scratchbuilt?

You got it. Building a model without a kit is scratchbuilding. The best place to start a scratchbuilt project is with some good 3-view plans and lots of referance photos.

Scratchbuilding is what professional modelers like the guy who built the LAV-25 do. Find the plans, a bunch of photos, have a fully equipped shop and you build anything and everything. 1800 hours of labor too!

I don' t think there are enough plans and photos in existance for me to build something like that. Getting plans is one thing, executing them and building the object is something quite different. My hat's off to them ...

BTW Chris, cool new star!!

Hey Saltydog,
I thought the same exact thing when I got my copy in the mail this month. I fiqured though, there might be some after market kits used for the extras. But that was just because my mind was trying to rationalize something that complicated and intense. Really takes your breath away. When i first started coming across really great builts and intruicacies, I almost let it discourage me, thinking I would be a fool trying to compare to pieces of art as wonderful as those, but now I know It just gives me a higher goal to attain. Really ups the ante. I love when you come across the pictures you just can't stop looking at.

I take my hat off to those that can build something as stunning as that, starting from a piece of styrene sheet.

It gives me something to strive towards, and keeps the dreams alive.
But for most of us, it's not the skill level that holds us back , it's time.

At the moment I have a C119 Boxcar that has to have the entire internals scratchbuilt, from the airframe through to the rollers on the cargo floor, but all this takes time that I do not have in abundance.

One scratchbuilt model that really blows me away is Ben Guenthers Vought Vindicator, in Great Scale Modeling.
The frame he made from brass really makes me cringe trying to imagine getting the scaling correct.

And in 1/72 scale.

Speaking of "scratchbilt" do any of you have the March 1993 issue of FSM Magazine? On page 28 is an article about a woman scratchbuilder named Michelle Choquette who built a 1/32 scale A-10, and an F-4, as well as others, all from scratch. It is unbelievable. She used 300 pieces in the radar section of the nose alone on the F-4. [:0]

Mike

I think FSM needs to rerun that article!!!