One of the parts of the hobby that I really enjoy is called kitbashing or kitmingling. That isn't a way to take out your frustrations, but rather a technique where you take a kit designed to be built as one thing and "bash" it into something else. Sometimes a kitbash can be as simple as adding a small room onto a house or as elaborate as taking two or three kits and building a much different & larger structure than the manufacturer originally intended.
On the way to work, I pass a building that has been "kitbashed" in real life. The local playhouse was formerly a church. When the group took it over, it would appear that they lowered the steeple and boarded up the windows to create their own theater. Now it seems to me that if I find the right church model, this would be pretty easy to do.
This model made by International Hobby Corporation may not work out too bad. I'm thinking that I can move the entrance / steeple, shorten it then "board up" the windows with some plastic sheet stock and I'll have a building that looks similar to the one I walk past every day on the way to & from the office. This project is only in the planning stages, but if I do go through with it, I'll share the results here with you as well.
There are several examples in the real world where us railroad modelers have set an example that others have followed. I was out watching trains the other day and noted that the newer crossing gates that railroads are installing today don't use the old mechanical bell anymore for the gonging sound made as the gates are down. Instead, they are using an electronically produced sound... guess what? Model railroaders have been doing that for several years! Hmmm... I wonder if we should charge them for using OUR ideas??!? Probably not...
Until next time...
dlm
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