I like scratch building for the boat and superstructure but finding bits and pieces is the hard part for finishing the boat where a kit has all the parts ready to go so good in both kits and scratch building.
Rick

The one good thing about kits is that usually apart from motors etc everything is in the box . Very useful when you live somewhere where its difficult to find MB bits & pieces. That said however you are simply one of many to build that particular model. Very boring to go down to the club and find a lot of the same boats on the water........ Not to say disappointing
So my usual approach used to be to change a few things including the superstructure - unless that particular model had great appeal.......
Fortunately now having stocked up fairly well with bits & pieces plus having use of a laser it was easy enough to revert to scratch building - my first ever boat aged around 9 or so was built from a photo and was probably quite crude by current standards - however it gave a lot of pleasure in building - and sailing in a garden pond but regrettably sank on its first real outing - giving me my first lesson in watertightness. Although my last few efforts for my grandchildren & lockdown are using a plan - the finished articles will have many deviations from the original - such as variable mast steps on the yachts.......

That's very true Ken, also if you don't build it quite right, nobody will know. The main advantage of building from scratch though is the versatility. You can build anything you like and are not beholden to the kit manufacturer. However, in saying this I am not in anyway belittling the efforts of the person who builds from a kit or a hull. It needs just as much effort and expertise, but perhaps a little less of the donkeywork.

Cheers, Nerys

Now that;s what I call boatbuilding. Priors built some lovely boats over the years and if I am not mistaken this is an Alan Buchanan designed Yeoman Mk2 probably built in about 1956.

Cheers, Nerys

I don't think showing a build big or small is going off topic nice photo's .Rick

All that steaming! looks like an early Herreshoff H28 with a cabin mod, ? (similar boat in NZ 1958)
Pretty much only undertaken by restorers these days, also the timber is not so available any more. The cost would be prohibitive.
JB

I hope you don't mind me going slightly off topic, but I found some old pictures of a boat my father help build at Priors Boat Yard at Burnham on Crouch, Essex, England in the 1950's.
I am afraid the days of building wooden boats commercially are gone, apart from a few specialists, any way that's what you call scratch built!

Hi CB90.
I find that i am just a builder, well really i class myself as a Tinkerer.
But you never know one day i might take a boat somewhere and sail it about for a while.

Martin555.

I was very lucky that my Father was an apprentice (7 years) served boat builder and taught me how to design simple chine model boats, using a large roll of paper (wallpaper lining paper).
I have built kits wooden, grp and plastic, I have renovated a few craft, but I find that I am not as fond of these, the craft I have invested the most time and effort in, including researching, collecting photographs, planning and building are my most valued.
I don't like to say this but I find most model boat enthusiasts are either get the most satisfaction from building or sailing their boats, the lucky ones get both. Where as I am a builder.

Over my 40+ years of building boats I have taken all sorts of approaches. When I was younger I was fairly sniffy about kits and consequently didn't make much progress- it took me six years to complete my first model! I was the same about fibreglass hulls and used to get very irritated when folk would claim they had scratch built a boat when using a grp hull.
As I have got older and life seems distinctly more finite I take pleasure in building kits, building from plans and refurbishing ebay rescues. Do what brings you pleasure and fires your imagination and that, as far as I'm concerned, is the point of the hobby.

Ian

Ron,
You made some good points there regarding kits. Of all of the boats I've built, about 20, I only built one from a kit. It was the Dumas Brooklyn Tug which came with a plastic molded hull in two halves. Although it is a nice kit, I just didn't get the satisfaction I get from scratch building.

Best part about my scratch building is that I never really know what the end product is until I set sail. I do design my boats on paper complete with calcs so they sail, but as the build goes along I always tweak the design based on materials that are available. Makes it interesting. 😉
Joe

Hi Rick,
I agree wit Nerys when she said about completing them to her own ideas.
I sometimes have an idea and then just make it even if i don't have any drawings.
Admittedly some of the ideas are a little strange but that is the fun bit for me.
Then again it could be the medication LOL!!!

Martin555.

For me the other thing about scratch build is yours will be a one of.Even if another builds from the same plans we all do things a little differently making it a one of. The other part is reading the drawings to build not only the hull but supper structure and all other parts for the boat.
Rick

I think kits are a very good introduction to the hobby and I'm glad that I started by building a couple, however I quickly realised that building from scratch gives you far more versatility about what you can build, though I must admit to having bought a couple of ready moulded hulls and completed them to my ideas. There are however far more boats that one can build that are not available as kits or ready moulded hulls, so really scratchbuilding scores.

Cheers, Nerys

Kits help me to see what I need to learn about my scratch building. I found that one on my first kits used too heavy of wood, in the bow particularly, thus it never planed over the surface of the water.

Some airplane kits are like that too, where too heavy of wood is in the kit, and thus it does not fly correctly.

So, if you use some of those kit parts as templates, then select your own material to replace it, a better model should be produced.

I don’t like the preformed hulls nor the glues used to bond them together. The challenge of making a hull is missed in the building process.

Ron

Hi Rick,
I am like you.
I like to make everything from scratch.
Take a look at my Harbour and you will see some of the stuff i do, including some strange things.

Most of my work is using waist products such as Ice Cream tubs, Margarine tubs And of course Yogurt Pots.

Martin555.