The Master Scratchbuilders

By John Alcorn
Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1999
ISBN 0-7643-0795-9
MSRP: $39.95 hardbound
168 pages

Reviewed by Jim Schubert

The working title of this book was Scratchbuilt II, a logical follow on to the 1993 book Scratchbuilt! by John, George Lee and Peter Cooke, but the publisher reckoned numbered sequels only work for "Rocky" movies and retitled it. As they say, "If you liked Scratchbuilt!, you'll love The Master Scratchbuilders." Recognizing that modeling, like painting and sculpture, is a visual art the author has given us more and larger and better photos of many scratchbuilt airplane models.

Whereas Scratchbuilt! primarily presented the work of its three authors in a "How I build my models" style, this book presents seven "master" scratchbuilders: Bob Davies with his Curtiss HS-2L; Alan Clark and his Short Singapore III; John Alcorn and his DeHavilland DH9A; Ron Lowry with a Gloster Gamecock; Arlo Schroeder building a Grumman TBF-1 Avenger; Bill Bosworth with a Mitsubishi G4M2e "Betty" and Peter Cooke building an Avro Lancaster. Each one tells, in his own words, how he built the noted airplane with a lot of asides on general building techniques. These seven chapters are reinforced with additional chapters on Vacuforming and Tools, Supplies, Materials, Services & Workplaces, written by John Alcorn. These two chapters contain the usual stuff; although the list of sources in the Tools chapter is very good. The Model Research and Photography written by Clark Macomber is also good, but perhaps overly thorough. We used to have a saying at Boeing that "There comes a time in every project when you've got to quit fooling around and build the damn thing."

The Finishing chapter written by Peter Chalmers shows off his methods, but while Peter's methods are very good and certainly yield excellent results for him, I am of the opinion that he is seriously overworking the problem and making finishing appear to be much more difficult, complicated, and arcane than I for one find it, in practice, to be. In this chapter Peter specifically addresses and pictures his Hasegawa MC. 202 Folgore, Accurate Miniatures Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik and Yakovlev Ib plus his Tamiya Dewoitine D.520. The author has added as illustrations in this chapter Ted Holowchuk's AM IL-2 Sturmovik and Hasegawa B-17G; Dr. Raleigh Williams' Tamiya MiG 15 and Rodney Williams' Airfix conversion P-51B.

The final chapter is Trio Diverso. This chapter sets out the work of three additional master scratchbuilders: Mauro Cescutti (-Etrich Taube, Oeffag Mickl type H, A-11 Blue Bird, Hansa Brandenburg CC and Wright Flyer), Kevin Clayton-Greene (-Spitfire Mk.XIV and Chance Vought F4U-1D Corsair) and Dr. Dennis Collins (-1913 Deperdussin Monocoque racer, 1920 Nieuport and General L.S.3 Goshawk racer, 1921 Gloucestershire Mars I Bamel racer and 1921 Bristol 32 Bullet racer) but in a slightly less comprehensive manner than the aforementioned seven.

Many other beautifully researched, built and finished airplanes in addition to those mentioned above are also illustrated, further contributing to making this volume a true feast for the eyes of knowing and appreciative model builders.

Before finishing this review I had to swallow my pride and put my ignorance on display by phoning John to ask him, "Who the hell is Gerrard Darrow?" (see caption on page 14). I won't spoil the effect by telling you the answer here; you'll just have to find out for yourself.

This 168 page hardbound only (so far) book in vertical 8 1/2" x 11" format is beautifully printed in China(!) on high quality heavy glossy paper stock ensuring good reproduction of the 183 color and 32 black and white photos and 10 line drawings.

Like most modelers I am a visual person and a nitpicker who is always looking for new and better ways to do things and this book satisfied me almost completely, in every respect, as being good value for money. Had it been longer with more and larger color photos and had it promised a Scratchbuilt III, I might have been completely satisfied. I have known John for seven years and in the last three, since his move to Seattle, have become good friends with him. He knows my nitpicking nature prevents me from glossing over any shortcomings of his book and I am happy that I found none to report. This is a very good useful book for serious modelers whether scratchbuild building from kits or even building cars, ships, armor or figures. There are methods and techniques here for all modelers. Buy a copy and fill out Schiffer's reader survey card telling them you want "Scratchbuilt III" soon.