I'm a novice modeler so bare with me about my ignorance.
As I read and enjoy Model Railroader, I am, many times, perplexed when the magazine describes a tested scale locomotive or rolling stock (pick the scale) as being off by a scale 1" here or there, or some aspect pushed a scale inch this way or that. So here is my question.
Does a HO scale foot = 0.138" in the real world?
Does a HO scale inch = 0.012" in the real world?
Let me know if I'm right or off by a scale mile.
This question applies to all of the standard scales that are hosted within the pages of Model Railroader.
Road Fan
Well that sounds about right, a real inch equals 7.25 HO scale feet, so an HO foot would be a little over 1/8" long. Or if you're a metric guy, 3.5mm =1 HO ft.
Off subject, but in the early days of HO it wasn't unusual for scratchbuilders to build their building to 1/8" (1:96) scale, because it was easier to measure with a regular ruler, I suspect 1/8", 1/4" etc. stripwood was easier to get than true HO scale stripwood. Also, it made the buildings a little smaller than the trains so you could get more building into the area you had - kinda like a built-in selective compression.
1" or 1' or one mile is full scale (real world) is 1" or 1' or one mile. Anything can be reduced to any scale. So for sake of simplicty a 1/2 scale size (not 1/2" scale) but 1/2 scale would be 1/2 the size of the original so if it was ten feet long and it was reduced to 1/2 scale it would 1/2 of ten feet or five feet. Now we come to the popular train scales. O gauge is 1/48 scale or 1:48. For ease of calculation something 48' long in real life when made in O scale would be 48' divided by 48 or 1' in length. HO (which originally meant half O scale but really isn't) is 1/87th real size. So if something in real life is 87' long and in O gague is 87'/48 or 1.8125' long in HO would be 87'/87 or 1' long. That is why you see the reference to what the ratio of the model is to the real thing regardless of scale. How can you get around that? Buy (or make) a ruler for your particular scale that is already reduced for the length of feet and inchs. So if the plan say's 8'6" you just measure off 8'6" on your scale ruler that has already done the conversion for you and work from real life dimensions.
Road Fan Does a HO scale foot = 0.138" in the real world? Does a HO scale inch = 0.012" in the real world?
1 real inch = 87.1 scale inches.
1/87.1= .0115"
Depending on what they are measuring a scale inch can be noticeable. In the length of an engine, probably not, in the thickness of piping or handrails/grabirons probably so.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com