I’ve been a scratchbuilder since my early teens. In those days it was mainly sci-fi models that I built. The modelling bug bit early, like many of my friends, with ship, tank and aircraft models; most of those in the early to mid 1970s being Airfix kits.
Sci-fi kits however were a little harder to come by and once you want past the Space 1999 Eagle Transporter, sci-fi kits in Australia were thin on the ground.I saw lots of them in the modelling magazines, but for an economically challenged teen in Sydney’s west, they were out of the question.
Early on I came in contact with Plasticard and balsa (both of which at the time were cheap) to begin making my own models and accessories. I remember among the first of these was some extra pods for the Eagle Transporter. Over the last 20 years I’ve built many models that I wanted, or that I’d seen in the model railway magazines and wanted to reproduce.
NOTE: Keep an eye out – I’ll have an article on a long-term scratchbashed O gauge model will be posted some time in March.
This year I have a couple of scratchbuilding projects in 1/32nd scale running on 32mm scale track. I know it’s not quite exact for the gauge of track, however, it is easy to get running and there are parts available left right and centre. There are a lot of articles in my head but little on paper (or on-screen) at the moment.
Site 1: David Baillie’s ‘Modelling Victorian Railways‘
Today’s site gets the nod because of the amount of sharing that David does. Every modelling project he does gets its own PDF (available for download). Good one David!
There’s a list of complete scratchbuilding projects, and kitbashing subjects on Victorian rolling stock as well. Most importantly he has a range of ideas, and best practices for building models from the ground up.
Take a look at the site, and no matter what railroad you model, there is information here that will increase your modelling skill.
PS: David notes on his site “5 Jan 2015: I am in hospital undergoing treatment for an aggressive cancer, and I am hanging on to get home to see my family maybe sometime in February. In the meantime, I will miss my modelling, but even more so my family!”
I feel for him as a fellow cancer survivor. I wish him all the best. If I get any information back from David, I’ll let you know. More importantly if you feel right about it, send him an email from his site. I’m sure he’d feel better knowing others were thinking about him and his family at this time.
Andrew's Trains 