Of scale oddities and scale snobbery

[Jonners]

On 8/7/2022 at 10:35 PM, jackroadkill said:

Yes, the rust was fitted as standard at the factory.

I have a 1:1 Citroën 2CV with its original Citroën 'Corrosion Guarantee' document. Yup, guaranteed...

Soz - aiding and abetting thread drift!

Jon

Edited August 10, 2022 by Jonners
image

[alt-92]

12 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

 

Yes, the rust was fitted as standard at the factory.

also available in AlfaSud version.

 

(I should add my 15 y/o Alfa 159 does not have a single spot of rust)

[SprueMan]

You know, when I started this thread with a bit of tongue in cheek, I had anticipated that there would be some animated discussions about scales and who's scale is better than who's but in the end, all the discussion turned to who's ruler is better than who's.

I did not think this would be the direction.  

[Mike]

On 08/08/2022 at 11:20, alt-92 said:

also available in AlfaSud version.

 

(I should add my 15 y/o Alfa 159 does not have a single spot of rust)

I offered this advertising slogan to Alfa's marketing department, and they turned it down, strangely enough

 

"Alfa Romeo, the walking man's car"

[psdavidson]

59 minutes ago, SprueMan said:

I did not think this would be the direction.

Welcome to the group wisdom of BM, taking unexpected twists since time began 

 

[alt-92]

57 minutes ago, Mike said:

"Alfa Romeo, the walking man's car"

Maybe, they keep putting Self Healing Italian Technology electronics in their cars.

 

Anyroads.

Topic wise: I don't have a real preference - my criteria are mostly storage related. So there's 1/144 big bombers, to 1/28 fighters (yes that was a thing)

[bentwaters81tfw]

3 hours ago, SprueMan said:

You know, when I started this thread with a bit of tongue in cheek, I had anticipated that there would be some animated discussions about scales and who's scale is better than who's but in the end, all the discussion turned to who's ruler is better than who's.

I did not think this would be the direction.  

There was never any chance that we would not accept the challenge. More than a few of us enjoy winding up the plebs sorry, membership.

[GrahamS]

On 8/6/2022 at 5:26 PM, Mr T said:

I cannot see what the fuss is all about If you are buying four apples, they are fou apples 

Yes, but what happens when you are buying four candles?

 

Graham

[Mr T]

Do you buy candles by weight or length? Might be the latter, but I just look at them and think, 'that will be long enough'. I also thought candles were sized by some arcane system like champagne bottles, and based on some 13th century bishops foot size. Although perhaps I imagined it, the world today seems to slipping the bonds of reality. 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

I'm conversant in both Imperial and Metric, but as a professional in the Engineering field, I hold the opinion that Metric is vastly superior for myriad of reasons but generally one needs to start calculating relationships between different things before the vastness of that superiority becomes obvious. If simply using measurements that someone else calculated for you e.g. you're a machinist or a mechanic or a modeller, then both systems work well and Metric's only apparent advantage is that it's easier to divide and multiply by 10 by simply moving the decimal point around than it is to do so by 12. Start calculating things with equations though and it becomes apparent why even in the USA - the last pocket of resistance to common sense - scientists and many Engineers use Metric for all of the serious stuff as persisting with Imperial is just improving your chances of a multi-million pound/dollar mistake.

 

By way of example, the calculation of Horsepower derived from angular velocity in Revolutions Per Minute and torque in foot pounds is non-sensical and requires a correction number of 5280 added in to get an answer. Do it in Metric with Newton-Metres of torque and angular velocity in Radians per Second, you just get the power in Watts. If there's more than a thousand of those Watts in the answer you stick a dot in there and call it Kilowatts. More than a million and you move the dot 3 spaces to the left and call it Megawatts. Everything's like that. Different correction factors must be remembered for every equation using Imperial, and if someone changes the units from foot pounds to foot ounces or yard tons it's extra steps of hassle to convert. Even then, with Imperial in order to use a calculator you've got to first calculate out all the fractions to arrive at the god-awful "Metrinch" then once you have your answer convert from e.g 0.1875 inches back to 3/16 inches because that's what it says on a drill bit or a steel rule for the person who isn't in the design office to use. Metric is just faster, simpler and therefore easier and that means it's more time and cost efficient for whoever's paying the bill and it reduces risk of an almighty screw-up which in aerospace or my industry, energy, could easily be fatal.

 

Indeed in modelling, many of our legacy scales were derived from Imperial measurements with a slide rule, and that's because even in Imperial you can create a scale drawing easily by measuring the real thing and your slide rule will factor it down to a smaller size for you.

[alt-92]

I guess a lot of the confusion is because you didn't take the opportunity rename Imperial to Commonwealth in the 1960/70s.

 

/runs very fast and far faaaar away 

[Black Knight]

A builder's merchant I used to buy from used the 'metric foot' and the 'metric pound' (weight). They had to sell in metric measure but farmers & builders still ordered in Imperial

Thus a 'metric foot' of timber was 30cm and a 'metric pound' was 500g. So if you needed 120 feet of wood you had to add on a couple of feet for the 5mm per foot you would loose, and on the other if you wanted 600 pounds of flaked maize feed you got, and were charged for, almost 10% more

 

In the early 20th C the RAC had a weird way of working out car engine horsepower based on the diameter of the piston. Thus, the Austin 7, 7 being its RAC h/p, and in fact the engine gives 22 to 24 h/p. The lower number, the RAC h/p, was used to rate the road tax for the vehicle

 

Up to the middle of the 17th century accounts were written up using Roman numbers and until about 1665 (afair) there was no 0 for nothing, If you had nothing for a column you either left it blank or put a -  The 0 was imported from India and the last i in a row of Roman numbers was written j, eg 4 was written iiij  6 was vj  Adding up and checking medieval accounts is a double-mind-bender

[pigsty]

12 hours ago, Black Knight said:

In the early 20th C the RAC had a weird way of working out car engine horsepower based on the diameter of the piston. Thus, the Austin 7, 7 being its RAC h/p, and in fact the engine gives 22 to 24 h/p. The lower number, the RAC h/p, was used to rate the road tax for the vehicle

A perfect example of why these odd formulae based on one thing that don't translate to any other thing in the whole of creation are such a daft idea.  In fact, it got worse, and was one of the many reasons the British car industry is now the French, German and Japanese car industry squatting here.  Because those made-up horsepower were based only on bore, the only way to make an engine bigger for the same tax bracket was to increase the stroke.  Long-stroke engines are less efficient than wide-bore engines; they need taller cylinder blocks with greater balance problems, and they can't run as fast.  But that was how you tried to get more performance while squeaking in under the tax thresholds.

 

Candles: I buy mine by burn time.  And that leads us to another odd Babylonian leftover, the 24-hour day.  But at least it gives a nice round number for the Earth's rotational speed at the Equator: more or less 1000mph.  How ever did they know that?

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 8/11/2022 at 9:54 PM, pigsty said:

Because those made-up horsepower were based only on bore, the only way to make an engine bigger for the same tax bracket was to increase the stroke.  Long-stroke engines are less efficient than wide-bore engines; they need taller cylinder blocks with greater balance problems, and they can't run as fast.  But that was how you tried to get more performance while squeaking in under the tax thresholds.

 

Indeed and with very high piston speeds and quite rapid bore wear despite the low RPM limit.

 

It's quite telling that whilst Jaguar's much loved XK straight six was dramatically undersquare, their next engine was designed dramatically over-square for most of its life only being increased in stroke eventually to more or less square proportions for its last version.

[Pete Robin]

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Pounds, miles, feet, metres, whatever. Even Newton Metres etc. If it don't fit, beat it with a big hammer until it does. End of.

Regards

Pete

 

PS: You really only need two tools. WD40 and Gaffer Tape. If it don't move and it's supposed to, used WD40. If it moves and it's not supposed to, use Gaffer Tape.

 

[Circloy]

On 13/08/2022 at 19:51, Pete Robin said:

beat it with a big hammer until it does.

Would that be a lump hammer? and if so 12 kg or 25 lb

[Seahawk]

13 hours ago, Circloy said:

Would that be a lump hammer? and if so 12 kg or 25 lb

  No, a sledge hammer.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Seahawk

[One 48]

You forgot 1/1 scale too I have the Halycon Alien Facehugger, they made the Alien franchise Pulse Rifle in 1/1 too, must be loads of others in 1/1 scale in the industry.

But back on point, no official industry standard for scales I suppose? Factory's do there own thing for the most part with a nod to common scales most of the time, used to stress over it and try stick to one scale for one subject type, not so fussy any more ... prefer 1/48 for Aircraft, but if it gets to physically large will drop to 1/72 for WW2 bombers and suchlike, do buy odd treats like Tamiya 1/32 warbirds because they are so good, probably get the new Airfix 1/24 Spitfire too, really not fussed about it all any-more, despite my forum nic

[Pete Robin]

I hope someone might know, but didn't Nichimo or Bandai produce some remote controlled tanks in 1/25th scale back in the mists of time?

Have a very vague memory of some quite large things being driven around the dining room carpet when I was younger.

Regards

Pete

[Dave Swindell]

14 hours ago, Pete Robin said:

I hope someone might know, but didn't Nichimo or Bandai produce some remote controlled tanks in 1/25th scale back in the mists of time?

Have a very vague memory of some quite large things being driven around the dining room carpet when I was younger.

Regards

Pete

Nichimo did some RC in 1/30th

https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Nichimo&fkCOMPNAME[]="Nichimo"&fkGROUPS[]="Vehicles"&fkCATNAME[]="Self-propelled artillery"&fkCATNAME[]="Tanks"&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00020"&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00030"&ssearch=rc

and Bandai did some in 1/24th

https://www.scalemates.com/search.php?fkSECTION[]=Kits&q=Bandai&fkCOMPNAME[]="Bandai"&fkTYPENAME[]="Full kits"&fkGROUPS[]="Vehicles"&fkSCALENORMALISED[]="1:00024"&ssearch=remote

[Richard Humm]

Tamiya had some remote controlled tanks in 1/25 as well.

[Moggy]

On 11/08/2022 at 22:54, pigsty said:

 And that leads us to another odd Babylonian leftover, the 24-hour day.  But at least it gives a nice round number for the Earth's rotational speed at the Equator: more or less 1000mph.  How ever did they know that?

Excellent astronomers, very good matematicians. As far as it's known the Sumerians invented mathematics and invented the 60-based number system.

They were the first to calculate the Earth's equatorial size within 2% of the real one.

 

 Cheers, Moggy