One of my model railroading accomplices that helped with some of my kit parts does O scale, and helped me to understand some of the complexities of O gauge. HO is 1:87 scale, and O is 1:48, but it gets fuzzy from there. The traditional O scale has rails that are closer to scale 5ft apart, whereas a break-away movement, known as Proto 48, has the rail at the correct 4ft 8.5in spacing. For poo’s and giggles, I scaled my original model, (since it was drawn in real dimensions) and scaled to 1:48, cut it in half to fit the build space, and removed some of the details:
It really needs a whole lot more refining. One of the scaling issues is that almost all of the car was drawn up with HO scale in mind, and that set the minimum thicknesses of the sides and details based on the printer capabilities. When I take that same model and scale it larger, the printer can handle those sizes, but it ends up looking “chunky”. If I were to offer an O scale car, I would want to go back and redraw the majority of the model to better reflect the scale. The same problem happens in reverse, with a request I had to take these to N scale (1:160), the model has to be “thickened” up, or the printer cannot print the smaller details reliably.
And herein lies my problem: I have spent a sizable sum of time, resources, and capital to get to this point, and being that I am focused on HO scale for my own hobbies, I chose to chase this project in that direction. (How to you make a small fortune in model railroading? Start with a large fortune! HA HA HA… Errr… Ouch…) I have started putting together kits in HO scale, with the decals and supplies all purchased for that particular scale, and casting my digital model into the wilds for the world doesn’t help me recoup my original project development costs, not yet anyway. I really do appreciate the interest in other scales, but I need to complete my original intent before moving on to other scales. I hope that doesn’t come across as being too crass.