"Why do we call 20mm 1/72 scale?" Topic

I've always wondered why we call 20mm 1/72. If a man is 5' 6" tall, then in 1/72 he should be 23.3mm tall. At 5' 9" he should be 24.3 and at 6' he should be 25mm tall.

Is it just that they look "close enough" with 1/72 vehicles?

Is my math off?

Shouldn't 1/72 equate closer to 25mm than 20?

Because it's all screwed up, always has ben and always will be.
There is no logic to it.

The first flaw is "If a man is 5' 6" tall". I am 6'2".

In olden times 20mm was measured from the bottom of the foot to the eyebrow. The concept was that you would always be able to find the eyebrow, even for figures with hats on. 20mm was a figure size, not a scale as such. The designation was used for metal figures.

Back in those days Airfix was the only ones making plastic figures and they were 1/76th scale, to conform to the UK OO guage model railroads. They were generally compatable with the 20mm figures on the market.

As other companies began to make soft plastic figures they made their stuff in 1/72nd scale to fit with 1/72nd scale aircraft, and a growing range of vehicles in that scale by Hasagawa and other companies.

Airfix then re-marketed their 1/76th scale figures as 1/72nd scale. They also had some degree of scale creep over time so by then the figures were starting to be closer to 1/72nd scale.

25mm size metal figures tended to be "heroic" sized and not really compatable with the smaller, thinner plastic figures in 1/72nd scale.

So yes, 1/72nd scale is closer to 25mm, 6 feet equals one inch and about 25mm. The history makes the convention that 1/72nd scale is 20mm figure size.

Different companies measure differently and there is no industry wide standard. The NMRR Association in the US does a great job of imposing standards on the train people. Too bad the wargame people can't get on board that train.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

i have never been happy with the term 20mm, and who ever suggested we measure to the eyes was never going to see what a mess we ended up with.
i only use the term now as it does cover everyone who games, well almost!

1974(ish) Minifigs catalogue – certainly, one of the first companies to use and define 25mm.

The definition was that 25mm = 6'.

20mm to some old timers such as myself was always considered to be 1/76th. As said above, this corresponded to Airfix.

I'm 5'-11" so is John and me in any scale the same?

"I'm 5'-11" so is John and me in any scale the same?"

Yes…it's the only way to be fair !

The whole scale/soze thing has always been off :/ It's amazing how many "different" size/scales work with each other ? <chuckle>

I always figured it was just because when people say "25mm" they usually mean heroic type 25/28mm so to avoid confusion 1/72, while actually closer to 25mm in height, got called 20mm in wargame circles where folk prefer to call things by their nominal height rather than scale. If you go to a plastic modelling event, for instance, no-one says 20mm everyone says 1/72.

In the dim and distant past, figures we now refer as 1/72 were not 1/72 at all but were 1/76 or even 1/87. 1/76 is the "British outline" OO model railway scale of 4mm = 1ft, 1/87 is the HO model railway scale of 3.5mm = 1ft.

The original Airfix plastic figures were marketed as "OO/HO" and so were somewhere between 1/76 and 1/87 or near-enough-as-makes-no-difference 20mm.

Over the years, plastic figures have still been referred to as 20mm even though, as a result of scale creep have become closer to 25mm (1/72) than before.

I also thought the parallel was 1/76, and that 1/72 was closer to the original 25mm

The first flaw is "If a man is 5' 6" tall". I am 6'2".

So am I but it's not height which really throws things off as much as proportions. I'll bet your head is within an inch +/- of 10" high. Being 6'2" is rather unusual also, 3/4 of modern men are shorter, if you had been alive at the time you could have been in the Potsdamer Riesengarde.

The original Airfix plastic figures were marketed as "OO/HO" and so were somewhere between 1/76 and 1/87 or near-enough-as-makes-no-difference 20mm.

No, 'OO/HO' mean 1/76 scale train models running on 1/87 scale track. The Airfix figures were originally meant to be 1/76.

20mm is right for 1/87 which is what it originally referred to. In the late 1980's when 'measuring to the eyes' was introduced (for whatever reason), it began to be applied to 1/76 scale figure such as Airfix even though these generally measured about 22.5-23mm overall height (correct for 1/76) and thus would be 21-21.5mm to the eyes.

1/72 started as an architectural scale and was post production applied to '25mm' figures which were actually gross scale creep on '20mm' figures by Hinton Hunt. link

1964 – U.K. wargames convention sponsored by Hinton Hunt which also enters the figure market with 20mm figures, larger than U.S. 20mm figs and so begins the great "mm (millemeter) Race." The Hinton Hunt figures led Jack Scruby to make matching figures which he called 25mm.(because that's how tall they were sole to crown)

The first Airfix figures which I bought in the 1960s were somewhat smaller than their later counterparts.

<No, 'OO/HO' mean 1/76 scale train models running on 1/87 scale track. >

Thanks. I always wondered what OO/HO meant.

I think that the question should be re-phrased to "why do we call 1/72 20mm?"…

I was told years ago, that humans were cast a bit bigger than 25mm. This was so that the smaller characters would have some definition, this being the likes of Hobbits, Kobalds and Gnomes.
The humans are now cast a bit bigger than their 28mm old 25s.

According to the old Courier magazine, back in the 1960s/1970s the scale in mm refers to the scale of the figure from the soles of his feet to the eyes in a standing pose.

This helped to address the problem of different companies putting out 25mm figures with some measuring from head to sole, and others measuring from top of shako to sole.

Measuring the figure from sole to eye is the "Barrett Measurement Scale" and has attained a lot of commonality among manufacturers – scale creep notwithstanding.

I don't.

Jazz
Http://6sided.net

The Airfix figures were originally meant to be 1/76.

But of course they not always were …

1/72 started as an architectural scale

Not sure if that is true.
"This scale originated with the Skybirds and Frog Penguin aircraft model ranges produced in the United Kingdom during the 1930s and was subsequently used for aircraft recognition models by the Allies of World War II"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1:72_scale

link

According to the old Courier magazine, back in the 1960s/1970s the scale in mm refers to the scale of the figure from the soles of his feet to the eyes in a standing pose.

Toby Barrett put up the Barrett scale, which is as you describe but it wasn't until the early 1980's. There was a thread about this:

TMP link

Where I asked for any actual evidence (as opposed to anecdote) of using foot to eye measurement and the furthest back it could be dated was 1980. If you have actual evidence from before that I'd like to hear about it. When I began making figures in 1974 they were 25mm sole to crown and I never heard of measuring them any other way until the mid 1980's. When I did I thought someone was trying to be funny, like Monty Python's Parrot sketch:

'Course ee's 27mm guv, ya got to meesure to 'is eyes see? 'Cause ya can't see where the top of 'is 'ead is.

In fact measuring to the eyes introduces a larger error than it attempts to compensate for because the head pivots towards the back and the eyes are in the front of the skull, whereas the bottom lid of the eye is within a half inch of the middle of the head in 99% of men. So merely tilting the head 15 degrees makes a bigger difference in the height to eye than the potential range of overall heights if you simply estimate.

Not sure if that is true.

It was not much used and is not on standard rulers. It's the in the middle between 1/48 and 1/96 two more common architectural scales. It's first use in toy models is as you say.

It was not much used and is not on standard rulers. It's the in the middle between 1/48 and 1/96 two more common architectural scales.

You bang on about evidence. Have you any evidence to support this?
As far as I can tell, architectural models tend to be built in scales such as:

1:50
1:100
1:500
1:1000
1:1250
1:2500
link
link

It's first use in toy models is as you say.

I wouldn't call aircraft recognition models "toys". Crude they may have been but they weren't intended to be played with.

You bang on about evidence. Have you any evidence to support this?

You are thinking metric, in the U.S. we use or used to use imperial units so multiples or factors of 12 were used. Though most architect rulers don't include 1/72 it was used. link

You are thinking metric, in the U.S. we use or used to use imperial units so multiples or factors of 12 were used. Though most architect rulers don't include 1/72 it was used.

The site you reference doesn't mention 1/72 at all.

Good luck Tom – looks like you've caught a live one there

:-)

The site you reference doesn't mention 1/72 at all.

crowleymodelmakers.com Project Harcourt Street model 1/72

link

link

Here's a page of blueprints from NASA in 1/72

link

In case that's too new here are some nice 1/72 Bridge plans from 1844:

Example of an engineering record: Details, Union Suspension Bridge, Ottawa River. F.P. Rubidge. Scale 1: 72, 1844, 85603/ 40. RG11M, Records of the Department of Public Works, NMC 16940

Is that enough or do you want more?

The site you reference doesn't mention 1/72 at all.

this may sound a bit fanboy, but Tom Meier's statements on scale and sculpting are valid by virtue of being Tom Meier's statements. The man is a authority on miniature sculpting.

Regarding the site TM linked to, the site does mention:

"In the United States, and prior to metrification in Britain, Canada and Australia, architect's scales are/were marked as a ratio of x inches-to-the-foot (typically written as x"=1'-0"). For example one inch measured from a drawing with a scale of "one-inch-to-the-foot" is equivalent to one foot in the real world (a scale of 1:12) whereas one inch measured from a drawing with a scale of "two-inches-to-the-foot" is equivalent to six inches in the real world (a scale of 1:6)."

1/72 is especially convenient since it works out as 1 inch in reality equals 6 feet in scale, and that is about as convenient as US customary measurements get.

Is that enough or do you want more?

No, that's fine. If you had provided those references rather than the Wikipedia page, I'd have been happy the first time.

No, 'OO/HO' mean 1/76 scale train models running on 1/87 scale track. The Airfix figures were originally meant to be 1/76.

Ah, no, that's not what it means. British 00 (and it's two zeroes rather than O's) is 1/76 scale trains running on H0 track and as a British company that was what they understood by 00.

US 00 scale is 1/76 scale trains running on 19mm gauge track. The UK "equivalent" is P4 or S4 which is 1/76 scale trains running on close to scale tolerance track of 18.83mm gauge. You've also got EM which is a 1/76 : 18.2mm combo just to muddy the waters a bit.

Airfix's use of H0/00 or 00/H0 was just them hedging their bets within their main markets (Europe and the Commonwealth) which don't consistently use the same model train scale. Some European manufacturers made H0 for the UK market, some made a halfway house (3.8mm scale), and some mixed and matched H0 and 00 items quite freely.

Irish railways (both north and south of the border) seem to be modelled commercially in 00 despite the fact that Irish gauge is 5'3" rather than 4'8 1/2" probably due to an overlap of some prototypes between the UK and Ireland (regauged in real life). There's finsecale modelling on 21mm gauge track.

For less "critical" markets 00 and H0 rolling stock are marketted interchangeably. For instance, all of the Harry Potter trainsets running on 16.5mm track (H0 gauge…) are actually 00 items being based upon stock items produced for the UK market (either by Hornby or Bachmann) but are marketed outside of the UK almost universally as H0.

And what about "28mm" a "scale" where the figures are taller and bulikier than 30mm and can apparantly match vehicles that are labelled 1/48th, 1/56th and 1/60th !

Ah, no, that's not what it means. British 00 (and it's two zeroes rather than O's) is 1/76 scale trains running on H0 track and as a British company that was what they understood by 00.

Yes that is what it means, HO is a gauge, not a scale per se. I was trying to keep it simple by sticking to talking about scale. HO gauge is 16.5mm, British Stephenson standard gauge track is 1,435mm divide by 16.5 and you get 87 so in scale terms it's 1/76 scale train models, running on 1/87 scale track.

By "yes that is what it means" I meant you are correct. HO could model other than standard gauge and then it would have a different scale relation.

Whenever the British get involved with model trains and track gauges it always seems to become a shambolic mess :)

At least 00 has a different nomenclature (British N, TT and 0 are also unique little snowflakes too).

Tom Meier's statements on scale and sculpting are valid by virtue of being Tom Meier's statements. The man is a authority on miniature sculpting.

+1000

Agreed! If Tom says it, then it's good enough for me.