least 2 kits.......

Throwing up will usually only take 1 lousy kit

[James W]

Since slot car racing is an activity centered around racing slot cars on a track, any modification of these cars is above and beyond the basic hobby.

I doubt there is an understanding of the difference by the slot car guys, they just want to show off their gee-wiz models.

If I posted on that forum I am sure that I would step in it as soon as I touched the keyboard. I'm not a slot car guy.

Yes, they should probably redefine the heading. No I'm not going to tell them that.

Since you have one foot itn either camp, I nominate you, Jairus, to spread the gospel.

Let me know how the stoning goes BTW.

Edited April 1, 2009 by James W

[djway3474]

Well I belong to the club KitBashers of So Cal and yep we say two or more kits LOL.

Here is a car that includes both bashin and scratchin

Hosted on Fotki

link to the build

http://public.fotki.com/djway3474/complete...da-barcheletta/

scratched body panels, exhaust, interior parts and other misc parts

bashed Ferrari suspension and belly pan, late model motor parts, interior parts

probably at least 5 kits and parts box stuff.

one of my favorite builds ever, I have others that have won more trophies but I just like this and would love on in real life

DJ

[E St. Kruiser50]

Hey Jairus

GREAT TOPIC

Here's my "2 Cents" .

To me, from my experience, there's all sorts of levels and combinations of kit bashing and scratch-building.

You can do a kit bashed car with scratch-built pieces, or a scratch-built car with kit parts and kit-bashed pieces.

Like when I'm creating a never-released bodie style, like the Hollywood, or the Duesenberg SJ Airflow Coupe, I find pieces from any number kit's, in the case of the hollywood, 45 kits, cut up and glue stuff together to form an armature, like in sculpting clay with a metal armature inside for the clay to stick to, and then I can add body filler, and create a brand new shape.

That's one level, to me, of scratch-building.

Or you can do like Jerry Cardinal does, and build a body, frame etc, from sheet and solid brass stock.

Or, what I'm going to begin to do late this summer, like I did in one part of my career, is to begin with a sheet of pattern wood, cut it up and glue it into a beginning shape, carve it into what I want with all the detail, as well as seperately create (Or master) bumpers, grill, and other pieces, using no kit parts, and make molds off everything, cast the parts in resin, and hand lay-up the body in a multi-piece mold made from the master, spray in gel-coat, and back it with thin glass "Veil Cloth" soaked in liquid resin.

Body comes out thinner than most any styrene bodies, and is so much stronger, and ridged - and NO WARP !!

Or, like when I worked at LANCER CO., maker of slot racing bodies in the 60's, I started with a dried block of plaster, that I mastered into a shape, and then once the plaster was completed, it was sealed with a primer, polished, then cast into Silicone RTV Mold Making Rubber.

Aluminum filled resin was then poured into the hollow cured rubber mold, and this became the scratch-built "Mold" that was detailed and "Vacuum Formed" over in production.

There are other types of scratch-building also, but I personally don't think there will ever be one definitive answer or a "UNIVERSAL STANDARD", because there will always be differing opinions, of builders and of coarse, especially by the judges of all the different shows in this country.

A nice short response like "Art Anders....... "

Edited April 1, 2009 by Treehugger Dave

[CAL]

I agree.

Scratch building is taking some basic materials and making something from more or less nothing. I.E. a plastic tube is just a plastic tube, however, with some rod, and strips, and some creativity it can be a starter assembly.

Kit bashing is taking existing kit parts and adding or rearranging them in another order.

[E St. Kruiser50]

HERE'S SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU.

When is a pre-shaped piece of plastic cut from a kit body, OR KIT PART become "RAW PLASTIC" ???

Now remember, all flat stock, tubes and rod are pre-formed, just like a plastic body.

So at what point of modification to either, is the part "Classified as "SCRATCH-BUILT ???

THEREFORE, the real question SEEMS TO BE, what is really "RAW OR BASIC MATERIAL", that wasn't pre-formed, ESPECIALLY WHEN MADE OF PLASTIC ???

WONDERING (WANDERING??) MIND'S WANT TO KNOW .

Edited April 1, 2009 by Treehugger Dave

[my80malibu]

I tend to get more satisfaction from scratch building, or even "modifying " a kit part to work like on a 1-1. However it can be time consuming and with the other Ideas swirling in my head along with the voices. Sometimes it can have a negative effect on my productivity. Kit bashing isn't something I have a lot of familiarity with although. I have come to see its Importance when it comes to earlier models with Molded in details or very little detail.

Gabriel

[Aaronw]

I consider kit bashing the use of basically unmodified kit parts from multiple kits.

Scratchbuilding is use of raw materials, to make items. I would include major modification of kit parts as scratchbuilding.

Then there is that weird grey area where a kit is heavily modified and kit parts are added to modify it, but nothing new is really made. Conversion to a convertable comes to mind, lots of work removing the roof, but nothing is really made assuming a lowered top is used from another kit.

[Smart-Resins]

Alright. Here are my thoughts for what they are worth!

Kit bashing is using 2 or more kits to make a model. Like using the roof from one to put on the body of another to put on the fenders of another all to sit over the chassis of another like a pro-street.

Parts box build. Yes I view this different from kit bashing. I feel as though this is merely taking left over parts in your boxes and creating something from a pile of junk

Scratch building is creating something from material to make something new. I may vary here from others? I view taking a styrene rod and turning it into a steering column by clamping it into a dremel and machining it the same as say taking a glass pack and clamping it into the dremel and machining it into a steering column. To me, both are scratch building. The glass pack for me is just a piece of plastic that I will be using to machine something from.

In short, taking a body off of a slot car, painting it and putting it back on is NOT scratchbuilding, but customizing it. Perhaps if they could be persueded to change that heading to customized slot cars, that it would fit many things for them in there!! Jody

[Foxer]

HERE'S SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU.

When is a pre-shaped piece of plastic cut from a kit body, OR KIT PART become "RAW PLASTIC" ???

Now remember, all flat stock, tubes and rod are pre-formed, just like a plastic body.

So at what point of modification to either, is the part "Classified as "SCRATCH-BUILT ???

THEREFORE, the real question SEEMS TO BE, what is really "RAW OR BASIC MATERIAL", that wasn't pre-formed, ESPECIALLY WHEN MADE OF PLASTIC ???

WONDERING (WANDERING??) MIND'S WANT TO KNOW .

ok.. Dave wants this to get serious! The only "RAW OR BASIC MATERIAL" ..NOT pre-formed or worked .. is one of the materials in this table:

Non-Formed RAW Scratchbuilding Materials

[Jairus]

Here's a thought... suppose one kit becomes raw material for a completely different car? Say building a 1935 Ford truck from the frame and body pieces found in a Monogram Duesenberg!

The Monogram plastic pieces become the raw material and are changed in nearly every way, such that nothing is recognizable as Duesy but 1935 Truck. I figure that at some point Kit-Bashing becomes Scratch-Building no matter where you get the raw materials.

BTW, the slot car site has elected to keep the term "Scratchbuilding" as a catch all for anyone Modifying an existing slot car purchased from a manufacturer. The debate has raged since 2006 and the thread, which was once pinned, has been unpinned in the hopes that it will eventually float away under a mountain of "repainted" and "redecaled" slot car threads!

But what else would I expect from a bunch of Europeans...

[E St. Kruiser50]

ok.. Dave wants this to get serious! The only "RAW OR BASIC MATERIAL" ..NOT pre-formed or worked .. is one of the materials in this table:

Non-Formed RAW Scratchbuilding Materials

[Smart-Resins]

Well europeans, well theres the problem then!! Please read the first definition for the europeans for scratch that I found!

1-Scratch

in Old Scratch "the Devil," 1740, is from earlier Scrat, from O.N. skratte "goblin, monster," a word which was used in late O.E. for "hermaphrodite" (cf. O.H.G. scrato "satyr, wood demon").

So, I take it that they deem modifying a perfectly good slot car as the work of the deval!!

2- scratch (v.)

1474, probably a fusion of M.E. scratten and crachen, both meaning "to scratch," both of uncertain origin. The noun is attested from 1586; slang sense of "money" is from 1914, of uncertain signification.

So I take it that they figure that modifying a perfectly good slot car costs too much scratch, therefore it must be dumped in some dumb thread and so they duelyy dub it scratchbuilding!

Someone seriously needs to teach them the American English meaning of scratchbuilding

Scratch building is the process of building a scale model from raw materials, rather than building it from a commercial kit, kitbashing or buying it pre-assembled.

LOL. Jody