These may seem like stupid questions but I’m curious…
Where is the line between “kit bashing” and “scratch building”? I’m building an new interior for a car and will need to do several more; I feel like I’m scratch building, but all I’m really doing is taking parts from other kits and making them fit into this one with LOTS of measuring, cutting, filing, etc. The car is 1/32 scale, but I’ve used everything from part of a 1/20 scale hood to 1/72 PE parts meant for a WW2 fighter and even resin parts for a 1/48 scale bomber. There’s brass angle and stryene strip in there, too, but this seems like kit bashing. I’m splitting hairs here, I know, but am wondering what the “technical” difference is between the two.
In the review section of model magazines and some forum posts people mention how many hours it took them to complete a model. I assume this doesn’t include time for glue and paint to dry, that would be absurd, but does this include all the time filing, sanding, applying putty, etc.? Does anyone else actually do this besides FSM editors and professional model builders? Any reason to do this other than just curiosity? Do they keep track with an electric timer and add it all up at the end or just guesstimate? By the time I’m finished with this car I’ll be curious as to how much time I spent but will probably be shocked and ashamed to tell anyone how long it actaully took.
You’re more kit bashing than scratchbuilding since you are using existing parts in differnt ways. If you were carving and casting your own parts, or cutting plastic stock to size, you’d be scratchbuildimg.
I think most people count the time in days or weeks to complete a build, as in “This took me two weeks to build.” meaning I started clean up and basic painting and assembly 14 days ago. SOme dyas might have been several houirs of work and others none. The professional reviewers do this to guve the reader a guage on how much time to expect. I would gues the timer starts when the fingers touch plastic and gets shut off when the session ends for the day. Any paint curing (glue drying would happen as other parts are being painted/assembled.) would not be included.
To me scratch building is replacing or improving parts that aren’t any good, or not there at all, with the intent of keeping the look “correct”. Recently I was working on a P-47 and tweezerpaulted a landing light into the carpet monster’s gaping maw. I ended up sanding and shaping an excess bit of clear sprue and glued it in place. I didn’t change the shape or look of the “stock” model. That’s scratch-building.
Kit-bashing is customizing a kit, either by creating a unique kit, or chopping and channeling a car body for a hot rod. Kit-bashing includes scratch-building, but changes the look.
I don’t keep track of how long it takes, as I build far too many kits all at the same time!
Ah, this may seem like a stupid answer to your question but, kit bashing is combining kits or parts thereof to make one model replica. Scratch building is using non-kit supplied materials {other than AM stuff} (i.e> sheet,strip, tube styrene, brass, aluminium or any other material to make a part or an assembly to enhance or simply make something…I’ve allways liked the term kit bashing, not sure why? Car guys do it alot, engine/tranny swaps, hoods, spoilers, ground effects etc…As far as hours a reviewer says … stay [8D]
About ten years ago, I too was curious about the “26 hours to build” stuff I had been reading. I ended up keeping time with a stopwatch to see how long it took me to build something. Turns out it served to show me how long it takes to make a mediocre P-51. Then I remembered that it’s not a timed event, and it doesn’t matter if it takes you eight hours or 40 hours to build something…if it turns out good. If it’s bad, like my P-51 was, then you know how much time you wasted.[:)]