History

The first plastic models were manufactured in the 1950s by Aurora in the USA, quickly followed by the British firms Frog and then Airfix. Many manufacturers gained ascendancy in the 1960s such as Revell, AMT, and Monogram in America and Heller SA in France. Since the 1970s, Japanese firms such as Hasegawa and Tamiya, and Chinese firms such as DML, AFV Club and Trumpeter have dominated the field and represent the highest level of technology. Brands from Russia, Central Europe, China, and Korea have also become prominent recently. Many smaller companies have also produced plastic models, both in the past and currently.

Before the plastic model kit industry

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 are the rulers that are triangular in cross-section and called architect's scales or engineer's scales. 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.

Manufacture

While injection-molding is the predominant manufacturing process for plastic models, the high costs of equipment and making molds make it unsuitable for lower-yield production. Thus, models of minor and obscure subjects are often manufactured using alternative processes. Vacuum forming is popular for aircraft models, though assembly is more difficult than for injection-molded kits. Resin-casting, popular with smaller manufacturers, particularly 'Aftermarket' firms (but also producers of full kits) yields a greater degree of detail moulded in situ, but as the moulds used don't last as long, the price of such kits is considerably higher. In recent times, the latest releases from major manufacturers offer unprecedented detail that is a match for the finest resin kits, often including high-quality mixed-media (photo-etched brass, turned aluminum) parts.

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