Relative Scales

[Big John]

How do various scales compare to each other?  I, like many others never really considered what that one little extra point between 1/24th and 1/25th scale really meant to my customizing project.  Heck they  are almost the same... I can just swap that Monogram Sizzler Dragster mill into my  Revel Tony Nancy rail! ?  One year I did a model making display for a VFW car show and decided that I would like to show the difference in most all the popular model car scales.  Below is the results using one of my favorite cars as reference.  I took the overall size from the 1/20 Turbine and used a drawing from the Bill Jorgensen kit plans, thank you Bill.  Then did some math and this is the results.  I was surprised by how much as difference there really was between the 1/24 and 1/25.

[Modelbuilder Mark]

Cool visualization. 

[89AKurt]

Thanks for taking the time to create this.  I found out the hard way with a '67 427 Corvette, was given the car without an engine, had the 427 in the parts box forever, only when I found how tight it was did I research the scale of the engine, which as 1:25.

[peteski]

25 minutes ago, 89AKurt said:

Thanks for taking the time to create this.  I found out the hard way with a '67 427 Corvette, was given the car without an engine, had the 427 in the parts box forever, only when I found how tight it was did I research the scale of the engine, which as 1:25.

A 1:25 engine would fit in a 1:24 model with plenty of room to spare.  If it was the other way, it would be a tight fit.

Edited April 19, 2021 by peteski

[89AKurt]

3 minutes ago, peteski said:

A 1:25 engine would fit in a 1:24 model with plenty of room to spare.  If it was the other way, it would be a tight fit.

Whoops, that was the problem, car is 1:25, engine from the '39 Chevy sedan delivery is 1:24.

Sometimes completely different scales can work, such as this 1:24 car and 1:48 tank.  ?

[Mark]

With some parts (and some kits) you have to measure what you intend to use, and see exactly what scale it is.  Some "1/24 scale" engines have parts that fit 1/25 scale versions of the same engine.  Jo-Han used to promote their car kits as all being 1/25 scale.  Their promotional model boxes for AMC items say 1/24, and the couple of Jo-Han AMC car bodies I measured work out to 1/24.  Their Studebaker Lark kit body is more like 1/23.  The IMC (later Lindberg) Dodge A-100 (Little Red Wagon) kit scales out to about 1/25.7.  So everything is all over the place, the only way to know for sure is to measure...