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Scale models are useful for testing the likely performance of a design object at an early stage without the expense of building a full-sized prototype.
Scale models are also built as a hobby: aircraft; cars; vehicles; figures; matchstick models; miltary vehicles; railways; rockets; and ships. These models -- especially aircraft, cars, and ships -- may be radio controlled.
Hobbyists' scale models derive from those used by the firms which made the full-sized products. Originally, a "scale" was a physical measuring instrument, a notion which survives as concerns weight. First among scales is the ruler used in English-speaking countries that is triangular in cross-section and called an " Architect's scale". The terminology used was of this manner: "scale size to full size", or the reverse. An Architect's scale was used to make the first affordable models: doll houses and their furniture. Its popular scales for these miniatures were "one inch to the foot" and "one-half inch to the foot"; there is also "three-quarters inch to the foot".
The proportion of the model to the prototype was originally called "size", as in "full-sized" or "half-sized", as used on a blueprint for making something that would fit on a workbench.
Shipyards were the first to use the scales to make models of things larger than a house. The scales they used were expressed in a different manner: "one-foot-to-the-inch" through "six-feet-to-the-inch" were common. During the Second World War, battleship models were made "eight-foot-to-the-inch", in the later phrasing, "one-eighth-inch to the foot"; you will find these models used for training workers in maritime museums. The model ship would be referred to as "one-ninety-sixth size", or "1/96th", but rarely, as there were few scales commonly used; it couldn't possibly be "1/98th scale", for example.
There were also rotary instruments in which one would line up marks on two dials to be able to translate measurements from units on the prototype to units on the model. After the production of kits to make plastic models became an industry, there were developed rulers marked in the model units and which are called scales.
Phrases used are those of "larger" and "smaller" scales. The scale of 1/8"-to-the-foot is a larger scale than 1/16"-to-the-foot, even though the denominator is smaller. So a larger model is made to a larger scale. You can remember this in that a full-size, or full-scale, model is larger than a half-size model.
For aircraft recognition in the Second World War, the RAF selected making models to the scale of "one-sixth inch to the foot" (which was two British lines, a legal division of length which didn't make it to America, besides being a standard shipyard scale). Although some consumer models were sold pre-war in Britain to this scale, the airmens' models were pressed out of ground-up old rubber tires. This is of course the still-popular "one-seventy-second size".
It wasn't predestined to succeed; there were competitors. The US Navy, in contrast, had metal models made to the proportion 1:432, which is "nine-feet-to-the-quarter-inch". At this scale, a model six feet away looked as the prototype would at about half a statute mile; and at seven feet, at about half a nautical mile.
After the war, firms that moulded models from styreneStyrene (also vinyl benzene, ethenylbenzene, phenethylene, cinnamene, diarex HF 77, styrolene, styrol, styropol) is a colourless, oily, toxic, flammable organic liquid that occurs in very small amounts in some plants, but is produced in industrial quantit entered the consumer marketplace, the American firm RevellRevell is a company based in the USA ( Northbrook, IL 60062) dedicated to produce plastic, die-cast, models of mostly, cars, planes and ships. notably offering a model of the Royal Coach around the time of the 1953 coronation. In the early years, firms offered models of aircraft and ships in "fit-the-box" size. A box that would make an impressive gift was specified, and a mould was crafted to make a model that wouldn't ludicrously slide around inside. Modellers could not compare models, nor switch parts from one kit to another. It was the British firm AirfixAirfix is a UK manufacturer of plastic model aircraft and other kits. In Britain, the name Airfix is synonymous with the hobby, a plastic model of this type is often simply referred to as "an airfix" even if made by another manufacturer. Nowadays the Airf that brought the idea of the constant scale to the marketplace, and they picked the RAF's scale.
In the 1960s, the firm MonogramChi-Rho, a monogram of the first two letters in the Greek word for Christ A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual offered an aircraft actually labeled as ¼" scale, which may have been a common contraction in factories. They meant "one-quarter-inch to the foot", or "one-forty-eighth size". Shortly thereafter, hobbyists lost the ability to distinguish the two, and now the proportion is referred to as scale.