This is a small bridge I build over the last few days out of a few pieces of balsa wood. This the frist thing have had scratch built, I dont think it came out that bad. To be honest I didnt even take my time I just eyeballed everything and glued it. It prolly would have came out better if i took some mesaure ments and made this more to scale. I wasnt expecting this to come out this good. What do you guys think? What is an easy way figure out how close to the HO scale the building or structure is? Thanks, Mike
There ya go Mike, Nice and easy, scratch building structures is very satisfying. And yeah, not a bad attempt. Your LHS will most likely have a scale rule that you can use to convert real measurements into HO scale. I draw plans for any scatch built structures using a scale rule, pencil and paper, it's a bit time consuming but the results are worth it. Oh, yeah you save money by not buying those expensive kits. Cheers, Ken.
Way to go Mike, It looks good. Its a start, Bigger and better things ahead. I am the verge on starting my first scratch building project. It's gonna be a 2 stall modern diesel enginehouse. Not sure what kind of materials i'm gonna use to build it. It's still sorta in the design stage, in my head, LOL. Need to put it on paper soon. CAS
Scratchbuilding is fun. I take prototype information about thickness of beams and more. Then I calculate and build. Some time - years - ago I was struggling with a grain house for my German station Naumburg. I had only pictures. The key cam from a friend: this door is standard. It's 2 meter tall. Then I used the picture to take measurements and build it. Wolfgang
Quick calculations: HO is 1/87 and is also 3.5mm = 1 foot so: 3.5/25.4=0.137795275= 1 foot HO usually use: .138" 0.011482939=1 inch HO usually use .011 but better to calculate total length, then round off to something your caliper or micrometer can measure. Example: If you know an engine has 64" drivers, and you multiply .011 x 64, you get .7040" but if you use .011482939 x 64" you get 7349" (almost .735") See the difference it makes? One real inch is 87.08571429 in HO inches, so is about as close as English inches is to millimeters, see? To keep it looking in porportion to HO scale, use a calculator to do the conversion from inches to HO inches, then round off that total to 3 places. (.000 ) Most Micrometers read accurately to 3 places, which is 'thousandths' of an 'inch'. I have a Brown& Sharp Mike that will read in 'ten' thousandths of an inch, and most of us can estimate a Micrometer reading to at least a half of a thousanth by spacing it half way between one mark and the next. (.011-.0114-.012) The middle one is eleven thousanths and 4 tenths over. You can file that close if you are careful and take your time. A bit of trivia: HO Steam Engine drivers diameter, not counting the flange- A dime is .695" = 60.5 HO inches A Penny is .735" = 64 HO inches A Nickle is .829" = 72 HO inches A Quarter is .936" = 81.5 HO inches Bowser only has 62" HO and 69" HO drivers according to Lee English. I need BLI's web address if any one has it.
