How long and hard do you plan out a very important build?

[Mr. Moparman]

For instance, I am planning a Superbird build that won't be built until late August, possibly later than that. I spend my days reserching, making lists and notes, gathering parts, etc. All of this goes into a empty model box labled "1970 Plymouth Superbird Build" Stuff like lists and paper stuff get hole punched and goes in a small 3-ring binder. Stuff like reference pictures and stuff that I don't need on paper goes on a cheap flash drive that is broken down into catagories like: Mopar; Dodge; 1969; Charger

This I can plug into my TV in my hobby room and zoom in-out as nessesary.

So? How do you plan for that very important build?

[ra7c7er]

I usually start building and plan as I go. I don't think I have ever written down notes except for color and potential sponsors for race cars.

[diymirage]

by popping a fresh blade in the knife and opening up the box

in a more serious fashion, nothing in my life (other then the stuff i do for church) is very organized and model building is no different

i have 2 builds that match what you are talking about, one is "rusty" from Joe Dirt, the other is Rufus, a 90s opel E kadett

i've been slowly building a stash of references and parts

if the reference is physical it goes in the box with the model, so do the parts

all the electronic stuff just goes somewhere on the puter

then i will start building and keep going untill i hit a roadblock, at which point i will go online for further research

[comp1839]

for me planning is everything. i can spend months in advance doing research and finding reference material and hand drawing prints. if this is an important build to you, leave nothing to chance and no stone unturned. even when you think you've planned for everything, something will pop-up that you never thought of. poor planning leads to inaccurate detail and you'll only beat yourself up over it later. the level of detail should be what you're deciding along the way. questions like /do i detail the motor - to what level / do i detail the transmission / will it be seen / does it matter to me if it's seen or not? this is the process i use to start out on a model. some will disagree and that's fine. in the end you will need to define your own parameters to build. hope this helps.

[Mr. Moparman]

For me it always starts with several hours of Grokking (staring) at the model and it's components. I never plan for anything like with binders and notes and such although I do usually keep a series of reference photos in my hard drive though.

You may want to rethink having a television in your workroom though. From paint dust to resin and plastic dust from dremeling, all these are attracted to electronics like a magnet as well as glue vapors. Speaking from experience, the resulting fire is just no fun and does nothing but detract from the hobby.

I would not get by very good due to the fact that my hobby room is my bedroom!

[SuperStockAndy]

I've been planning a Pro Mod Nova for a couple months now...started on it yesterday.

[whale392]

I am building a model of one of the semi trucks my dad drove. I have one reference pic to go by, and his memory. Luckily, most everything I will need is available (ok, was made anyway) to complete the build. Will it be 100%? No. But will it make dad happy? Yup!

My Mustang builds; I can walk out into either my garage or driveway and have unlimited access to reference material (the real cars). If that doesn't quite do it, belonging to 5 different Mustang forums will usually turn up what I am looking for. So I have a rough plan, but build/modify as I go/as needed.

[DanielG]

Researching, notes, 3-ring binders, thinking, sounds like a lot of WORK to me!

[highway]

If I spent more time building and less time planning, I wouldn't have over 500 unbuilt kits sitting on the shelves collecting dust! I have plenty of them built in my mind, but that still doesn't make any room on the shelves!

Seriously though, I do think that I spend too much time planning a project that by the time I'm ready to work on the project, I've spent so much time planning it I'm already burned out on it before the kit comes out of the box. Then other times I plan a project and think "No one else would do this" or "I haven't seen it built this way before" and guess what, I open the next month's MCM or SA and there is my idea in all it's glory BUILT BY SOMEONE ELSE!!!

I've actually given up planning a build, unless it is something that I want to be accurate such as a certain race car driven at a certain race. Those type of builds are ones I may spend years collecting the correct research materials, collecting all the aftermarket details I'd like to use to make it accurate, and buying aftermarket decals to match the certain car. One case in point is a Dale Earnhardt Sr. Bass Pro Shops Monte Carlo, it was a one race paint scheme, and after some research, I discovered the decals were incorrect for the car, there was a color left out of the stripes around the bottom of the car. A couple years later, I found the correct decals at a show. Now just to pinpoint a correct color for the gold paint job.

Other than those "have to be correct" builds, I just found that planning a build leads to one thing for me, A CHANGE IN PLANS!! This is one of those builds where I couldn't tell you how many times the plan changed for it, and it's been "in progress" for almost 12 years!

It's at least went through three engine changes, and has about 4 different kits for donor parts. The only thing I know for sure is it will have a Candy Apple Red paint job and it will have the large Mickey Thompson pro street tires in the back. One other thing, whether it stays with the current Top Fuel engine or something else, YES, IT HAS A HEMI!!! And yes, the blower will also still fit under the hood!!

[LAone]

i dont like planning, i do like researching. especially when it comes down to a car/bike ect that i am not familiar with. i do save images and magazines that can be helpful in the future. but to sit down and say that im going to build a kit on so date, that wont happen. i come up with ideas as i build. none of my builds involve plans, just what ifs and ooh how would this look..

[Darren B]

For me I have never planned out a build, (well except for maybe what paint color i was gonna use)it just comes as I go along, most of my lowrider builds evolve as I go. Even my recent build that was going to be just an easy lowrider build of a '41 chevy pickup build. Now it has become a major build and did not intend to go so over board with the build but 1 thing led to another, and now im knee deep in a table of crazyness...................

[Agent G]

I plan as I go along. I had this idea to "upengine" an Impala SS. I looked at my stash and chose a LS1 from a Polar Lights GTO.

Then as I was grokking the pile of parts, it hit me I could use the GTO's seats in the Impala's interior.

I popped the hood on a co workers GTO for detail.

I just sort of "cut and pasted" the seats.

It all looks like it belongs.

G

[Dragracer]

If I'm planning on building Box-Stock, I just build, if I'm planning on a detailed model (like my Pro-Extreme Demon & my upcoming Witches Trilogy), it's all planning,drag magazines,model magazines,printing up pics of chassis,engines etc.& putting them in a binder,printing pics from different websites for decals & so on, I have some work done on the engines for my Demon & 1 of my Witches cars, have pics for the hood/sides of the cars(soon-to-be-decals). I have just as much fun doing all this as I do building the cars.

[Junkman]

On an average around 20 years it seems...

[kitbash1]

I try to get all of the referance matrials together first. Photos & any books on the subject. Then I get all of the aftermarket decals, P.E and paints. Then I start building.

[ewaskew]

I think of something and go with it.

I have many photo's on my files as a cool build idea one day.

Will they ever get done? Probably not.

Right now I have two built custom rigs and another wip going on.

The custom rig thing is what I want to do now,and I have plenty of them planed out.

If I plan to much the time factor enters and then the fun of the build go's away

I get started and then it sits forever and never gets done.

I plan on starting two custom car haulers loaded with nine cars each.

After I finish my current wip.

Thats 22 models and a lot of scratch building.

Hoping for a year to finish but thats probably not going to happen.

However that is a lot of different custom cars and pick ups to build so it's not like working on the same kit all the time.

I did keep up with real time working on a car I did. Not counting researching that was done.

And a count of pieces it took to build the parts I wanted for that build.

Real build time 260 Hrs

Pieces to build the parts 230 example 8 pieces for one air ride shock

Kit parts used 13

After that build I said I will never keep up with that again

[Eshaver]

Brandon, to answer the question as fairly and as accurately as possible , as long as it takes . For example , The Shell station I did the model of took TWO Years just for the Shell shaped building . Why so long ya ask ? Simple , I spent that amount of time on it cause I couldn't get the top like it should have looked .

Now note the fact that you can't see a rear attached building . I had to guess at those details .

Still, I corrected the rear building AFTER it was premiered at a N N L show in Winston Salem North carolinia where the actual building was erected in 1930.

two years later , In Fredricksburg Virginia , the building was shown with a corrected sign , and a corrected rear shed attachment .

Now in addition, I spent another two years on and off the phone both to Quality Oil who once erected the building I did the model of and to the North Carolina Historical Society . That adds up to about six years totaljust for one diorama do be done accurately .

Ed Shaver

[1320wayne]

I think that these kinds of things have a lot to do with how long you've been at this, how much getting things "exactly right" matter to you, and how familiar you are with both the particular subject you're building and cars in general.

When I was a teenager, in the dark and distant pre-internet age, I had stacks of brochures, magazines and books full of my favorite cars, that I read and re-read regardless of what I was building. Now, most of those details are just memorized and I don't really need to do any research to plan a project that involves those cars.

On the other hand, if it's a newer car, or one I wasn't in love with in the 80s, I may do a few Google image searches. That changes considerably if I'm building a model of one specific car, like say, a racing car, where there are more details that need to be just-right.

I just think for a lot of us, you get so familiar with the 1:1 versions over the years (witness any Fox Mustang discussion here and you'll have 10 guys chiming in that have probably rebuilt every component of those cars 10x over, and can not only tell what color something is, but what torque specs you'd tighten the bolts that hold it on the real car...) that you don't need a lot of research time or planning unless you're doing either a very involved kitbash/scratchbuild project, or it's something totally out of your normal comfort zone.

I think Mark hit the nail on the head here, at least for my perspective he did.

You've seen many different responses from different people but I would also think that in most cases each individual would have to respond differently for different projects.

I think that as you continue building you should learn from each previous build and hopefully streamline your planning from there.

I also think that different projects would require different approaches on planning. For instance, I did a diorama about two years ago. The first one that I ever did. I spent about eight years planning for it, collecting materials that I would one day use in it. I visualized what the finished project would look like and when it was all said and done my vision from eight years back was pretty close to being acheived.

Then there's those projects that are the spur of the moment planning simply because you've seen an image in a magazine or on t.v.. Not a whole lot of advanced planning but moreover just jumping right in and doing.

Then there's those highly detailed builds that require plenty of research and collecting of detailing materials before you start. My wife sometimes walks up on me and wonders what I'm doing when I'm simply staring at a part or a body or the entire unbuilt model and I tell her that I am envisioning what I'm about to do and how I'm going to do it.

That's my take on the subject.

[brett]

Plans, plans I dont need no steenking plans . Like Earl I think of something and go with it.

I too have many photo's on my hard drives as a cool build idea one day (about 400 , and growing).

Will they ever get done? Well I have done about 20 of them so far but with new ideas popping into my head or on screen every day......................... When/if I get to something I dont know (then I'll look online, usually) or dont like the kit supplied pieces then I'll start raiding other kits or the parts boxes for what I need, theres some things I've done so often I hardly need to think about what I'm doing unless I'm trying out a new way or new material to do it they're just second nature now. And also having a little mechanical knowledge on how things work alleviates the need to plan some things.

Edited July 20, 2011 by brett

[torinobradley]

I would have to say the amount of planning that goes into a build is very dependant on the subject. Examples in my recent projects are my Boyds Smoothster took virtually no planning other than picking colors, while my Grand Sport and Penske L88 have lots of planning. Some projects, I'll start by opening the box and others will start with an idea sketched out on paper or maybe test-fitting a few parts together. Other projects take a lot of time researching, gathering parts, test fitting, buying part-doner kits/books/parts/reference materials, etc...

Sometimes, the research is the only modeling I get to do.

I, like most of you I believe, have already built the kit I'm looking at a half-dozen times in my head before I actually snap the first piece off the sprues...