Tell me of materials for scratchebuild, rebuilds, add a little or a lot of this or that for making somethin, more inside my head than on the table or maybe even on my chopping boards.

Most of the modeling How-To books have sections on scratchbuiilding.  Read through three or four and see how others have done it.

Good Day!!

       The best thing you can do is go through ALL the previous posts in the various subjects. Scratchbuilding, tools, techniques, paint, etc...

Myself, I build ships, but I've gone through other parts of the forum like armor, aircraft, etc...

There is ALOT of information throughout this forum. I have learned alot (and still learning). Albeit, there are things you may have to figure out on your own.

I'm building a Halifax Class Frigate (H.M.C.S. Toronto) and I've managed to build alot just using two different thicknesses of plastic sheet and stretched sprue. 

I've also learned vacu-forming from this forum.

Keep reading and asking!!

                    Paul

All I do is scratchbuild so I'm always looking for useful scratchbuilding supplies. Dollar stores are a great source for small interesting shapes. Hardware and home improvement stores offer a great selection of things like "For Sale" signs and S&D pipe, both of these products are made of styrene. The same stores will yield plexiglass sheet, a favorite scatchbuilding material of mine. Another great place to look is Hobby Lobby or similar craft stores. Right now they are packed with cheap plastic Christmas ornaments, a real treasure trove! The bottom line is this, to the scratchbuilder anything is far game for raw materials. Right now I'm using balsa from a hobby shop and sheet styrene to build a model but my next one may be mostly laminated plexiglass. About 90% of my builds are made of balsa, plexiglass, brass tubing, and styrene. I use several types of glue/solvents to hold it together and then several types of fillers & putties to contour and refine my finished shape. Here is a link to my current project, a Star Trek ship.

http://www.starshipmodeler.net/talk/viewtopic.php?t=77460

I use a lot of basswood block for compound curve areas, carving.  Wood was the original material used to scratchbuild static scale model airplanes and it still has a lot going for it. I use styrene sheet for flat or single curved surfaces, covering a framed area. 

I use a lot of K&S brass for things like landing gears and such.  Sometimes I solder assemblies, other times use CA glue.

One really neat material for carved areas, even better than wood, is patternmakers foam plastic, but it is VERY expensive.  It comes in 4 x 4 or 4 x 8 foot sheets, and a one inch thick "board" of 4 x 8 costs well over a hundred bucks. I have tried to get some of my fellow modelers to buy a sheet and split it up but they don't do that much scratch work.

I haunt the local Michaels craft store for materials- wire, threadlike stuff (for hoses), beads, fancy pins, etc.

I use card stock occasionally.  What is really great but very hard to find are blank IBM punch cards.  These are very thin stock plastic coated on both sides (to make them stable in different humidities) so they prime and paint very easily.  Great for gun shields on model ships.

 Hey, BOB,nice to talk to someone from back home! I usually start with something simple,Or I used to years ago.My very first scratchbuilds were submarines I made out of broomsticks!! Then I graduated to Planes.Now however I primarily stay with things that float! You can use any material you want and then take one step at a time! When you try to build,try,something you can easily get info on and use basic tools.I started regular woodcarving years ago and scared some folks when they saw my methods so now I have custom made knives for when I do my hummingbirds.These carvings are life size.I have built in ,I believe, In just about every media that has been suggested.What do you feel comfortable with? Try something in the thing you are most comfortable with.Files,hacksaw and glue were my first tools. Tankerbuilder

I use a lot of wood, mostly basswood.  I have always claimed God created basswood species just for modelers, but the decoy carving folks argue with me.

It is cheap and works very well, with tight grain.

There is a patternmakers foam that is even better, but VERY expensive.  It comes in 4 x 8 feet by several choices of inches thick, and the sheets run over a hundred bucks a pop. If they  would sell it in square foot blocks that would be great. I am trying to talk some of my model club buddies into going together to buy one of the four by eight foot sheets and divide it up.

I also use a lot of urethane resin for parts where I have to make several of same thing.

I also use a lot of K&S brass tubing and rod.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone....lots of good ideas here.  Tankerbuilder, just where is "home" for you? Armor was my favorite for a long time as a kid, and I spent a little time in Germany with the 3rd Ar Div in 75-76. I'm doing a group of spacecraft models since we're at the 40th Anniv. of the first moon landing.

From what I'm seeing and what I can guess about on my own, it seems that I need source material, things like interior wheel-well photos of different  machines would go a long way in just giving me a sense of "how something looks" like brake lines, relay switches or fittings, something easy to fill space in an all-too-plain area of whatever I'm working on. I just need to make things look conceivably real since I'm not so concerned about being precise at least this early on. I want preciseness to come in over time. I just want to improve my abilities at this point since I'm SO FAR AHEAD of what I did when I'd buy a $.50 model in the morning, build in the afternoon and play with it before everything was even completely set. At that time, they were toys only, not artwork with specific histories attached. That's still to come.

I did go ahead and buy a couple of sheets of styrene, and I can see a possible use for differing sizes of rod / tubing. Do you know of any source for suggestions like this? I see that Evergreen offers a sort of guidebook for scratch builders. Looked to be a good price. Anyone have one they want to sell after any amount of use, in any kind of shape? Or does anyone know is it worth buying?

Thanks again

Bob

redshft1920

 

I did go ahead and buy a couple of sheets of styrene, and I can see a possible use for differing sizes of rod / tubing. Do you know of any source for suggestions like this? I see that Evergreen offers a sort of guidebook for scratch builders. Looked to be a good price. Anyone have one they want to sell after any amount of use, in any kind of shape? Or does anyone know is it worth buying?

Bob

Yes, the Evergreen book is worthwhile in my opinion. I have it and it is pretty good. Don't want to sell, however. It is a keeper.

The two big vendors of styrene you'll find in hobby shops are Evergreen and Plastruct.  Both are good sources, and you can order online if your hobby shop does not have what you need.

I did go ahead and buy a couple of sheets of styrene, and I can see a possible use for differing sizes of rod / tubing. Do you know of any source for suggestions like this?

Hobby Lobby stocks a "Grab Bag" of various sizes & lengths of brass and aluminum tubing, Model Expo.com also carries that kind of stuff... Also, look in the R/C dept. of your LHS for bags of various balsa 7basswood blocks, strips, and shapes... Hobb Lobby also caries a LOT of wood.. Keep your eyes open for all types of wire, grab whatever you find.  Solder makes excellent tubing & cable, being flexible and it stays where you put it..  Also, never throw away any kit parts.. Many parts have details on them that you can remove and use elsewhere, like lugnuts & such...

My P-47 derelect has about a nickle's-worth of material on the firewall:

 It's nothing but sheet & strip styrene, fine wire, brass & aluminum tubes, a couple of kit parts (I have no idea what from, they just looked interesting) and the lugnuts shaved off a 1/35th Sherman drive sprocket..

The "Creative Gizmologist" finds things everywhere that "look miniature"....

here is my view as a new commer, most are right , for me like you  i suppose you never done this stuff . I am starting slow buying as i need trying different stuff see what i need look around scavange read all what i can. Like anything we do we will accumulate stuff ,no use buying stuff you may not need for now . For me i added sponsons on my sherman and made a periscope the first i bought the other scavange from home . This is fun stuff and i bit scary there is so much out there and around us and great ideas from this forum

Denis

Just made a run to the area HobbyLobby this week and saw the GRAB BAG you mentioned. I only really needed a bit of small dia tubing for now and some piano wire, both in the same place and bought minimal packages of each....cheaper than the grab bag and plenty to try stuff with left-over.

The firewall scratchbuild looks great, BTW.

AGAIN, thanks so much for the good suggestions from everyone.

Bob

I like to use discarded electronic, watch and clock parts. Very interesting thingies in these items. I also use a lot of stretched sprue, balsa, K&S brass tubing, strips. Evergreen plastic of all shapes and those plastic advertisement cards that come in the mail. Old dicarded electrical cords have great wiring for detailing brake, hydraulic and electrical lines.

Don't throw anything away without first tearing it apart to see if anything inside could be useful.  Even if you can't use it now it may come in handy for a later project.  I have a box full of small gears made from plastic, metal, and what ever.  Save clear or frosted material.  My scratchbuilding box is bigger than my spare parts boxes.  Some I may never use but it is there just in case I do.

You might also make a trip to the Hardware Store. Lots of little 'fiddley bits' and such. Try the plumbing, electrical and automotive depts.

Try to change your mindset. Whenever I'm in a hardware store or any store for that matter, I try to look at stuff in a different way. Not: here we have plastic tubing and "IT IS USED FOR" ....... But: here we have plastic tubing and IT COULD BE USED FOR...or... IT LOOKS LIKE.....

Saving your unused sprues from finished models can also help. At some point you'll have a collection of parts that  could become something entirely different by cutting, tooling and sanding them into something usefull.

Don't be afraid to screw it up, there's always more plastic.

priegelen

Try to change your mindset. Whenever I'm in a hardware store or any store for that matter, I try to look at stuff in a different way. Not: here we have plastic tubing and "IT IS USED FOR" ....... But: here we have plastic tubing and IT COULD BE USED FOR...or... IT LOOKS LIKE.....

 

In addition to hardware stores, I find a lot of scratchbuilding supplies in craft stores such as Michaels. In addition to basswood, I find fine wire, beads that make knobs (like throttle knobs and such), and a number of tools of use to the modeler.  They also have airbrush parts.  I have found neat perforated aluminum for gratings.  Lots of different marking and paint pens, like gel rollers, paint brushes, Krylon paints and primer.