Scratch-builder from Mumbai, India.

Scratch-building is a wonderful way to build models where you get the full credit for everything you build and not just assemble and paint according to printed instructions.

I started off in my younger days in school with thermocol or expanded polystyrene carved out with a razor blade and had a whole fleet of airliners and a mini airport too!!! Had a lot of cuts on my fingers due to using an open razor blade with no handle but then I was only a beginner with no instructions or help from anyone. No, not even popular magazines to guide me but just three view drawings from Flight International Magazine that helped me a lot in those days (late 1970's).

Then I progressed to hard wood like Teak for making models using a hacksaw and rough and fine wood files to give the models the final shape. I used to use fillers for some sections that were difficult to carve out like pointed noses using sawdust mixed with Araldite (resin and hardener) or Fevicol (wood glue) adhesive to give a fine and smooth finish to delicate sections like the nose of the fighter aircraft with a metal pin embedded in it to make the antenna for some models. I also used thin plywood or veneer sheets for the wings and sometimes used thin aluminium sheets for wings and other moving surfaces too.

Then I moved on to thin plastic / acrylic sheets with wooden molds for making some parts like cowlings and wheels (in half sections joined together) by heating the plastic slightly before pressing it over the male mold to get the shapes required and then filing or cutting them off to get the final accurate shapes.

Finally I progressed to what I love doing best ..... using thin and thick ivory paper card to build the models and that really gives me a high when I finish my models. Using scale plans in either 1/72 and 1/48 from scale modelling magazines or some books is the way I make the models without any instructions using my own ideas about how to build them using techniques that include building the structure as it is actually built with ribs and spars in the wings, bulkheads in the fuselage with some stringers to make it look realistic if one were to cut it open or see inside the model too. I also try to make the cockpit as close to reality with the meagre resources I have at my disposal using ball point pen tips to etch out the ribs where there are too many to actually make inside a small wing on small size models, use a lot of indigenous plastic parts like cut plastic ball point refill sections for some parts like cockpit gauges, etc.

It takes a lot of time to build some of them and sometimes my models are lying around for months without any progress at all as I work on them only when I am in the mood to do so!!! I do build or rather assemble plastic aircraft kits too but they never give me the same satisfaction that I get from scratch-building my paper card models!!!

My other interests besides this lovely hobby of scale modelling aircraft, spacecraft and ships are astronomy, astro-photography, space, travel, art, history, archaeology, collecting books and artefacts and listening to Western classical music.

Cheers,

Aadil.

Mumbai, India.