1:131 scale stuff - does anything exist?

[puddingwrestler]

Gentlemen, Ladies, Daleks and those who fit none of the above, as you may have gathered I spent chunks of the weekend at ModelExpo in Melbourne, where I picked up Revell's USS Defiance Patrol Gunboat in 1:131 scale to turn into some sort of insane San Tortan gunship. Now my question is this - do any other kits/accessories exist in this scale or is it one of the crazier Box Scale adventures of Revell?
Are there scales close enough to be used which are more readily available?
Will I need to scrathcbuild anything I want to add or can it be found?

I know it's an odd scale, but it was heabily discounted, a nice size, and exactly the sort of ship I've been looking for to be used by the STN.

[Spey_Phantom]

no, i dont think so, the nearest scale is 1/144 or 1/130 (for ships)
the Deffiant class gunboat has endless whiff possibilities.
here's one i converted to a Leutonian light patrol frigate, with an EC135 on the rear landing deck 




if your lucky, you might still find a few revell 1/144 Gepard and Albatross class fast attack boats (German Navy) out there. 

EDIT: another crazy scale out there is trumpeters chinese navy patrol boats/missile boats in 1/150 scale.

[B777LR]

Go 1/144 instead. Revell does a few helicopters in that scale

[Mossie]

Yep, seems like a crazy box scale to me.  I think your going to find most ships in 1/144 scale, or box scales that are roughly the same.  Same with aircraft, if you want a helicopter to fit on it 1/144 scale is your best bet, something the size of a Lynx will be about 5mm out, not too bad.  You might find some others in slightly odd scales that would do, anything really from about 1/120 to 1/144 shouldn't be to far out.

[B777LR]

Just a few strange scale models:

Heller A380, 1/125 (quite a bit too big)
Heller A380, 1/800 (this one wont even fit in with 1/700 ships! )
Revell DC-7C, 1/122
Revell Carravelle, 1/100 (shame on you, Revell. You are SO good at new tool airliner models in 1/144)
Revell B-47, 1/113
Revell Spad XIII, 1/28
Roco/Minitanks Fw-190D-9, 1/87
Revell Convair Tradewing, 1/166

[jcf]

You could Scale-o-rama the kit to 1/144th, the model would then be equivalent to a ship with a length of around 180 feet.

Jon

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Gentlemen, Ladies, Daleks and those who fit none of the above, as you may have gathered I spent chunks of the weekend at ModelExpo in Melbourne, where I picked up Revell's USS Defiance Patrol Gunboat in 1:131 scale to turn into some sort of insane San Tortan gunship. Now my question is this - do any other kits/accessories exist in this scale or is it one of the crazier Box Scale adventures of Revell?  Are there scales close enough to be used which are more readily available?  Will I need to scrathcbuild anything I want to add or can it be found?  I know it's an odd scale, but it was heabily discounted, a nice size, and exactly the sort of ship I've been looking for to be used by the STN.

If you have not read this topic on PT Boats, Fast Attack Craft, and Other Small Combatants from the hot topics forum, I recommend you take a look and provide your own ideas and comments if warranted. 

As far as the old Revell USS Defiance kit goes, it is definitely a box scale kit, just wish Revell had found a box that would have equated to 1/144th scale when they were searching for a suitable box to fit the kit.  Anyway, the hull is beautiful and it offers up many possibilities if you spend more money and source one of those German Fast Attack Craft kits from Revell of Germany.  This will give you the option of two Mk 75 Oto-Melara 76mm guns plus a pair of torpedo tubes or one Mk 75 and the RAM missile launcher and some mine rails plus a lot of extra electronics stuff to pimp out your USS Defiance. 

Other options depend on how much you wish to spend.

[jcf]

Posted some PGM related drawings on the PT Boats, Fast Attack Craft, and Other Small Combatants thread.

As far as 'box-scale' is concerned I've never personally been convinced of the hoary old tale of models being produced to fit standardized boxes, especially seeing as cardboard is orders of magnitude cheaper than injection mould tooling. The more likely explanation is that the models were designed to fit the available injection moulding machines.

Jon

[Weaver]

Go 1/144 instead. Revell does a few helicopters in that scale

I think I've seen a Puma/Cougar in that scale.

[Weaver]

Just a few strange scale models:

Heller A380, 1/125 (quite a bit too big)
Heller A380, 1/800 (this one wont even fit in with 1/700 ships! )
Revell DC-7C, 1/122
Revell Carravelle, 1/100 (shame on you, Revell. You are SO good at new tool airliner models in 1/144)
Revell B-47, 1/113
Revell Spad XIII, 1/28
Roco/Minitanks Fw-190D-9, 1/87
Revell Convair Tradewing, 1/166

Revell V2 rocket + trailer: 1/60th......WTF?

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Posted some PGM related drawings on the PT Boats, Fast Attack Craft, and Other Small Combatants thread.

As far as 'box-scale' is concerned I've never personally been convinced of the hoary old tale of models being produced to fit standardized boxes, especially seeing as cardboard is orders of magnitude cheaper than injection mould tooling. The more likely explanation is that the models were designed to fit the available injection moulding machines.

Good argument Jon, guess we should rephrase that statement to represent the box in regards to the box that the mold fits in instead of the model that is in the box. 

[jcf]

Revell V2 rocket + trailer: 1/60th......WTF?

Engineering scale of 1:50, 1" = 5'.

1:10, 1:20, 1:30, 1:40, 1:50 and 1:60 are common graduations on an English measure Engineer's scale,
and are equivalent to 1/12th, 1/24th, 1/36th, 1/48th, 1/60th and 1/72nd scales.
1:100, 1:200, 1:300, 1:400, 1:500, 1:600 are common graduations on a Metric Engineer's scale.

3/32, 3/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 3/8, 3/4, 1-1/2, 3" to the foot are what you find on an English measure Architect's scale
and are equivalent to 1/128th, 1/64th, 1/96th, 1/48th, 1/24th, 1/12th, 1/32nd, 1/16th, 1/8th and 1/4th scales.
1:20, 1:25, 1:50, 1:75, 1:100, 1:125 are the graduations on a Metric Architect's scale.

So ya see it aint' as oddball as some may think.

Boeing drawings I used and looked at were most often 1/20th or 1/40th scale, common in aerospace.

Engineering scales are not unusual in the early days of plastic kits, 1/40th scale was used for a fair number of armour models
and some aircraft.

Scale standardization for plastic models as we know it wasn't locked in until the 1970s.

Jon

[B777LR]

Scale standardization for plastic models as we know it wasn't locked in until the 1970s.

I thought it had something to do with WWII recognitions charts and models? (RAF = 1/72, USAF = 1/48) Why first in the 1970s then?

[jcf]

Scale standardization for plastic models as we know it wasn't locked in until the 1970s.

I thought it had something to do with WWII recognitions charts and models? (RAF = 1/72, USAF = 1/48) Why first in the 1970s then?

When I spoke of standardization as we know it not being locked in until the 1970s I'm referring to the industry as a whole... some manufacturers decided earlier than others to produce their own lines to a standard scale, FROG was actually producing 1/72nd (1" = 6') models prior to WWII, and the ID models definitely had an influence. However, outside of the UK and US producers and their "English" scales, the Japanese and some European makers were using metric scales (1/50th, 1/75th, 1/100th etc), but by the end of the 70s those that survived had made the switch to the standard airplane scales, one major exception is Heller hanging on to 1/125th for airliners.

Armour models were made in 1/48th, 1/40th, 1/32nd and 1/30th before Tamiya came along with 1/35th... we know how that turned out and only recently has their been a renaissance in 1/48th armor, brought about by Tamiya, go figure.

The 1/24th versus 1/25th debate in car modeling has not been, and probably never will be, settled.

Ship modelling is still the area with the least standardization between manufacturers.

Railroad modelling? Fuggedaboudit. That's a dissertation unto itself.

1/48th (.25" = 1') was not the standard scale of US ID models in WWII, like the UK 1/72nd scale was the most common, 1/144th for aircraft with a wingspan in excess of 100 feet. The Germans did make use of 1/50th scale models, and the Wiking company got its start making 1/200th plastic ID models for the German forces.

The popularity of 1/48th in the US was probably down to the simple fact that a model of single engine type was bigger than a 1/72nd version of the same thing... literally more bang for your buck in the 1950s.

Jon

[Jennings]

s far as 'box-scale' is concerned I've never personally been convinced of the hoary old tale of models being produced to fit standardized boxes, especially seeing as cardboard is orders of magnitude cheaper than injection mould tooling. The more likely explanation is that the models were designed to fit the available injection moulding machines.

Actually they were produced to fit into a standard size box.  Al Trendle (one of the original employees of the original Revell, Inc. of Venice, California) told me that.  He said they decided that it was cheaper to buy hundreds of thousands of kit boxes and shipping boxes in a standard size, and that nobody really cared what scale anything was, since the majority of their market back then was kids who wouldn't know the difference anyway. 

If you consider not just the kit box, but the shipping cartons that the kit boxes had to fit neatly into, it makes sense.  Injection molding machines, even in the early 1950s, were capable of making parts of just about any size required.

J