discussion Why 1/35 scale - where did it come from?

[Sprue42]

Anyone know why the Japanese manufactures settled on 1/35th scale for military vehicles? Why not 1/32nd scale (or 54mm) which had been the standard scale for soldier figures? Most large (ish) scale aircraft are 1/32nd. There are very few 1/35th scale aircraft that I know of, apart from the Fieseler Storch.

1/35th scale does not, as far as I can see, equate to a nice linear conversion like most scales do e.g. 3/8 in to the foot for 32nd scale, 4mm to the foot for 1/76 [Actually 1/76.2] scale, 1/4 inch to the foot for 1/48th scale and so on.

Ralph.

Edit: I have just realised that if it was 1/36th it would be 1/3 inch to the foot or twice 1/72 scale (1/6 inch to the foot). Even more strange they should adopt 1/35th...

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

The received wisdom is it's Tamiya-san himself's 'fault' having decided on that as the 'size' for his tank model/toys. The first tanks they put out were motorised, so they had to 'fit-to-box' and 'fit-to-battery.' 1/35 rather than 1/36 may be a metric/Imperial transition thing. Also, 1/32 at the time was for aircraft, and very few manufacturers actually did vehicles in that scale and most figures were soft plastic. So, probably due to the size of their range, Tamiya set the 'industry standard'
Pretty much the same when they started putting 1/48 vehicles in with their 'planes ( the Kettenkrad in an Me262 was first, I believe) and created a whole new market

And now there are plenty of 1/35 aircraft, starting witg helos for obvious reasons, and including a 'Val' with a piece of the Akagi and crew waving it off!

I think there's a more detailed chat thread on here about all this somewhere, as scaling does come up quite often. I think it's in three of MY posting threads as I do 28mm vehicles and figures, which is often quoted (arbitrarily) as 1/56 but goes from 1/48 to 1/60

 

[Guest]

Chris, that is correct, Tamiya designed the boxes first, to fit in a shipping box, to fit in a shipping container. And as they used mm instead of inches that is how we came to 1/35th.
The Americans used 1/48 and 1/32 for their aircraft, with 1/32 and 1/24 for their vehicles only later adopting 1/25 to enter the Japanese market.
Then we of course used 1/72 scale to try to break into the US market, with our 00 being able to run on their HO, hence the title 00/HO....
I can remeber my Aunt in the US sending me a 'little' airplane kit to go with my other airplanes hanging off the ceiling - up turned a 1/48 P-40, had to use 2 drawing pins to hold it, and it was as big as my 1/72 He111....

 

[Tim Marlow]

Chris, that is correct, Tamiya designed the boxes first, to fit in a shipping box, to fit in a shipping container. And as they used mm instead of inches that is how we came to 1/35th.
The Americans used 1/48 and 1/32 for their aircraft, with 1/32 and 1/24 for their vehicles only later adopting 1/25 to enter the Japanese market.
Then we of course used 1/72 scale to try to break into the US market, with our 00 being able to run on their HO, hence the title 00/HO....
I can remeber my Aunt in the US sending me a 'little' airplane kit to go with my other airplanes hanging off the ceiling - up turned a 1/48 P-40, had to use 2 drawing pins to hold it, and it was as big as my 1/72 He111....

Correct Mike, OO/HO means OO scale bodies made to run on HO scale track, hence all ready to run model trains looking very wasp waisted end on Its origin has nothing to do with US market penetration though. Historically, it has its origins in the original first toys using available European mechanisms. Unfortunately we had to go to OO for the bodies, making them bigger in scale than the track they run on. The reason for this is that the British railway system uses a smaller loading gauge than continental stock, so British train bodies are physically smaller than their continental cousins and would not have been able to contain the then available mechanical parts.

 

[wasdale32]

Equally odd is the choice of 1:43 scale for model cars ....

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

Cough wibble wheeze... 'And so it begins...'

 

[Sprue42]

Equally odd is the choice of 1:43 scale for model cars ....

Not so odd, 1/43rd is O gauge is 7mm to the foot... Half O gauge is HO, 3.5mm to the ft.

 

[Waspie]

Too complicated. More tea please!!!
Mind you, it would have been nice to have scales that you could mix and match genre's etc. Aircraft/tanks etc. Would make dioramas simpler!!

 

[stillp]

Not so odd, 1/43rd is O gauge is 7mm to the foot... Half O gauge is HO, 3.5mm to the ft.

That's really odd - mixed units, and a strange choice of 7mm. Why not 6, or 8?
Pete

 

[wasdale32]

Not so odd, 1/43rd is O gauge is 7mm to the foot... Half O gauge is HO, 3.5mm to the ft.

That's really odd - mixed units, and a strange choice of 7mm. Why not 6, or 8?
Pete

Or why not use 5mm or 10mm which would be far more logical.

 

[Sprue42]

Or why not use 5mm or 10mm which would be far more logical.

The model railway scale and gauge subject is an entirely different can of worms that does not need to be opened here, or we might be here until Christmas discussing it :smiling3:

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

The model railway scale and gauge subject is an entirely different can of worms that does not need to be opened here, or we might be here until Christmas discussing it :smiling3:

It's already happened, like I said, at least twice on my 28mm postings

Too complicated. More tea please!!!
Mind you, it would have been nice to have scales that you could mix and match genre's etc. Aircraft/tanks etc. Would make dioramas simpler!!

Don't encourage them or the model companies will find an excuse to sell another 100 109 Gustavs, but with buoldings, vehicles, groundcrew, trees, weather...

Oh, wait...

 

[Tim Marlow]

Or why not use 5mm or 10mm which would be far more logical.

I think 10mm is gauge 1……which is actually 1/32. The first standardised railway sizes were 0, 1, 2, and 3…….gauge 2 is 1/22.5 and gauge 3 is 1/16.
They are all here….should send most of you back to sleep LOL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_transport_modelling_scale_standards#NEM

Oh, and O scale has at least three derivations, 1/43 in Uk, 1/48 in US, and 1/45 in Japan and Europe.

PS, I worked in P4 for a number of years…and am stuck in a hospital day unit getting my next RA infusion, so have time to look all this stuff up. If you really want to do your head in look at the alphabet soup that is narrow gauge standards…..HOn2.5 anyone….

 

[Tim Marlow]

Not so odd, 1/43rd is O gauge is 7mm to the foot... Half O gauge is HO, 3.5mm to the ft.

Trouble is, the continental scale for O Gauge is 1/45….. 1/43 is the ratio for the British outline version of O gauge, but HO British stuff is as rare as hens teeth….
The bottom line is that modellers care about scales, gauges, and metric equivalents, but manufacturers really don’t.

 

[BarryW]

Steve set out correctly, to my understanding, how 1/35 came about.

There are some 1/35 aircraft, mostly helicopters or army communication aircraft and Border Models have started introducing a range of 1/35 aircraft such as a bf109c Val, Zero and Fw190. Many of us who build 1/32 scale are, shall we say, rather unimpressed with the 1/35 aircraft and won’t go near them. To large scale aircraft builders they are a distraction that should not be encouraged.

 

[Tim Marlow]

This is fun, can we do figure scales next

 

[Steve-the-Duck]

Oh,d

This is fun, can we do figure scales next

Oh, don't get me started. wait,I think I already did...

5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm, 32mm, 54mm, 90mm, 120mm, 200mm, 6inch, 12 inch. Shall I continue?

 

[Tim Marlow]

Well you’ve left out 2, 3, 6, 12, 18, 40, 45, 75, and 100mm for a start……and I’m very sure there are others out there…..LOL

 

[Guest]

1/35th scale does not, as far as I can see, equate to a nice linear conversion like most scales

That is only a concern to those raised in Anglo-American measurements. Metric-raised people just shift the decimal separator, and dividing by (multiples of) 5 is relatively straightforward too if everything you do is in base-10 instead of base-whateverthehelliscommonlyusedatthisparticularsize. If the majority of scale models back in the Olden Days™ had been from Europe and East Asia, we would quite possibly all be using things like 1:50, 1:75 and 1:150 for aircraft, for example, instead of 1:48, 1:72 and 1:144.

The received wisdom is it's Tamiya-san himself's 'fault' having decided on that as the 'size' for his tank model/toys. The first tanks they put out were motorised, so they had to 'fit-to-box' and 'fit-to-battery.'

The culprit, apparently, being the original Panther tank kit Tamiya released: the hull was made wide enough to fit two C-size batteries, and that turned out to be about 1:35 scale.

There are some 1/35 aircraft, mostly helicopters or army communication aircraft and Border Models have started introducing a range of 1/35 aircraft such as a bf109c Val, Zero and Fw190. Many of us who build 1/32 scale are, shall we say, rather unimpressed with the 1/35 aircraft and won’t go near them. To large scale aircraft builders they are a distraction that should not be encouraged.

Whereas, I suspect, there are plenty of diorama builders who welcome them because now they finally have aircraft kits that aren’t 10% too big for the figures, vehicles, etc. they want to pose around them. I still don't get why that recent section of Japanese aircraft carrier is in 1:35 rather than 1:32, though. You’d think they would sell far more of them to 1:32 scale aircraft modellers than to 1:35 scale AFV modellers who also build the odd aircraft.

That said, there are also 1:32 scale figure and vehicle kits, mostly from Airfix and Monogram, which competed with Tamiya’s 1:35 scale kits in the 1970s but lost out to them largely because the 1:32 ranges were never going to be as big as 1:35 was rapidly becoming. Modern AFV modellers generally don’t touch them for much the same reasons as 1:32 scale aircraft modellers don’t want 1:35 scale planes. Well, that, and they’re all ancient kits that were OK to good in the 1970s, but by today’s standards are about one level above toys.

 

[Sprue42]

Or why not use 5mm or 10mm which would be far more logical.

The model railway scale and gauge subject is an entirely different can of worms that does not need to be opened here or we might be here until Christmas discussing it :smiling3: