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Scale of Aristo Craft Equipment?

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Scale of Aristo Craft Equipment?
Posted by Texas Zepher on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 8:37 PM

Aristo Craft makes a D&RGW type C-16 2-8-0 locomotive.  They also make various (obviously narrow gauge) cars to go with it.    The advertisement says "suitable for 1:24th or 1:29th scale".   This makes no sense to me.  Since 1:24th and 1:29th use G-gauge track for 4' 8.5" and the C-16 is a 3' narrow gauge.  Did they make a 1:24th model and just put way too wide of wheels on it?  The picture doesn't look that out of proportion.

I use G-gauge track for 3' gauge (Officially Fn3 I think).   Would this locomotive and equipment look really silly with my 1:20.3 stuff?

 

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Posted by IRB Souther Engineer on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 8:47 PM

I think it's a bit too small for 1:20.3 scale (Fn3), but ultimatly that's your choice. Look at this website: http://www.4largescale.com/fletch/index.htm . Put your mouse over menu, go to locomotive construction, and finally Aristo C-16 bashes. You can see some examples of these locomotives. The big thing for me is the size of the drive wheels in proportion to other 1:20.3 stuff. Locomotives come in all sizes but those wheels just look too small for me.

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Posted by IRB Souther Engineer on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:08 PM

I'm changing my mind-sort of. It had been a while since I had actually looked at those C-16's. After looking at that page I refered to I'm starting to think that the wheels don't actually look too bad. On the other hand there are no other 1:20.3 things in the picture to compare the C-16 to...what ever way you look at this though, those are some good looking bashes.

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Posted by IRB Souther Engineer on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:09 PM

By the way, Aristo C-16's are on sale at Trainworld.

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Posted by Texas Zepher on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 9:40 PM

Yeah, the C-16 always had rather small drivers.  Of course that is what gives it a distinctive look. 

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Posted by IRB Souther Engineer on Wednesday, November 24, 2010 10:00 PM

To hopfully further answer your question: The C-16 is a 3' narrow gauge loco so it should be 1:20.3. The Aristo one is 1:24-it uses old Delton(?) parts. I don't think it would go with 1:29 scale stuff. So, a loco that already has small proportions in too small a scale probably wouldn't do too good in a larger scale like Fn3 (1:20.3).

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Posted by dwbeckett on Thursday, November 25, 2010 11:57 AM

IRB Souther Engineer

To hopfully further answer your question: The C-16 is a 3' narrow gauge loco so it should be 1:20.3. The Aristo one is 1:24-it uses old Delton(?) parts. I don't think it would go with 1:29 scale stuff. So, a loco that already has small proportions in too small a scale probably wouldn't do too good in a larger scale like Fn3 (1:20.3).

IRB said it all, aristo c16 is listed as 1/24 and is old delton mold's

Dave

The head is gray, hands don't work , back is weak, legs give out, eyes are gone, money go's and my wife still love's Me.

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Posted by kstrong on Thursday, November 25, 2010 8:26 PM

Out of the box, the C-16 is going to be too small to work with the 1:20 equipment. Compared to a 1:20 C-16 from Accucraft, it's the locomotive equivalent of "Mini Me."

The drivers of the C-16 scale to around 30" when measured in 1:20.3. That's going to be a bit small even for industrial locomotives. While you will find drivers that small, they're typically on very diminutive 0-4-0 locos, not 2-8-0s. I've seen "upscale" projects where people put larger cabs on the C-16 to make it more appropriate for 1:20, but the small drivers always made the loco look somewhat cartoonish to my eyes. Your milage may vary, but I've had a few over the years and I've yet to find a suitable prototype. Curiously, though, the tender scales well for a c. 1870s 1000-gallon(ish) tender in 1:20. That'd probably be apropos for a loco that small, lest it spend all its energy pulling its own tender with nothing left for any rolling stock.

Later,

K

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