Copier Scaling Program...

[Condottiere]

Found this Copier Scaling Program on modelshipbuilder.com. It's a program that assists those of us who'd like to resize plans from one scale to another, but not sure how much to reduce or enlarge an image, prior to printing.

[PortCharmers]

Ahoy, shipmates,

Coming from a scale modeling background and learning more and more about the requirements of gaming, I realize something else about gaming-models:

Their proportions are quite far from those of real life ships (please don't take that as an offence). I gather that what is needed is some sort of compromise, so there is enough room inside for figures, but still a boat that fits on the table / in the car / in the house. We are dealing with almost landscape-sized objects, and experiencing some of the landscape-modelling problems (which you are probably far more familiar with than i, but even I realize that on many model railways, the landscape is a different scale than the rolling stock, after all, a true-scale representation of a city station can fill an actual barn (I’ve seen it)). But back to the point:

You may be intrigued to know that hull plans can be stretched (or squashed) to a certain degree without losing their elegance. To stretch the length / beam ratio, you use the zoom-copier to change the size of the frames according to your desired beam, and then modify the distance between frames according to your length. To modify the beam / height ratio, you would need a copier that can adjust the zoom of the two axes separately, to change the ratio of the frames themselves. If the hull has a prismatic mid-section, this can be stretched / shortened without affecting the bow- and stern-sections (beware: curved decks will be affected!).

Of course, this method has its limits and using it to change a sleek ocean-liner hull to that of a chubby tugboat will probably result in something laughable (on the other hand, who doesn’t like a good laugh). Of course, the true-scale-fundamentalists will want to stone you for that, but never mind, they will want to stone you anyway for confusing future-archeologists with your fantastic contraptions.

By the way, I recently had a look at some vintage tin-toy ocean-liners, which are also a lovely compromise in scale. When I look at doors, railings, deck-heights and so on, I would guess the scale at about 1/60 – 1/65, but the whole model measures only about 1,20m (a true scale four-stacker at 1/65 would easily come to 3m). In spite of this compromise, they somehow managed to capture the grace and lovely proportions of the real thing. This is the inspiration for my next project, which will involve some of the aforementioned proportion-tweaking.

Have a lovely new year
Peter

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Ahoy, shipmates,

Coming from a scale modeling background and learning more and more about the requirements of gaming, I realize something else about gaming-models:

Their proportions are quite far from those of real life ships (please don't take that as an offence). I gather that what is needed is some sort of compromise, so there is enough room inside for figures, but still a boat that fits on the table / in the car / in the house. We are dealing with almost landscape-sized objects, and experiencing some of the landscape-modelling problems (which you are probably far more familiar with than i, but even I realize that on many model railways, the landscape is a different scale than the rolling stock, after all, a true-scale representation of a city station can fill an actual barn (I’ve seen it)). But back to the point:

You may be intrigued to know that hull plans can be stretched (or squashed) to a certain degree without losing their elegance. To stretch the length / beam ratio, you use the zoom-copier to change the size of the frames according to your desired beam, and then modify the distance between frames according to your length. To modify the beam / height ratio, you would need a copier that can adjust the zoom of the two axes separately, to change the ratio of the frames themselves. If the hull has a prismatic mid-section, this can be stretched / shortened without affecting the bow- and stern-sections (beware: curved decks will be affected!).

Of course, this method has its limits and using it to change a sleek ocean-liner hull to that of a chubby tugboat will probably result in something laughable (on the other hand, who doesn’t like a good laugh). Of course, the true-scale-fundamentalists will want to stone you for that, but never mind, they will want to stone you anyway for confusing future-archeologists with your fantastic contraptions.

By the way, I recently had a look at some vintage tin-toy ocean-liners, which are also a lovely compromise in scale. When I look at doors, railings, deck-heights and so on, I would guess the scale at about 1/60 – 1/65, but the whole model measures only about 1,20m (a true scale four-stacker at 1/65 would easily come to 3m). In spite of this compromise, they somehow managed to capture the grace and lovely proportions of the real thing. This is the inspiration for my next project, which will involve some of the aforementioned proportion-tweaking.

Have a lovely new year
Peter

I agree - sometimes you just have to 'wing it'

When I convert measurement from a set of plans produced to a different scale - I multiply up to full size and in the case of 28mm models then reduce by 56.

This gives me some measurements that I draw out roughly on squared paper in pencil.

When I have 'adjusted' the scale and measurements I re-draw over the pencil with a thin-tipped marker or drawing pen and you have the plans.

If you are using a photocopier - then the best advice is produce a couple of copies around the right size and choose the nearest.

I hope that this helps.

Tony