Why the variety in scales?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Well as humans , seems there will always be some " outta scale" kits  once you start measuring up what's in front of you. Some of the Revell John Buttera street rod kits come to mind.

Yup, measuring and dividing is really really hard. 

[bobthehobbyguy]

Well as humans , seems there will always be some " outta scale" kits  once you start measuring up what's in front of you. Some of the Revell John Buttera street rod kits come to mind.

This was a case where Revell wanted to get morevuse out of the Buttera chassis. The only problem was they had to slice and dice the 34 body to make it work. The sane thing was done with the dobberein chassis fot the lincoln, corvette and beretta.

This wasnt a case of not scaling the model down properly.

[Ace-Garageguy]

This wasnt a case of not scaling the model down properly.

The engine and transmission are significantly underscale, by about the same amount the new-tool Ala Kart engine and trans are. 

[CometMan]

Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet, but back in the heyday of modeling if Monogram issued a 1:24 scale kit, and AMT, Revell, etc. came out with the same subject in 1:25 no one could be accused of copying from each other.

[sjordan2]

Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet, but back in the heyday of modeling if Monogram issued a 1:24 scale kit, and AMT, Revell, etc. came out with the same subject in 1:25 no one could be accused of copying from each other.

I have thought that could be one reason why Gerald Wingrove usually builds his superb creations in 1:15 -- he could never be accused of copying from other models or kits.

[dshue76]

Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet, but back in the heyday of modeling if Monogram issued a 1:24 scale kit, and AMT, Revell, etc. came out with the same subject in 1:25 no one could be accused of copying from each other.

But that doesn't really work because in that scenario there are still multiples of the subject in 1/25 and Monogram wasn't the first to kit every subject.And if you are copying a kit then the original scale doesn't matter. Not in the old days and not now. In the old days a person hand made the molds from a pattern and could scale up or down.

I'm sure there was some copying going on but I have a feeling that the copied versions had very bad fine detail. Reason being that the finest of details were originally created in a much larger scale then scaled down with a pantograph. A lot of detail would be lost trying to copy a 1/25 styrene kit with a pantograph.

[peteski]

seems they missed a few ..

 

like 1/18  ... all those diecast cars filling my LHS

and 1/87 has about everything as it's HO railroad

I don't want to get into other Railroad scales .. oh my ... so many lost sales with the scale fickleness!

And few more model RR scales:

1:64 S-scale

1:120 TT-Scale

1:150/1:160 N-Scale  (British sometimes use 1:148)

1:220 Z-Scale

Those are used for model railroads, but of course they also include lots of vehicles and accessories.

[Art Anderson]

OK, here's some food for thought:

1/72 scale seems to have begun with WW-II "recognition" models of aircraft, used widely in both the US and the UK to train anti-aircraft gunners and spotters as to "Friend or Foe".

1/40 scale was chosen by Revell for their military vehicle and artillery kits, as they could fit the kits into their then-standard series of model kit boxes.

1/48 scale became a popular scale for model aircraft kits, beginning first with Lindberg and then popularized by Monogram.   Foreign kit manufacturers, seeing the sheer popularity of Monogram's military aircraft simply followed that company's lead

1/43 scale model cars were first introduced to match the scale that diecast toy car mfr's such as Corgi, Dinky, and Solido were producing--and the scale stuck around.

1/32 scale is the scale first used for plastic model car kits--Hudson Miniatures plastic antique cars, and of course, Revell's Highway Pioneers. It became a somewhat popular aircraft scale by the early 1960's, with Monogram leading the way with their Grumman F3F carrier-based biplane fighter, and some tank kits followed soon afterward.

1/25 scale makes a lot of sense, as in this scale, 40-thousandths of an inch is one scale inch on the model.

1/24 scale was popularized by Monogram, probably given that there designers and pattern-makers were comfortable with 1/48, and 1/24 is simply twice that size.

1/20 scale has had a small following, popularized by MPC's founder, George Toteff who supposedly wanted a line of model car kits in a larger scale, but not as large as what others were doing

1/18 scale has had only a handful of plastic kits produced in that size--notably the Tamiya McLaren M8A kit.

1/16 scale was popularized by Revell, who wanted to do larger scale model car kits, but not so large that modelers would only buy one or two due to space considerations, as well as cost/price.

1/12 scale came into its own when Tamiya introduced their line of Formula 1 kits in this scale--again as a way of producing larger, much more detailed kits at the time.

1/8 scale happened simply to grab attention, and Monogram's 1/8 scale model car kits certainly did that in spades in the 1960's.

Art

 

[Richard Bartrop]

1/24 is also easy to calculate (1/2 inch =1 foot) and it's one of the scales on architectural rulers. 

And in practice, these kits are seldom exactly to scale, so 1/24 and 1/25 end up more or less interchangeable.