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Scale thinking?


Redstaff

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Sat here in lockdown as we all are, having way too much time to think, my mind has been wandering onto various random subjects, some more random than others 🍷

Looking at the stash I started thinking how were scales decided 🤔 ie why did we (rest of the world) end up with 1/24 and the USA 1/25 ? Also why is F1 mainly 1/20 except Revell which stuck with 1/24 ?

It's the same in warfare modelling as well. Tanks and figures etc are usually 1/35 whereas the aircraft are usually 1/32 so you can't have dioramas etc with vehicles and planes together 🤔

Let's get some more brains wandering and sharing thoughts or even knowledge if they know the answers :) 

 

Ian :)  

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I could be wrong, but I suspect that America uses 1/25 as it correlates to 1mm to 1 inch. No idea why everyone else uses 1/24, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was because 24 is divisible by so many numbers (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12) making conversions of sizes back in the pre-computer days much easier. The same would be true for 1/12, 1/48, 1/72, 1/144 etc.

 

Then again, that's only me applying (what might be flawed!) logic so I'm fully expecting to be corrected.

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12 inches to the foot is a bit of a hint.  Which makes it all the more surprising that America uses a metric scale.  I very much doubt that it was 1mm to the foot - partly because why should they have any interest in mm, and partly because it isn't, quite.

Edited by Graham Boak
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Architectural drawings tend to follow a more decimal pattern, with 1:100 and 1:50 being common for ground plans and 1:25 for details. Perhaps model companies in the USA used draughtsmen who had trained in architects' offices?

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1 hour ago, bhouse said:

Architectural drawings tend to follow a more decimal pattern, with 1:100 and 1:50 being common for ground plans and 1:25 for details. Perhaps model companies in the USA used draughtsmen who had trained in architects' offices?

Architects in America generally work in imperial scales, though i presume dont call them imperial.  Here in the UK the construction industry has been metric since 1970 or so though old drawings still turn up in records at the old scales.  Hence I still have a boxwood imperial scale for emergency use.  UK planning departments enforce use of metric scales.

 

But I agree its a counterintuitive why US car models developed in 1/25 whilst European and Japanese kit manufacturers mostly work to 1/24.  There again most US engineering drawings I've seen measure in inches, not feet&inches, so maybe it was just easier to divide by 100 and times by four than working in base 12?

 

US model car kit industry effectively grew out of ready-to-play car dealers promotional toy models so maybe one of the car manufacturers set the scale back in the day?

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Bob Johnson, who worked for Monogram back in the '70s and went on to start Accurate Miniatures, posted an interesting note in the Model Cars Magazine forum several years ago about 1/24 vs 1/25. The discussion was about the old Monogram Exotics car series, but I can't find the thread to link to it. I did save his post, though. He was talking about their reasons for choosing 1/24 scale for these new kits:

 

"MPC and AMT (and Revell) had auto kit lines created in 1/25th scale...  that scale came from AMT obtaining 1/10th scale four-view car drawings from the "Big 3" and them making a 1/10th scale pattern model. That would yield tooling casts in the same size taken from the 1/10th pattern model.. set the reducing pantograph to "2.5" and you get "1/25th scale"...

 

   1/24th is an engineering scale.. 1" = 24".... create a 1/12th scale model and reduce it by setting the pantograph at "2.0"... instant 1/24th scale..  so, we created these in 1/24th scale...  done right, it is hard to tel the difference between 1/24th and 1/25th..."

 

I've seen discussions on the reasons for the other scales, as well as the different model railroad gauges, but I don't recall the reasons for those choices.

 

Ben

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Tamiya definitely started the 1/20 scale F1 kits,l think the reason was that the radio control cars were 1/10 scale,so easy to halve for the the kits. I've got obsessed with 1/24 F1 kits which to my mind makes more sense. Also I agree about tanks etc. Why would they be in 1/72 or 1/76? Not so long ago I purchased a Cararama red Land Rover it  says 1/72 to go with a Red Arrows Hawk I had built. It looked a bit big so I bought an Oxford diecast Red Arrows Land Rover in 1/76 it goes perfectly in scale and is half the size of the 1/72 one! 

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afair 1/32 was the traditional toy soldier size in Britain and USA but 1/35 was the traditional size in Japan. British and US military kits in 1/32 were out marketed by the better quality Japanese 1/35 kits

afair Airfix was the first to do 1/76 military kits. These were sized to go with British model railway scale of HO/OO which falls in about at 1/76. European model railway scale is 1/87 and there are European manufacturers who make cars and military kits to this scale.

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If you double the scale of a the 1/87 European model railway you probably find the explanation for the standard scale for diecasts (and some kits) being 1/43.

 

It's good to have an explanation of why AFVs are 1/35, rather than a scale that would fit with figures, cars and aircraft.

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Yes, HO is half O.  Why the original model train manufacturers chose a scale of 3.5mm to the foot escapes me.  The car scale of 1/43 followed on.  The British use the larger OO gauge because the first small electric motors were too big to fit into British locomotives, so there was a fudge to run 1/76 bodies on HO track, which has survived ever since.  There is simply too much enthusiasm invested to change.

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You are on the ball there.

HO is 'Half O gauge', with UK O gauge being 1/43.5, or 7mm to the foot.

HO is 1/87, but OO is 4mm to the foot, or 1/76.5

In the UK OO rolling stock runs on HO track, thus HO/OO

In the US model rail scale O gauge is 1/48

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8 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

You are on the ball there.

HO is 'Half O gauge', with UK O gauge being 1/43.5, or 7mm to the foot.

HO is 1/87, but OO is 4mm to the foot, or 1/76.5

In the UK OO rolling stock runs on HO track, thus HO/OO

In the US model rail scale O gauge is 1/48

 

Damn! My brain hurts! I'm too old and too mathmatically challenged for this.

 

 

 

Chris

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6 hours ago, Black Knight said:

better quality Japanese 1/35 kits

Apparently an accident,  early Tamiya tank kits were constrained by the need to fit a motor and batteries,  IIRC it was their panther which was 1/35th, and they stuck with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1:35_scale

Quote

The roots of 1:35 as a military modelling scale lie in early motorized plastic tank kits. To accommodate electric motors and gearboxes, these models needed to be made in a larger scale. There were many companies making such tanks, but it was Tamiya's example that made 1:35 a de facto standard.

 

Company chairman Shunsaku Tamiya explains the origins of the scale in his book Master Modeler:[1]

 

After the success of the Panther, I thought it would be a good idea for us to produce other tanks from different countries in the same scale. I measured the Panther and it turned out to be about 1/35 of the size of the original. This size had been chosen simply because it would accommodate a couple of B-type batteries. Tamiya's 1/35 series tanks eventually got to be known around the world, but this is the slightly haphazard origin of their rather awkward scale.

 

Which is annoying, as  you get the 1/32 - 1/35th problem....

 

19 hours ago, malpaso said:

Here in the UK the construction industry has been metric since 1970 or so though old drawings still turn up in records at the old scales.  Hence I still have a boxwood imperial scale for emergency use.  UK planning departments enforce use of metric scales.

technically, but much of it is just metricated imperial,  you buy timber in 0.3 metre lengths,  0.3 of a metre is basically 1  foot.   

A piece of timber is 150x50mm, but will  often be called 6x2.....

Doors are metric, but based on imperial,  2ft, 2'3", 2'6" 

plaster board is still reffered to as 6x3 and 8x4 sheets....

Lead sheet is 'coded' , code1, code 2, actually being based on pound per sq foot.....  

 

I digress..... I really should be doing something useful and I'm putting it off...

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8 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

technically, but much of it is just metricated imperial,  you buy timber in 0.3 metre lengths,  0.3 of a metre is basically 1  foot.   

A piece of timber is 150x50mm, but will  often be called 6x2.....

Doors are metric, but based on imperial,  2ft, 2'3", 2'6" 

plaster board is still reffered to as 6x3 and 8x4 sheets....

Lead sheet is 'coded' , code1, code 2, actually being based on pound per sq foot.....  

 

I digress..... I really should be doing something useful and I'm putting it off...

 

We have the same issue here. It's been over 40 years since Canada officially  went metric, but there are still lots of non-metric things out there. One of the main issues is that our largest trading partner, the USA, didn't go metric. An another issue with that is the US has it's own system, but not the same as the Imperial system that Canada was using before metric. Almost every thing we buy is marked in both US standard and metric measurement. All our containers are in weird metric amounts because we either buy them from the US or we sell them to the US but they won't buy it unless it's in their standard. Take soda pop, for instance. The US cans are 12 oz. while ours are marked as 355ml. Why couldn't we have a 350 ml. can or even a 400 ml. can? 

 

 

 

Chris

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The first Tamiya tank kits marketed in the UK, imported by Richard Konstam, aka RIKO were 1/25 and were remote controlled. 

1/32 is bigger than 1/35 so there would have been more room for motor and batteries in a 1/32 model tank.

 

as an aside; in leather we in the UK measure hide thickness in mm but the US measures in ounces per square foot. Fortunately 1 oz = 0.4mm, but is still a pain to convert patterns. A US pattern will say to use 3 to 4 oz, so that translates as 1.2mm to 1.6mm.

When I had a 1978 Cadillac it had UNC, UNF, metric, Whitworth, Standard Bicycle and British Standard Pipe threads used on parts. The car was built in September 1977 in Lyndon, New Jersey, for a customer in Ohio.

 

Back to modelling. My father was from Chicago. Grew up prior to WW2. He said that the balsa and tissue plans for aeroplanes he built came from a magazine, like 'Home Mechanics'. The plans were folded up as an insert in the magazine. National Geographic magazine continues to be the same size. My father reckoned that the 1/4 inch scale, or 1/48, came about as popular in the USA as a result of those plans because they had to fold up and yet not be too large. Any subject had to fit on those plans and my father reckoned all his model aeroplanes were about 1/48 scale or close to.

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On 4/14/2020 at 7:03 PM, Troy Smith said:

technically, but much of it is just metricated imperial,  you buy timber in 0.3 metre lengths,  0.3 of a metre is basically 1  foot. 

My father used to work at a builder's merchants. And timer was always sold then (late 60s- early 70s) in metric feet (30cm).

 

Cheers,

Alan.

Edited by Alan R
Aritmetic blunder corrected!
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I think this stuff is interesting just to enjoy facts of "how we got here".

 

somewhere along the way, I've read models were scaled to fit into available sized boxes. maybe from die casters of old, where a backhoe, tank, & mga all needed to fit into a matchbox.

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8 minutes ago, s.e.charles said:

 

somewhere along the way, I've read models were scaled to fit into available sized boxes.

 

AKA Box scale,  quite a lot of 50's Revell and Monogram kits were 'Box Scale' ...  which is why some old kits have the selling point of 'Constant scale' on them.   

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3 hours ago, Orso said:

I read that the 1/20 scale came with the need for the electric engines to fit. 

Before the Tamiyas the only 1/20 grand prix cars were from Bellini, and it was a little difficult sometimes to determine which bits were to which scale...

 

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Model aircraft scales in the UK were started by a young James Hay Stevens. He owned a number of Britains model soldiers. Keen to make some scale model aircraft to match his soldiers he made some out of wood and bits of odd wire etc.

 

He scaled up his plans from drawings in such as Flight and Aeroplane. Britains Tin/Lead figures were designed to be 2" tall. This made them 1:36th scale, so this was the scale of his aeroplanes. The interest in the aircraft out grew the soldiers and soon his 1:36 models at an average wing span of 12" out grew his meagre shelf space. Keen to build more he halved the scale to 1" to equal 6 feet.  Soon his plans were being published in magazines  such as Aeromodeller. and the scale became established as the average span was a neat 6". James H Stevens published a book of plans and instructions in 1933 called Scale Model Aircraft. I have an original copy.

 

Stevens then collaborated with a chap called Holloway and the kits they produced  were the famous Skybirds. These kits comprised of some pre shaped wooden parts, a plan and some thin fibre board for thinner aerofoils. They later had some items such a propellers stamped out of tin sheet and engines ect cast in a Lead material. Skybirds Clubs were formed and the company also produced accessoies such as refuelers, searchlight crews, vehicles and pilots and mechanics. Other companies also produced ranges of mainly military aircraft mainly in Balsa wood or Obeche, as the War loomed up. They were known as Solid models because they were carved from solid wood and not light, hollow and fragile like the contemporary flying scale models.

 

Frog (Flies Right Off Ground) a flying model company started to produce  models also to  1:72 scale but now  made of injected Cellulose Acetate. These were the Penguin series, (They weren't made to fly). 

 

Some companies chose 1:48 or 1/4" to the foot for their"solid models".  1:96 or 1/8th" to the foot, was popular for larger aircraft especially in America. 1/144th (12 feet to the inch) supplanted this scale in the UK.

 

The modern age is well known.

 

John

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