Ok, the webmaster is going to show off his stupidity here....

Besides looking cool and occasionally being helpful to someone scratchbuilding a model, what are line drawing good for exactly??

Personally I tend to think them over-rated and would much rather have a set of period reference photos. But maybe that's just me.

Jim

Well Being a draftsman.......Line drawings generally have dimensions. They may be a overall but you can generally scale off it.

Matt

Well, Jim, if they are done to scale and generally considered to be accurate, then they are handy ways of determining the overall dimensional accuracy of a kit. This is so irrespective of whether scratchbuilding is contemplated or not. For example, some plans in a very old issue of FSM of the Firefly Vc and IHc have been useful in figuring out where the DML kit fall short and could use a little help. So I think they are handy to have even if I am not planning to carve a bunch of white styrene.

Greg

Jim,
I have to agree part with you and part with Matt, since I like to see the line drawings, but I never took the time to see if my kit is well scaled or correted in its shape. But on the other hand, they´re usefull to some major differences bettween versions.

Jim, I agree with you partly. The line drawings are more useful to me, than say, the color drawing plates...

Gunnie

Well...but how do you really know the line drawings are accurate if your using them to check for inaccuracies in the kit??

It just seems like it's a vicious circle trying to tell which resource is correct. And why the heck aren't the kit makers using the line drawing first! Somebody should tell them they are doing it backwards. That is unless they are secretly trying to keep the resin builders in business. hehe

Jim

I find line drawings good for laying out and sizing detail parts, sort of like a mix between a flow chart and colorforms. other drawings are even more important, like those in TMs. they show you detail where kit manufacturers give you a blob of plastic.

VBG - I think the Chicken came before the Egg...

Gunnie