Kit-bash

Kit-bash (or Kit-bashing ) is a scale modeler's term which describes the process of modifying a commercially available model kit (such as an armored vehicle, a truck, or a locomotive) into a unique or otherwise unavailable model (this term is also applicable when converting a not-too-finely detailed or incorrectly molded model into a more accurate version of the prototype).

Kit-bashing means more than just painting (and/or adding chrome), detailing (such as adding a small wire to represent a car antenna), weathering, or adding scale passengers to a model - generally it involves the removing and/or adding of material to the model, such as adding a styrene ring/cover to a tank turret as a cupola, or 'back-dating' a GP38-2 locomotive to an earlier GP38 by replacing the '2-piece' radiator grill with a single piece, or cutting a section out of a flatbed truck chassis to make it a short-bed. Kit-bashing can even involve combining parts from two or more kits - such as taking the chassis of a late model M4 Sherman, adding a 155mm M1 gun, and (with some styrene shapes to build up the hull and support) creating a M40 Self-Propelled Gun. The goal of kit-bashing is to modify the initial offering by the model manufacturer into something different, whether it's to more accurately model the prototype (or model a prototype for which no kit exists), or achieve a model which is unique and interesting (and hopefully which no modeler has already done).

The current trend of ready-to-run (pre-assemble) models, coupled with an increased availability of many unique prototypes via resin castings seems to have not seriously limited the art of kit-bashing so far (for example, the availability to serious truck modelers of finely detailed resin cabs for unique prototypes means they often obtain suitable chassis by kit-bashing them from commercially available models).