The Matchbox trucks (semis) work fine for HO but not the cars too big.
Joe Staten Island West
DAVID FORTNEYI talked to the gentleman he has decided to go with 1/87 after all. He does see them pretty good according to him but I doubt it. But in the end it's up to him.
It is a personal decision.
I use some things that are purposely out of scale for various reasons.
All that really matters is that we extract fun from our layouts.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
DAVID FORTNEY I talked to the gentleman he has decided to go with 1/87 after all. He does see them pretty good according to him but I doubt it. But in the end it's up to him. Dave
I talked to the gentleman he has decided to go with 1/87 after all. He does see them pretty good according to him but I doubt it. But in the end it's up to him.
Dave
I think he will be very happy with his decision! Theres lots of companies out there that make pre built, really detailed models. All of mine are model powers that can be found with a bit of searching around for cheap. I found a stash of some at a LHS for $5 each!
I know he made up his mind but heres a 1/64 and 1/87 side by side.
Hope this helped!
I have to wonder how larger scale vehicles could help much. If someone is having vision or handling issues, he's not going to be building Jordan kits, but pretty much any built-up vehicles are going to be a lot easier to deal with than rerailing an HO scale freight car or locomotive.
I think the suggestion that someone consider S-scale or even O-scale might really be more appropriate.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
dknelsonI have seen some very effective photographs of HO layouts which use an S scale vehicle and figures in the foreground for perspective purposes
My experiment with forced perspective using a 1/48 scale armoured vehicle in the foreground:
I have seen some very effective photographs of HO layouts which use an S scale vehicle and figures in the foreground for perspective purposes for that photo but I am quite sure the modeler does not have them as a permanent feature of his layout. Similarly I have seen O scalers use 1/64 vehicles, such as Ertl farm stuff, for distant perspective, but then it actually is on the layout.
There are many vehicles - the old Lesney Matchbox series back when those were pretty nice replicas, and some of the old Dinky toys and other metal toy vehicles which are built to all sorts of scales, some maybe even smaller than HO but some larger, but not those as large as S, that might be usable by your friend. AHM and then IHC had an entire line of vehicles at cheap prices with a cleverly evasive advertising tag "looks great on HO layouts." No claim of HO, notice. I am pretty sure some of the old so called "HO" slot cars from the early 1960s were a bit oversize for 1:87 , if my recollections of my Tyco slotcar set are accurate.
When I started just about every HO layout had some Dinky toys on them because, well, that was just about your only choice for automobiles. Clearly oversize but we learnd to live with them until better things came along. As soon as good HO vehicles were sold however the Dinky toys suddenly looked just horrible. They also looked bad near accurate HO scale figures.
I think there are plenty of vehicles out there in plastic and metal at toy stores and dollar stores and such that might satisfy your friend's desire for something just a bit bigger than accurate HO - without having to go to an almost absurd size which I think S would be.
At the risk of redirecting the topic, it sounds to me like your friend is actually a candidate for a scale larger than HO for the trains as well.
Dave Nelson
Little TimmyGerman Opel trucks make great Chevy log trucks.
The WW2 German Opel Blitz truck looks generic enough to be used on an HO scale layout. I have one, actually a 1/87 model, and it is fine. There is also a Soviet WW2 truck that is a copy of a Studebaker design, but I have never seen it in HO scale. I have dozens of them in 1/100 scale.
Renault also made a truck during WW2 (actually the Germans manufactured it in captured factories) that is also very generic and useable.
Annoyingly, the common USA truck of WW2 (2 1/2 ton) does not look civilian or generic at all, but 1/87 models are easy to find.
This yellow truck is actually a 1/100 scale model of a WW2 Mercedes Benz truck.
I have occasionally used 1/72 and 1/76 scale military models ( modified a bit )and found that the German Opel trucks make great Chevy log trucks. and they dont look to bad scalewise.
Rust...... It's a good thing !
I’m far from a rivet counter but there two things that are not on my HO layout and never will be, non 1:87 scale figures and vehicles. They stand out worse than a sore thumb.Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Since I'm in S scale, I use nothing but 1/64 vehicles.
While I do use stuff from other scales, vehicles is one area where I don't have to.
Paul
1/64 is S scale, and that is way too big for HO.
You can get away with 1/76 scale, but most models built to that scale are military.
S-Scale (the usual Matchbox/Johnny Lightning/M2/etc.) automobile models definitely look out of place on an other HO scale layout/module, and would irk me as they do look silly (yeah, yeah, I did the same thing when I was 10, and had a motley collection of toy vehicles from Woolworths et.al). It's really just a meh.However, due to the way Matchbox scales things, some of the Matchbox trucks (like their old GMC TopKick chassis) did work fairly well as they were undersized for S, but not too overscale for HO (adding detail is a different issue). I used one for a municipal vehicle years back, height and length good but too wide really.I guess if the guy has sight issues, and it looks OK to him, and he's not planning to enter a modeling contest, let him go with the 1/64 models and have some fun -he gets a pass. BTW, I hope it's not really driving you nuts and you just think it looks silly. If not, you should "repeat to yourself 'It's just a hobby, I should really just relax.'"
Remember Train Shows? There used to be such things, and I'm old enough to remember them.
One thing that always bothered me was the use of oversized vehicles on display layouts. They looked like the owner had let his little kid do that part. They always looked wrong to me.
Yeah, it's his layout, and if he likes that option, I hope it does well by him. But it would drive me nuts.
If you do how do they look, do they look too big. I'm asking for a guy Who has issues seeing and handling 1/87 vehicles.
He has a beautiful layout but he has no vehicles, when I brought over to his house my 1/87 vehicles he knew immediately they were not for him, maybe 1/64 would help him out.