Hey folks!
I have a partially complete layout that was handed down to me after a death in the family. It is N scale. I’m trying to complete this as realistically as possible.
I’m looking for a conversion formula (perhaps a spreadsheet?) so I could get an idea of what would be proper spacing for buildings, road dimensions, parking lot spaces…all those little things that seem to matter most.[:(]
I’d like to do this in feet and inches…[:)]
Any suggestions?[?]
Tim T.
Sorry to hear about your loss, there is a pretty good scale rule free for the download at fiddlersgreen.net here’s the link.http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/images/n-horule.pdf
The only problem I had was when I printed from Adobe’s acrobat it printed to large. I opened it with Photoshop (could use any image editor I would think) and it printed spot on, (use a regular ruler on the inch side to verify it’s printed right. As for the prototype measurments I don’t really think there is a standard for those things, so when you see someone out in the middle of the road measuring with a stanley 25 foot tape, try not to hit me. Hope this helps out.
Chris
Long live the Espee even if only in our memories.
All those little marks on a Stanley tape measure are too hard for me to figure out, especially when dodging cars. [:)] The rule of thumb to measure twice, cut once never worked for me…I always come up with a different measurement each time.[;)]
Thanks for the info!
Tim T.
Here is a site to download a “scale calculator for modelers” that might be useful.
http://basic1.easily.co.uk/05800C/03D03B/scalecalc.htm
Note full scale (the real worlld) is 1/1
HO scale is 1/87
N scale is 1/160
O scale is 1/48
S scale is 1/64
I’ve had a shortcut for “scalecalc” on my desktop for a long time. It’s a very handy
tool. Dave
To convert a model (in N scale) that is measured in inches to scale feet, use x160/12 (x is the measurement). For example, if you have an autocarrier, it should be about 6.675" long. Use 6.675160/12=89 to find out its scale length.
If you measured a real building and want to build a scale more, use x12/160 to find what the dimensions of the one on your layout should be. Take for an example a building a 100 foot side. 10012/160=7.5
Here is how to put it in a spreadsheet (Excel or QuattroPro). Have column A be the measurement from the layout. Use B=A160 to find the scale inches and C=B/12 to find the scale inches (you can combine the two for B=A160/12). Then have D be the measurement of the real building, car, etc. E=D12/160 to find what the actual dimension for a N scale model should be. Note, the letter is the column, for the calculations, a cell must be reference (column and row). I will use the first actual model dimension to scale dimension as an example: B1=A1160 and C1=B1/12. If you want to do multiple calculations without delete former ones, highlight the cells with a formula, click on the small black box on the lower right corner of the highlighted area (Excel) or the lower right corner (QuattroPro) and drag down (keep the mouse button depressed). Or once highlight copy and paste to the cells you want it in.
The above can be used for any scale, just replace the 160 with the appropiate number (87 for HO).