Artz lumber sheds

Over the past few weeks I've been working on the lumber shed portion of Art Curren's kit-mingling project, Artz Lumber Co.. Even though I've written about some aspects of Curren's projects, especially his connection with E. L. Moore, I've never actually worked on one of his builds. In 2023 I came up with an idea for a little diorama that would feature E. L. Moore's Cal's Lumberyard project and the lumber sheds from Curren's Artz Lumber Co.. This gave me an excuse for attempting a Curren build.

Partial building arrangement for the diorama. Cal's lumber yard is on the left

I've always had mixed feelings about Art Curren's kit-mingling projects, well, kit-mingling projects in general. On the one hand I admire the creativity, ingenuity, and skill Curren brought to these projects, and by all accounts he seemed to be a decent guy. On the other hand I have this feeling that the real purpose of these projects was simply to boost kit sales. For example, if one were to build Artz Lumber exactly as specified in the article one would need 3 Atlas lumberyard kits and 2 AHM farmhouse kits (1 complete one and the back wall from the second). Ok, so a longtime kit-mingler might have pieces of these kits in his stash leftover from other projects, but if not, this seems like a lot of kits.

But, that being said, I like the look of the tall shed / short shed structure. So, maybe the point of Curren's projects was: if the reader took a liking to one they'd give it a try, and maybe it would spark an interest in making custom buildings of their own design. Well, I'd like to think that was the point.

Pieces for the tall shed. Lower back wall piece has had its top details sawn off

As I've mentioned before, you'll need to use the kit's instructions and get a copy of Curren's article for the full details on how to build this project (Model Railroader magazine, Dec '86, or Art Curren's 1988 book, Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures). All I'm going to do here is provide some commentary on construction, and fill in some missing details.

You know, while I was making my way through the article I got the impression Curren started the project thinking it would be rather straightforward, but as things moved along found that was not going to be the case. Then, since he was faced with a limited page-count and deadline, had to rush and compromise a bit to get finished. I can't prove any of that of course, it's just a feeling from trying to follow the instructions and photos of what turned out to be a rather tricky build.

Use a razor saw to cut the lower walls to the correct height

Normally when building a plastic kit I discard the base, or cut it back so only the foundation is used. Not on this project. You need that base projection on the left side - the foundation for the little yellow office in the box stock build - for the breezeway between the two sheds, and to help secure the little shed to the tall one. This being the case I just kept the entire base as is and figured I'd blend it into the layout when the time came. Curren notes in his article that he initially cut off this base projection, but later realized he'd need to reattach it for the breezeway.

Upper and lower wall fit isn't too bad

When I work on these retro-projects I sometimes see myself as investigating the ways of model construction of the past. It's one thing to read the old articles or contemplate a kit's parts, but it's another thing entirely to build something as its originator meant it to be built, and dealing with the intersection of then and now along with your own model building desires and objectives. 

Apparently this way of learning by attempting to create objects as their creator did isn't uncommon in the art world. For example, in this paragraph Arthur Danto in his book, what art is, mentions how the artist Mike Bidlo made replicas of Andy Warhol's famous Brillo boxes to understand the entire process of bringing them to life:

"A 2005 work by the Appropriationist Mike Bidlo looks as much like Warhol's Box as the latter looks like supermarket Brillo boxes. Bidlo's denote all the 1964 Brillo Boxes, and this is worth noting. He did what he did because he wanted to understand what went into making them just as he replicated some Jackson Pollocks in order to learn what was involved in a real Jackson Pollack."

I'm doing a bit of that, but let's get back to the business of practical Artz appreciation to delve deeper.

Right wall with details ground off and roof mounting holes filled

The end wall that would have butted up against the AHM farmhouse Curren used as an office is made from 2 Atlas right end walls with the detail associated with the cutting table ground off. Curren's wall didn't have a lower portion as the office's back wall filled that role. This allowed the lower Atlas wall to be used as the front wall on the short shed. So, I had to scratch build a front wall for the short shed from a piece of Evergreen's styrene clapboard siding - more on that later. Also, I should have left the detail on the lower wall as weeks later I decided to include the cutting table and the detail would have been nice to have.

Next was to install the 3 interior open frame walls that hold up the top lumber rack in the lower level. A box stock build would use only 2 of these walls, so the 3rd had to come from another kit. These walls have to be shortened, and I found it rather tricky to get all 3 trimmed so that the top floor is nice and level. It's a trial-and-error job. There's a good diagram in the article that shows how all this fits together, but it doesn't tell you how fiddly the job is.

The interior is painted with Tamiya XF-57, Buff, acrylic, and some wear on the floor boards was brushed on with Tamyia XF-10, Flat Brown, acrylic. Curren mentions he painted the interiors after all construction was done and it almost ended in disaster. He sprayed the interior with a mixture of Pactra Light Earth and mineral spirits, which ended up softening several of the thinner pieces. He noted that if there was a next time he'd use a water-based paint. So, using Tamiya acrylic seemed a good choice in honouring Curren's hard won lesson. Colour-wise though, I chose my colours to match those used for Cal's Lumberyard.

The pencil line marks where the platform is cut for the step down to the opening

I started the top floor by installing the upper platform, which is a box stock lower platform that has had its sides and bottom notched to accommodate the floor's framing.

Notches that need cutting on the bottom of the platform

You see that pencil line I've drawn on the platform's top surface? You have to cut the platform apart there to form a step down to the opening in the back wall.This step is noted in the article, but only glancingly. 

The upper level lumber rack walkway made from Evergreen clapboard siding

You also need to make an internal walkway for the upper level. I used some scraps of Evergreen clapboard siding sanded down to nearly flat. I believe the material is 0.040" thick. The article mentions the walkway, and shows it in the exploded assembly diagram, but doesn't show a photo of it assembled and installed ...

The two walkways are installed

... so here it is! Also shown in the above photo is the upper level frame wall at the front - which also has to be shorted to get it to fit - and the floor framework from a second kit. 

Upper level is finished

The upper level doesn't have much vertical framework, and I'd think on the real thing the roof wouldn't be properly supported. Well, once the roof is on the model this fact isn't readily apparent, so let's move on.

A clearer view of the step in the upper level loading dock

The step in the opening in the upper level is a bit clearer in the above photo. The shed's exterior was painted with Revell Aqua Color #36139, Dark green matte, to match Cal's Lumberyard.

You know, that upper level opening strikes me as weird. Ok, look, I like the look of the structure, but I question the practicality of having what amounts to a loading dock way up there. Maybe these sorts of arrangements actually existed at one time, I don't know. However, it's going to make for an interesting scene on the diorama as long as I don't fret over things like utility and safety :-)

Left: 1960s kit box | Right: Current box

Just one more thing about utility since I'm digressing. When I first started to wonder about how the building was to be used I naturally consulted the kit's box top art for clues. 

The '60s box at least gives a hint about use. You can see a freight car loaded with lumber peeking out from just behind the building on the right side of the box suggesting lumber comes in by train and is loaded into the shed at the back of the building. Out front there's a buyer picking up material with his pickup truck. Off to the side is the cutting station. The box top art, as well as being a nice little illustration, also shows you how the building might be used on your layout. 

The current box top, although showing exactly what the finished model looks like if built straight from the kit without embellishment, tells nothing about the building and how to use it. It's just plopped into the middle of some generic greenery. Close examination shows the model to be rather crudely assembled which I guess goes hand-in-hand with the overall crudely designed box art. I can't imagine plastic model kits of cars, planes, or tanks being sold with such poor box art. The kit itself is not bad - not great, but not bad, good for beginners - and I'd think revamped box art, and maybe updated instructions too, would revitalize this old thing and make it more attractive to potential buyers.

With the tall shed completed I moved onto building the short one. The first job is to cut the walkway portion from the back wall.

And while the razor saw was out I cut off the ends off the base. On the left side one of those small yellow sheds is going to butt up against the wall, and on the right the wall is going to form one side of the breezeway with the tall shed.

As I noted earlier I had to make a new front wall because I used two kit side walls on the right side of the tall shed instead of just one as Curren specified, which meant I was one wall short for this project. My front wall is cut from a piece of Evergreen styrene clapboard siding - the same used on the office for Cal's Lumberyard. It's trimmed with some 0.040" square styrene strips. 

I added a floor cut from a piece of 0.040" thick plain styrene sheet into which I scribed floor boards. I also added some 0.040" square studs to the inside of the front wall so it looked like there was a little detail there if someone peeked in the upper openings on the back wall.

Curren closed off the right side of the interior with walls from the little yellow shed that are included in the kit. I didn't do that because I want to use the extra mini sheds on the diorama. The article doesn't show what the interior looks like with those shed walls installed, so maybe there's no loss to commonly known historical accuracy by leaving them off. 

A portion of the roof is cut away for the breezeway. I made a mistake and cut away one too many joists and later added them back with a scratchbuilt roof insert. 

You can see in the above photo I trimmed the left side of the tall shed's base so the low shed fits snuggly with the breezeway's floor. It's another trial-and-error job to get the two sheds to fit cleanly together at the roof and base. In the article Curren specifies drilling holes at various places in and around the breezeway for wire reinforcements and staples to securely hold the two structures together. Instead, I used some J.B.Weld epoxy to glue the two together at the roof and base. When the initial bond was hardened I dabbed on a little extra epoxy here-and-there to make sure the bases were secure. 

Gaps in the bases were filled in with styrene scraps. In the above photo you can see some of the epoxy work against the breezeway's left wall. That white strip over on the right is a support for a breezeway floor that I added later. I don't think Curren had one, but I thought it would neaten up the structure, and it would make sense to have a level floor that spanned the length and width of the area.

The tiny shed on the end needs to have its base and roof trimmed so that it will butt up against the low shed's left wall. Initially, I didn't use epoxy to join the two buildings, just regular styrene cement. Later, I got nervous and went back and reinforced the base connection with dabs of epoxy.

The base is a rough mish-mash, but it's solid

In case you were wondering, here's the business end of the structure. It's surprisingly solid, but I still handle it carefully. Eventually the model will have a permanent home on a diorama, so it shouldn't be subjected to much flex once that happens. 

The almost finished structure with orange ladders for safety :-)

We're getting close to the end. Just a few more details.

The breezeway

This is one of those 'The Digital Camera is a Harsh Mistress' photos, but it does show some of the final pieces of work.

You can see the styrene floor added to the breezeway along with a rickety step up to it sliced from some scrap styrene. I added a small extension to the low shed's roof to add back the portion I incorrectly cut off. A styrene beam has also been added below the roof joists for an illusion of support.

In the previous picture you can see the orange ladders popping out. They were painted to match the ones in Cals. I don't see how they'd improve the safety very much, but some token gestures must be made :-) 

Finally, I dusted the exterior surfaces with a little light grey chalk pastel. I'm going to revisit weathering a little once the diorama is in progress. I don't care much for the overly distressed look, so whatever I do the weathering will be light to produce something close to a freshly painted look. A bit of green flocking was glued to the base to make it a little more unified, but that will also be revisited once I get to the diorama.

I can't say I learned a lot about Art Curren's projects from working on just one as this particular one doesn't seem to be typical of his work. A lot of his projects appear to involve cutting several walls into a 3D jigsaw puzzle and then gluing them together to produce a rather interesting structure that one was surprised to see was hidden in the kit's parts all along. I will say though that it was a tricky project, and certainly not one for a beginner, but I'm happy with the result and glad I gave it a go.

Coming Attractions: Artz Lumber Co.

I've been wanting to build Art Curren's project Artz Lumber Co. for a long time and decided this winter is the winter of Artz.

The project needs three Atlas #750 lumberyard kits and an AHM #15303 farmhouse kit for the office. I just want to build the lumber shed so I don't need a farmhouse kit. Artz is going to be a part of a diorama along with Cal's Lumberyard, which has an office on the side. The diorama will be a project for next year. If you're going to follow along, Curren's article appeared in Model Railroader's Dec '86 issue and was reprinted in his 1988 book Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures. I won't be copying out the steps in my posts, just muddling along as usual. I'm curious to see how a Curren build goes as I've never done one before even though I've written a few posts about his writings.

In March I was lucky to find an old Atlas kit from the 1960s at the local model railroad swap meet - it's the kit at the top of the triangle in the photo. I'm not sure when this particular instance was manufactured, but the kit was first released in 1962. I did a little looking in Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman to see when ads for it first appeared. The earliest ad in MR appears in the Oct '62 issue, and is followed up by ones in Nov '62 (includes a small picture) and Jan '63 (includes a big picture). After that it appears with some regularity. I couldn't find any ads in RMC for either '62 or '63.

New kits are still being sold today. I acquired those two new ones in the bottom row of the photo just this week, although there was a lengthy search to find a pair at a reasonable price.

Well, I've got the kits. I'm just waiting for the snow to fly!

Edward C. Steinberg, Kitbasher Extraordinaire and Legendary Model Railroader

Steinberg has 3 articles inside, but no mention on the cover 

I began reading through the model railroading magazines of 1977 with one from January 1978. The January 1978 issue of Model Railroader to be specific. Long ago, and long forgotten, I had stuck a Post-It note to the top of page 58 to remind me where E. L. Moore’s Village Store article was, so when I was getting started on this reading adventure the doofus in me went straight for the little yellow flag sticking up amongst the field of pages on the shelf to see what I had marked, thinking that was the start to 1977. I wandered through the rest of the issue after saying hello to that old E. L. Moore article and was surprised to stumble across 3 different construction articles by the same author, an author who wasn’t E. L. Moore. It’s rather unusual to see 2 construction articles attributed to the same writer in an issue, 3 is rare indeed. The author was Edward C. Steinberg and all 3 articles dealt with kitbashing. I tend to think of Art Curren as MR’s kitbashing guy, and the leading light in kitbashing in general during that era, but I got a bit of an education when I went to look for more articles by Mr. Steinberg*.

I went to the MR archive, as well as the annual indices for Railroad Model Craftsman and Railroad Modeler, to see what he had published in the way of kitbashing and scratchbuilding articles in the 1970s and throughout the 20th century**. Here’s what I found (I’ve noted in () after the title what sort of article it is): 

1975

April: (MR) So you need a heavy-duty depressed-center flatcar! (kitbash)

May: (RM) The Great Coal Elevator (scratchbuild)

November: (RM) Quick & Easy Flat Cars (kitbash)

1976

January: (MR) Scratchbuild a loading platform (scratchbuild)

May: (MR) Stretching gondolas: 50’ + 50’ = 65’ (kitbash)

October: (MR) Bash a convertible bulkhead flatcar (kitbash)

December: (MR) A growing family of boxcars (kitbash)

1977

January: (MR) Model a contemporary lumber rack (scratchbuild)

February: (RM) Freelance Railcrane (kitbash)

    (NMRA Bulletin) Covering Stretched Mill Gondolas (kitbash)

March: (MR) Heavy-duty flatcar (kitbash)

    (MR) Levine Brothers Iron Works (scratchbuild)

May: (RM) Giant Hoppers for Coal (kitbash)

July: (MR) A large industry for a small layout (kitbash)

    (RM) The Super Tanker (kitbash)

December: (MR) Scratchbuilding a turntable (scratchbuild)

1978

January: (MR) The Eastwyck & Fensterstock Construction Co. (kitbash)

    (MR) Bash a transfer caboose (kitbash)

    (MR) Compound kitbashing to produce a feed mill*** (kitbash)

February: (MR) The big truck bash (kitbash)

    (RM) Dynamometer Car (kitbash)

March: (MR) Scratchbuild a depressed center flatcar (scratchbuilding)

April: (RM) Build a Bunch of Bathtub Gondolas (kitbash)

October: (MR) A diesel-powered rotary snowplow (kitbash)

    (RMC) Kitbashing a well-hole flat car (kitbash)

    (RM) Wartsboro Coal Elevator (scratchbuild)

November: (RM) Build a Railroad Magazine File

December: (MR) Modeling a bulk oil distribution terminal (kitbash)

1979

February: (MR) FA’s, Sharks, and Kadee couplers

March: (MR) Modern chemical tank cars (kitbash)

June: (RMC) 3 into 1: A Large Industry from a Smaller Trio (kitbash)

August: (RMC) Portable coal crusher

September: (MR) Toy parts into flatcar loads in one easy lesson

October: (MR) Mahjek Furniture Company (kitbash)

    (MR) Building a modern 60-foot automobile parts boxcar (kitbash)

December: (MR) Building a waffle-side automobile parts boxcar (kitbash)

1980

January: (MR) Safety-cage ladders

February: (RMC) “Standard Freighthouses (kit bash)

March: (MR) Build a wreck train (kitbash)

    (MR) A photo in the sporadic It Ain’t Prototype feature

August: (MR) The Greycourt interchange yard

    (RMC) Trackplan for the DLE&W

December: (MR) Building the Green River RR.: 1

    (RMC) An industry with heritage (kitbash)

1981

January: (MR) Building the Green River RR.: 2

March: (MR) Building the Green River RR.: Conclusion

    (RMC) Multi-level benchwork for the DLE&W

July: (RMC) Americanizing Wiking Trucks (kitbash)

October: (MR) Build a concrete plant (scratchbuild)

1983

January: (RMC) N&W-style caboose (kitbash)

1987

December: (RMC) RMC’s annual index says there was a Steinberg article published this month, but I couldn’t find it.

1994

August: (MR) Modeling Maxon Mills (scratchbuild)

2000

July: (MR) The shops at Marian Eddy**** (kitbash)

Although the article list is probably not a complete record of what Mr. Steinberg published it does strengthen the argument that he was a leading light regarding scratchbuilding and kitbashing from a period extending from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, not to mention a major writer in model railroading. It looks like Mr. Steinberg’s heyday was in the late 70s, with 1978 being his peak year. Here’s a count of how many articles he published by year:

1975: 3

1976: 4

1977: 9

1978: 12

1979: 8

1980: 8

1981: 5

1982 to the end of the 20th century: 4

As you can see, his articles kind of petered out in the early 1980s.

Steinberg’s kitbashing articles are rather different in approach than Curren’s in a couple of ways. First, Steinberg’s appear to use prototypes for inspiration and design, and Curren’s kitbashes seem to focus more on what interesting assemblages can be made with available kits. I wouldn’t say one way is better than the other, just that they’re examples of two ways to kitbash.*****  Secondly, Steinberg did a lot of freight car kitbashes, again focused on replicating, or at least being inspired by, prototypes, and Curren’s work focused on structures.

MR carried a brief biographical note in their Dec. ’76 issue about Edward Steinberg. In it Mr Steinberg is quoted as saying, “I am more concerned with plausibility than with authenticity or correct prototype. I try to do what seems reasonable for my railroad, whether or not it may be ‘correct’. The purpose of the whole thing is to please myself. Ultimately, I suppose, I want to produce an operating miniature railroad. More than half the fun, however, is getting there.” This philosophy apparently didn’t go down well with some readers at the time. One correspondent in MR’s Aug ’77 issue complained that, “Kitbashed freight cars by Mr. Steinberg: These articles are reminiscent of the stage of development that model locomotive construction articles were back in the 1940’s. There is just talk of a prototype, but no photo of the prototype for those who want to decide for themselves whether the model has a close enough appearance to the prototype to suit their taste.” Another correspondent, from Sweden, in that same issue seemed to concur, “And Mr. Steinberg’s kitbashing techniques are good, showing how simple it can be to create variety in a freight car fleet. But without better prototype information included, freight car modeling will remain in a stone-age stage lacking all its potential appeal.” If you look at Mr. Steinberg’s complete works - with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight from this point in the 21st century :-) - many of his freight car articles do contain prototype photos, so you can judge for yourself. 

Maybe those comments were simply a sign-of-the-times. That was the era when the movement in model railroading to model prototypes as closely as possible was emerging, and 1977 saw the release of the first issue of Prototype Modeler magazine to cater to that market. I guess I’m more sympathetic to kitbashing whose concerns are with plausibility than high fidelity to prototypes as I came to model railroading from model car building where building plausible custom vehicles, and sometimes very wild ones, wasn’t unusual. 

Portrait snippets sourced from MR | MR | Obiturary

MR’s biographical note also mentions he was 34 at the time, and worked as a city planner. Mr. Steinberg died in 2018 and his obituary gives a little insight into his professional life. It’s noted that, “Ed earned a B.A. from Columbia College and an M.S. in Urban Planning from the School of Architecture & Planning at Columbia University. He began his professional career in 1966 as a planned [JDL: I think they mean ‘planner’] for the N.Y. office of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. He came to White Plains [JDL: in New York state] in 1970 to work for the Urban Renewal Agency, where he was later named Director. In 1985, he was appointed Commissioner of Planning for the city.” This may explain the drop off in articles in the early 1980s. He was moving up in his professional career at that time. His background in urban planning may also account for his interest in a more nuanced approach to kitbashing and scratchbuilding as opposed to a literalist one.

Before I leave you I should mention one more 1977 kitbashing story I found while researching this post. There’s an article by George P. Landow called The P. J. Macktez Woolen Mill in the May 1977 issue of MR. It uses the plastic kits of E. L. Moore’s Machine Shop and Gruesome Casket Co.. Well, so what you say? They were used all the time back then. Well, it’s the number of Machine Shops that’re used: 14 (!) by my count (and 1 Gruesome Casket). The article is cagey and never states how many Machine Shops you’ll need to build this large structure - maybe the editors thought by doing so they’d scare off readers. This must be one of the purest expressions you’ll find of Art Curren’s philosophy of using plastic kits as sources of walls, but to build it today with Machine Shops could be a pricey proposition. I was able to find Machine Shop kits in the Walthers Trainline series for sale at a Quebec based online retailer for $24.95 CDN each. Those 14 kits would cost a total of $349.30 CDN. An online inflation calculator tells me those same kits would have cost $75.77 CDN in 1977. Throw in a Gruesome Casket kit, plus some odds and ends to complete the project, and that would have been around a $100 CDN project in 1977. Too much for me then, and still too much for me now. The more things change, the more things stay the same :-)

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Digressions

*I’ll probably have to revise my Secret History of Kitbashing given what I’ve recently learned :-)

**Trains.com used to have an extensive, searchable online index of model railroading magazines and their contents. It’s been gone for a year or two. I used to use it for all my searches as it was an excellent resource: professionally indexed and comprehensive. The NMRA has an online index, but, although it’s better than nothing, it’s a poor substitute. It’s far from complete, and the indexing and presentation of results needs serious revision. The majority of magazine articles I’ve listed in this post came from me slogging through the indexes for MR, RMC, and RM. I suspect I’ve missed a few articles and I apologize for that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he published in places other than those 3 magazines. I don’t have a magazine collection that covers all publications, or an index that does :-( , so I admit my list is likely incomplete. Please let me know about any additions.

Later in the development of this post I came across a new index, RMI, which seems to fill the gap that Trains.com left. I’ve been giving it a try with searches for the articles of Edward Steinberg, but, although it’s promising, it appears to need work. However, I’m glad to see this development and wish them well.

***This is a particularly interesting article as it promotes kitbashing with craftsman kits instead of the usual plastic ones. 

****Another interesting project as it makes use of Walthers HO scale back shop. You may recall I did a conversion of Walthers N scale back shop to HO.

*****A third approach would be that of Kim Adams, who goes further than Curren does when it comes to imaginative approaches to kitbashing. 

Did Gil Mellé invent kit-mingling in 1963?

Top: Mellé's lumber yard; Bottom: Curren's

I'm now rereading Gil Mellé's 1963 Railroad Model Craftsman articles. In the April issue I stumbled across the kitbashed project shown in the top half of the photo on the left, his so-called Split Level Lumber Yard. I immediately felt some deja vu. It was Art Curren's Artz Lumber Co. in his 1988 book, Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures, I was remembering. 

Mellé's project made use of Atlas' then relatively new #750 Lumber Yard and Office kit and #704 Signal Tower kit, with the #801 Street Light kit thrown in for some extra detail. Curren's used 3 of the #750s and an AHM #15303 American farmhouse kit.

Art Curren preferred to call what he did kit-mingling instead of the more commonly used term kitbashing, which the publisher of his book used in the title. I think kit-mingling is more accurate, and I prefer it, but the market is what the market is.

Interestingly Mellé doesn't use any special terms to refer to what he's doing other than noting the resulting model is a hybrid and a customization:

This month I shall proceed to show a new plastic kit trick. In previous articles I’ve shown you how to customize many of the plastic buildings currently available. This time, if you want to try your hand we’ll not only do that but we’ll also throw another kit into the batch and really come up with a hybrid.

But, just look at the picture up there. The model is clearly a species that much later would be referred to as kit-mingled. Did Gil Mellé invent kit-mingling? Maybe not. I'd have to read back more into the late 1950s and early 1960s to know for certain. However, he clearly was one of its early practitioners.  

“Under the cellophane wrapper, the parts!”: The Secret History of Kitbashing*

Dodge AT-AT Kit-bash

From chapter 13 of Lew Voltz’s Gluestick Traces, the definitive history of model railroading’s punk era*:

The term ‘kitbash’ first appeared in print in the 1967 book, The Society of Spectacular Models, by French Groucho Marxist theorist, Polystyrene philosopher, and model railroading expressionist Guy Dekit. In the book Dekit argued that capitalist production of polystyrene model kits that began in the 1950s and skyrocketed in popularity throughout the 1960s was a debasement of the centuries old folk art of making miniatures of beloved, iconic, and worshipful objects of personal interest. Dekit considered the once creative activity was being steamrollered by a mass-market simulacra of true model making.

The book was the culmination of many years work by Dekit and a number of other plastic radicals who formed the group Polystyrenist International in 1959 (the same year the first edition of The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroading Terms was published), whose purpose was to critique, divert, and subvert the tidal wave of polystyrene-based model construction. 

Dekit developed a détournement, which he referred to as ‘bashing’, whereby the components of several commercial polystyrene models were used to construct miniatures that held no resemblance to the objects that could be constructed by following official instruction sheets. Bashing was often an act of performance, undertaken in a party like atmosphere (aka a ‘bash’, or using the term of the time, Le Bash), and commonly began with a shout of, “Under the cellophane wrapper, the parts!” The bashing of polystyrene components became so strongly associated with Dekit that the activity was colloquially known as ‘bashing de kit’, which quickly became today’s plain, old 'kitbashing'.

But for every radical intervention is an associated mainstream recuperation, and kitbashing’s started with none other than Dekit’s closest colleague and PI co-founder, Au Courant. 

In the mid-1970s Courant broke with the PI and formed Craft Light And Magic (CLAM**) for the purpose of building kitbashed miniatures for the movie War in the Stars. The movie was a monumental success, but not necessarily for Courant, who lost control of CLAM through some complicated legal maneuvering by his investors. Fed up with movies, and ostracized by his old PI colleagues, he took a job offer from an American model railroading magazine and left France forever.

Courant went on to global acclaim with his innovative kitbashing techniques and educational programs; however, he and Dekit were never to speak again. That didn’t stop Dekit from commenting on Courant and his work in just about every interview he ever gave. It was clear Dekit had mixed feelings for Courant, who Dekit would often flippantly refer to as The Dark Lord of Kitbashing. 

On the one hand Dekit’s comments towards Courant could be spiteful and derogatory***, but were just as often admiring and praiseful***. He admired Courant’s ability to help show a powerful way forward to restore creativity and authenticity to the ancient art in the face of overwhelming kitization, but frequently condemned Courant’s success as simply a way for the companies to further increase sales of their plastic kits, thereby continuing to help degrade the art.

Dekit and Courant never reconciled.

Hot Rod Falcon Kit-bash

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*It should go without saying that this ‘history’ is completely fictional, and has no relation to any person, place, or thing either living or dead.

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**Urban legend has it that within CLAM an entire CLAM-based insider speak developed that included such terms as: CLAMity, meaning a kitbash that had gone seriously wrong; CLAMbaked, meaning a CLAM employee was exhibiting symptoms of breathing too much plastic solvent; CLAMedup, meaning someone had signed a non-disclosure agreement with CLAM; and so on.

***When Dekit was being spiteful and derogatory towards Courant he’d refer to CLAM as Courant’s Lazy American Modellers, and when he was admiring and praiseful CLAM became Courant’s Legendary American Modellers. It’s not known what Dekit was thinking when he said these things as Courant and CLAM had parted ways several years prior to Courant’s great success.

The Bug-Caddy Conjecture

Bug / Rolls-Royce kit from Revell's 1974-75 catalog

I've been writing about kitbashing a lot recently, and one thing I should have written in this post is that I have this bit set in my head that true kitbashing has a degree of wildness about it. Wildness being, going off the ranch, veering down some side-street, pursuing something in your mind no matter how unconventional. Kitbashing to make buildings bigger, or build replicas of prototypes that aren't commercially available are honourable and useful pursuits, but they seem more instrumental in their goals. They aren't wild. They aren't exploratory. Every time I see a kitbash, the Kim Adams definition of kitbashing sluices through my brain,

All my work is what I would call "kit-bashing." This is a common term in the model industry: you cross breed a Volkswagen with a Cadillac, and you've got a kit bash. 

Crossbreeding a Bug with a Caddy, now that's kitbashing! I think have this biased view because I first learned about kitbashing in the model car magazines of the late '60s and early '70s, which were far from the sedate world of model railroading. Maybe it was just a demographic thing. The model car press was focused on pre-teen boys, whose tastes are notoriously unrefined and which I was at the time, and the model railroad press was more sophisticated and oriented to adults. 

So, casting kitbashing in terms of crossbreeding a Bug and Caddy makes some sense to me. So much so I propose a test, The Bug-Caddy Conjecture, which is this: if in an assemblage, found components are brought together in a new and surprising manner, then kitbashing has occurred. What constitutes new and surprising? Well, it's not an exact test, it's just a conjecture, just something to get the brain cells asking questions.

Maybe surprisingly, I think Art Curren just squeaks a pass in The Bug-Caddy Conjecture. Ok, Mr. Curren's work isn't out on the same limb as Mr. Adams', but they both worked on creating new stuff, not just extensions of existing things. Mr. Curren's work is far mellower, and some did slide out of the outskirts of the Bug-Caddy zone and into conventional, but in general he seemed to have created buildings based on extrapolations of the look-and-feel of a certain era instead of specific prototypes. Ok, I admit the kits he used were modelling those eras, and he lets the era pop out in his creations instead of hiding them.

Look there's this other factor I have to take into account, Mr. Curren published for the mainstream model railroad magazines of his time, so he was possibly limited in what he could write about. The other side of kitbashing for magazines is that it helps push the sales of kits, and promotes vendors and advertisers. The post suggested an alternative question that asked what would Mr. Curren build with the vast numbers of plastic kits available today, but I should have went further and also asked, what would he build if he didn't have to publish an associated how-to article for a mainstream magazine? Or publish anything period. In his own time, did he build anything that he loved, but was unpublishable? E. L. Moore had a number of projects that were deemed unpublishable - which speak to the ongoing development of his interests - so I wouldn't be surprised if Art Curren did too.

And there's this other thing. Mr. Curren preferred to call what he did kitmingling instead of kitbashing. Kitbashing does seem to have this sound about it that it's something that's done with hammers and anvils and forges, where it fact it's something far more cerebral because you have to assimilate a lot of shapes, and figure out how to cut and slice and blend and assemble them to end up with the thing you're looking for. His preferred term, kitmingling, seems better for describing what's going on. When I look at Mr Adam's work, some is clearly kitmingling, and other stuff, like the Bruegel-Bosch-Bus, seems like anvil-pounding kitbashing. Maybe we should be a little more discerning in our use of terms: kitbashing for the wilder stuff, and kitmingling for the more cerebral end. 

The only reason I drone on about definitions, tests, and such is that I think the exploratory aspect of kitbashing-kitmingling sometimes gets glossed over, and maybe we'd see a little more speculative stuff if we took a little deeper look at what can be meant by bashing and mingling. I'm hoping to try a little more out there stuff myself this year - maybe the 350 Boss Birney will finally see the light of day :-) Hopefully a late New Year's resolution has a little more chance of being accomplished :-)