Is there some overall size that the HO scale uses for buildings?
Like the higth of each floor level ( ie; a 2 story house )
A doorway higth x width
Or, maybe someone could point a guy thats been out of the scene awhile to a few good links on these kind of info’s [:)]
i was wondering about that too
Well, the obvious answer is that HO scale is 1:87.1. In other words 87.1 real world inches are 1 inch on the railroad. From there it’s all just math. I’m sure that there are some rules of thumb, but with a little effort you can come up with your own.
…
yeah… I could measure my house door, and do some math to come up with a scale measurement, and others…
I have not bought any building kits, and plan to scratch most or all my stuff, so i was wondering if someone knew the average size of a doorway, on an HO building… Or base to celing higth… thanks though.
Dian,
There really is no code. Use prototype drawings to build from or use them as guidelines to get measurements. Dimensions for things like doors, windows, freight doors, round house doors, wall heights, roof pitch and so on can be taken off scale drawings to build your own. Below are two links that might be helpful. The Pennsy site has lots of plans that can give you ideas and some more or less common measurements. The Hot Box site has a section for Construction Tips and Plans that might also be helpful. There are no big secrets. Scratch building is just like craftsman kit building but you have to provide your own plans and materials. The only code I can suggest is to build from scale drawings or dimensioned plans even if you have to make your own with a scale rule and graph paper using various measurements as typical from prototype plans. Bruce
http://prr.railfan.net/standards/standards.cgi?plan=&type=STRU&frame=YES
http://info.detnews.com/hotbox/index.cfm
Thanks for the links, Bruce
I go through graph paper about as good as I go through money, so its no foreign object to me [8D]
Dian,
Most scratch builders don’t build the doors or windows. We buy these from Grandt Line. They are cast plastic, very fine details. Check Walthers online, search Grandt. with the castings it can be pretty easy to build basic buildings. Check out Evergreen styrene for building siding material as well as roofing…
Get yourself a scale rule, it will have the dimensions in HO, O, N and S scales. Invaluable in any model railroad scratchbuilding project.
Bob Boudreau
There are several companies, such as Grandt Lines, that make windows and doors and other suppliers that provide the preformed wood. All you do is supply the rest.
You could start off with a kit and that would give you an idea of what the overall demensions are. such as floor heights.
Fergie
I have found that a dial caliper and a calculator are very valuable tools for scratchbuilding.
Because “scale” plans aren’t always to scale (especially if you are printing them off the internet or using photocopies) or sometimes don’t show the scale I measure things by using the calpers to measure a known dimension and then scaling off that.
Lets say I am working in HO scale and a dimension on a photocopied drawing is labeled 3 ft 3 in. (39 in). On the drawing that dimension actually measures 0.610 in. In HO, 39 in would be .448 in (39/87.1). I find the ratio between the drawing dimension and the HO dimension (.448/.610) which is .734. I just enter that number into the memory of the calculator and start measuring the drawing. If another dimension is 1.57 in long, I multipy it by .734 and get the dimension for the HO scale model of 1.152 in. Notice I never said what the scale of the original drawing is and never had to convert feet and inches after the first calulations.
If you do want to convert it back to HO scale dimensions, multiply the calculated dimension by 87.1(1.152x87.1) to get 100.37 scale inches or 8’ 4".
Using these technigues it becomes easy to scale objects from pictures, as long as you take the pictures at right angles to the object and know one dimension. For example if you take a picture of a shanty and know the doorway is 2 ft 11 in wide, or take a picture of the end of a car and know the guage of the rails or take a picture of the side of a car and know the wheelbase of the trucks or diameter of the wheels you can scale dimensions off the picture.
Dave H.
In average, modern, residential construction there is typically about 9 feet between floors/stories. In the more distant past 12-13 was quite common. Commercial structures are often considered as having 10 feet between floors but in older loft and factory buildings there can be considerably more separation. When scratchbuilding a model of a prototype the floor-to-floor dimensions are usually retained, while the overall building size is typically compressed to fit the space the modeler has available to him. Most commerial and railroad-associated structures are far to large to be modeled in exact scale and thus one employs “selective compression”.
CNJ831
I know that a home door is 78" or 80" as the average height. Width can be anywhere from 24" to 40". I am working on a spreadsheet that has the measurments from 1" up to 13’. If you would like me to post it , I will later
Mike Dickinson