question about modeling companies...

[sharkman]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if it is very difficult to scale down a 1/72 kit from a 1/48 kit or vice versa? Aside from the cost of making new molds, I wouldn't think it would be that difficult...

:hmmm

 

[Sharkmouth]

Engineering always comes into play. Bronco scaled down their 1/35th scale armored cars to 1/48th and the result were parts that were much more delicate. So, scaling down may result in molds that are too thin to fill properly, parts that are easily damaged, and parts counts that are much higher than expected for a small scale model.

Scaling them up results in clunky and over-sized details with low parts count. Look at the IBG kits as an example of what would perfectly suitable 1/48th scale kits released as 1/35th.

Regards,

 

[moon puppy]

I know Eduard has some PE that has been scaled up and down to fit marketing. The Wildcat set for the 1:32 Trumpeter/Hobbycraft stuff comes to mind. Even documented, photoed and reported the errors of the flaps and someone at Eduard as much confirmed that these were scaled up sheets from their 1:48 offerings. Also stay away from the 1:32 Corsair stuff they have, same situation.

As Saul pointed out, just scaling up or down stuff does not result in the same level of engineering that you get in a larger scale. Same holds true in real world engineering, you can't just scale up something to make it bigger and expect it to work the same as it's smaller example.

 

[sharkman]

thanks guys!

I was just curious why some companies will make several models in several scales and then make one model in a smaller scale (or larger scale) only.



:drinks