TT scale

TT scale is a niche model railroading scale, whose name stands for table top.

Its 1:120 (1:130 in Russia and ex-USSR, 1:101.6 in UK) scale (from a common engineering scale where one inch equals ten feet) and 12 mm (0.472 in) gauge sizes it almost halfway between HO scale (1:87) and N scale (1:160). Its original purpose, like the name suggests, was to make a train small enough to be able to assemble and operate it on a tabletop.

TT retains a comparatively small niche in the United States and in the United Kingdom, but growing popularity in the former East Germany; it is the second most popular scale in Eastern Europe and Russia. Adherents to TT maintain it is the smallest practical scale, especially for those who like to build models from scratch.

In wargaming the TT scale roughly equals the 15 mm scale where the height of "standard" 180 cm (70.87 in) soldier height is 15 mm (0.59 in).

History

TT scale was invented in the United States by Hal Joyce, a former automotive designer. He founded a company, H. P. Products, in 1945, and the first advertisement appeared in 1946. The product line included locomotive kits, passenger and freight car kits, track and detail parts.

Scale

Scale or scales may refer to:

Common meanings

Places

Mathematics

Science

Scale length (string instruments)

When referring to stringed instruments, the scale length (often simply called the "scale") is considered to be the maximum vibrating length of the strings to produce sound, and determines the range of tones that string is capable of producing under a given tension. In the classical community, it may be called simply "string length." On instruments in which strings are not "stopped" or divided in length (typically by frets, the player's fingers, or other mechanism), such as the piano, it is the actual length of string between the nut and the bridge.

String instruments produce sound through the vibration of their strings. The range of tones these strings can produce is determined by three primary factors: the mass of the string (related to its thickness as well as other aspects of its construction: density of the metal/alloy etc.), the tension placed upon it, and the instrument's scale length.

On many, but not all, instruments, the strings are at least roughly the same length, so the instrument's scale can be expressed as a single length measurement, as for example in the case of the violin or guitar. On other instruments, the strings are of different lengths according to their pitch, as for example in the case of the harp or piano.

Scale (map)

The scale of a map is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground. This simple concept is complicated by the curvature of the Earth's surface, which forces scale to vary across a map. Because of this variation, the concept of scale becomes meaningful in two distinct ways. The first way is the ratio of the size of the generating globe to the size of the Earth. The generating globe is a conceptual model to which the Earth is shrunk and from which the map is projected.

The ratio of the Earth's size to the generating globe's size is called the nominal scale (= principal scale = representative fraction). Many maps state the nominal scale and may even display a bar scale (sometimes merely called a 'scale') to represent it. The second distinct concept of scale applies to the variation in scale across a map. It is the ratio of the mapped point's scale to the nominal scale. In this case 'scale' means the scale factor (= point scale = particular scale).