Kit Scanning

[Keep It Rusty]

This may not be the best place to post this but it's mainly a 'trick' for walls, I suppose.

For a long time my first step has always been bracing walls. Not anymore. Now there's a new step in town:

Flatbed scanning all viable pieces. Clapboard, taskboard, chipboard, matboard... etc... (leaving just strip wood, castings and other irregulars). I even scan all the instructions, templates and roofing cards.

This way I can print the kit at 100% scale and remake the kit whenever I want (printing at 100% is easily found in most print menu settings). I use sheet lumber from Northeastern Scale Lumber (scribed sheeting and clapboard sheets can be purchased in 6 x 24" sheets)

Of course, there are many intricate pieces to kits and matching your Xacto skills to a laser can be difficult or impossible, in some cases. That said, it makes the scratchbuild process that little bit easier.

I'm sure there are others out there already doing this, but figured it worth posting for those that haven't yet considered this neat archival trick!

[deemery]

Just remember, you're scanning copyright parts.  You can use those scans for your purposes, but you can't distribute them.

I often scan templates so I can build directly on top of them.  I also use those scans to build mock-ups and for kit-bashing.

dave

[Keep It Rusty]

Yes, excellent point! I should've included that in my original post.