ok, my Collector or operator poll left some of you wanting a choice of builder or even a scratch builder.

While I can come up with some pretty good ideas in my head. (Lots of room in there you know) When it comes down to actually creating the idea, I fall far short of most of the quality items displayed on this site by a few of you. So while I may repaint an item and decal it, I still consider myself nothing more than a buyer. For the most part, I only buy what I like, so I tend to leave them as bought.

 

I bashed a lot of kits in my HO days, but with so few kits available near 1:29 (that aren't plainly European architecture or Old West, etc.) I fear that I may have no choice but to try actually building something from scratch.

 

For now, I'll consider myself a kit basher. To wit:

 

 

CCRR's temporary passenger station, which started life as a pair of bird feeders from Lowe's.

 

 

 

JackM

ha ha ha  Again you fail to take into account the complexity of the human psyche and limit the vote to just one of many overlapping venues.

 

I bought the rest of my rolling stock.

 

Then there is my dynamoter car...  I "bought" a 1:29 boxcar (not a kit) but it dwarfed my 1:32 scale locomotive so I striped it down to a flat car and added a gear to one axle to drive a telephone dial clutch to add brakes to the train and added an electronic fish-scale to measure the pull on the drawbar.  Then glued magnets to another axle to drive a bicycle speedometer.  Is it a kit bash or is it scratch built?

 

So which category do I fall into?

 

 

What is the difference between a "kit basher" and a "scratch builder"?  I can say that a "scratch builder" maybe starts with non-descript chunks of metal, plastc and wood and manufactures all the parts of the end product... but if there are any pre-manufactured parts (wheels, trucks, knobs, handles, etc.) that they do not modify in shape or form, are they still a "scratch builder"?

 

What if the starting point is a pre-manufactured car and someone just modifies the daylights out of it... Are they a "kit basher" if it wasn't a "kit" to begin with?  What if all they do is paint the handrail or replace the wheels?

 

 

 

I am primarily a buyer, but when a kit comes along the provides something I don't have, I'll buy it and build it.

 

A few years ago I built a Phil's Narrow Gauge D&RGW 40' reefer and I am in the process of building two kits from Sheridan Products.  One is a 1:20.3 D&RGW 4000 series (27.5') box car and the other is a 1:22.5 D&RGW caboose.

 

Chuck

Basher for sure, I own almost nothing that hasn't been modified, altered, or changed in some way or another...

Sometimes the alterations R so radical that I think it'd been easier to scratch-build though...

Paul R...

You have to ask???

 

 

Its bashing time...wheres my hammer.

All of the above. For I am a model RailRoader      

Rod

I'm another "all of the above" modeler. 

 

The odd thing is that when I first started in December, 1985, I thought the equipment (mostly LGB) was too expensive and desirable as collector's items to modify.  But it wasn't too long before I became tired of the hook and loop couplers and changed them out for knuckle couplers (mostly Delton and Lionel), then the plastic wheels got replaced.  THEN I needed some butts in the seats of the passenger cars AND lights. Once the long slide down the slippery slope began, there was no end to it. 

 

It's a lot of fun though.  Sometimes I imagine that I'm kinda like that little pig in the GICO commercials, just screaming "Whee!  Whee!! Whee!!!" the whole time.

 

Randy, perhaps you may be able to add an "All of the Above" button so we can actually vote for this option.

 

Have fun,

David Meashey

 

 

Scratch Builder