Today I tried to add scratchbuilt detail to a kit. And it sucked.

I’ve never been that interested in scratchbuilding. I am a man of limited imagination and craftsmanship, and the main reason I like making kits are the defined parameters: there is a box of bits, and from it I shall create a model. There’s no blank canvas; it’s a bit like painting by numbers. The sky is not the limit; I’m following the instructions.

Now, of course, over the years I’ve extended those boundaries. I treat the instructions as advice, not a rule book. And however much work one puts into the finish of a model, more could always have been done to make it more realistic, or interesting, or visually pleasing. And inaccuracies have been corrected, and details refined, and parts added from the spares box, and other parts replaced. I’m not a complete modelling luddite.

In the past year or so, I’ve stretched myself by dabbling in a little scratchbuilding, but always on the big exterior stuff, on the stuff that matters to me. So with my Classic Airframes Duck I created quite large, new fuselage parts from nothing other than plastic card and superglue. The kit was wrong and I couldn’t live with it, so I fixed it myself. The results were, even if I do say so myself, really rather good.

When it came to my more recent Kinetic F-84F Thunderstreak, the same thing happened: I wanted to model a particular airframe, and the kit was substantially different. I needed to shorten the tail fin by about 10mm, which was easy and doesn’t really count as scratchbuilding, but I also needed to completely replace the lower rear fuselage, and that definitely does count, at least in my book. Again, I surprised myself with the results.

Cut to my current build, Academy’s 1/48 CH-46E Sea Knight. I was fortunate enough to be pointed to an excellent walkaround for this helicopter which shows that the interior cargo bay is way, way more complicated than depicted in the kit. I am using an Eduard Big Ed set, but to be honest it adds almost no interior detail and a lot of what it does add is wrong. In the past I wouldn’t have cared and just painted what Academy provide as best as I can and button it all up, but for some reason I wanted to add the detail. I don’t know why; maybe I’ve was looking at John Chung’s magnificent Hornet with its scratchbuilt interior detail and thought to myself, ‘I’ll have some of that. How hard can it be?’

Well it turns out *really* hard. At least for me. To avoid biting off more than I can chew, I did limit myself to the forward end of the interior. After all, the ramp and doors were all going to be shut, and the only view inside would be past the guns at the front and the open upper door behind the cockpit. I just needed to add the wiring right up at the forward end and that would be enough – black paint and limited visibility would hide the rest. With lead and copper wire of many diameters in hand, I set to copying the photos.

What ensued were a miserable couple of hours. Even though I was only detailing a few square inches, progress was painfully slow, immensely frustrating and the results looked crap. And this is where the title of this little post comes in. I’ve never cared about interior detail in the past. If there’s decent aftermarket, and I’ve got it, then fine, I’ll add it and paint it, but I’ve always considered it a largely wasted effort on my models. No one sees the insides so no one cares, including me, so why should I care about it on the CH-46? There isn’t really any good reason. If I’d reflected a bit more on myself as a modeller, I’d have known the detailing project was a waste of time and doomed to fail; my heart was never going to be in it. I love it when other people do it – it looks amazing – but it just doesn’t float my boat for what I want to do with my hands.

So I’ve learned this in 2022: scratchbuilding for accuracy on the exterior: YES. Scratchbuilding for interior detail: NO.

At this point, a well-meaning person might tell me stick with it. It looks crap because you’re inexperienced. Develop those skills, and your interiors can look like Fanch Lubin’s, too! But I know myself and I know this about modelling: if you want a detailed interior, you will need time. Lots of it. Like maybe only building-one-kit-a-year time, and I just don’t want that. I want this model done by December, Christmas at the latest. That is way more important to me than interior detail. I listened to Julian in the latest On The Bench episode where he commented that figure modelling is a whole separate hobby, and who’s got time for that? I reckon interior scratchbuilding is the same. I’ve already got one hobby – building my stash. I haven’t got time for another, to be messing around with interiors.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I do reckon that modellers in general underappreciate how different we all are. There’s lots of well-meaning advice given on how to get better, how to get more productive, how to get more creative, and much of it good. But whether it works or not will depend on who you are and what goal(s) you’re working towards. Adding interior detail works against my modelling goals. I’ve heard it (strongly) recommended that modellers should build in multiple genres to be better modellers. I’ve heard it that shelf queens are the product of better modellers because it shows you know when to stop, pause and overcome a hurdle, and produce something better in the long run. This might be great advice if you want to be the best modeller, a Paul Budzik or a David Parker. But it’s no good to me because, whilst I do want to be a better modeller, I’m constrained by the goal I have: to build 6-8 1/48 post-WWII aircraft per year. That’s the goal, and there’s no sign of it changing any time soon. About an hour into adding lead wire to the interior of a CH-46 I realised I was not working towards this goal, but rather away from it, and I almost jacked the whole kit in out of frustration. Things have recovered now: I’ll just paint what Academy, Eduard and my shoddy detailing have provided and be happy with it. Quality and quantity: it’s a direct trade-off.

I’m not a psychologist, although I would love more discussion on the psychology and philosophy of modelling, but I’m a firm believer in knowing yourself. Figure out what it is you want and make a plan to work towards that. Listen to advice that aids you in that goal, and ignore that which distracts. I hope this is not the pot calling the kettle black. You may completely disagree with me (or simply not care), and that’s okay. There is no right way or wrong way, but my way might correspond with your way, or overlap with his way, or be going in a completely different direction from her way. If I can figure that out, I can figure out what sort of conversation we’re going to have.

Still, if the aftermarket had done the work for me and offered a properly detailed CH-46 cargo bay, I would have snapped it up and loved making it.

Back to home.

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