If you love building model tanks and would like to know more about them then you are helping to keep interest in the past alive. Model tanks are just physical replicas built to scale from the real thing. When you hear the term "scale" used it is in reference to the direct proportion of size that the model represents. For example, a 1/24 or 1:24 scale model tank would meant that one inch on the scale model represents the same area on twenty four inches of the real tank.



One thing that model tanks cannot replicate it the scale weight. This is partly due to the limitations of the medium being used. Plastic can only weigh so much and will always be much lighter than steel. Most model tanks are constructed from styrene plastic that has been injection-molded. There are also tanks that are made of either resin castings or photo-etched/ machined metal. No matter what scale you enjoy working in you should be able to find one that you will enjoy.

With scales from 1/9 to 1/250 there is no lack of them to work from. Two of the most popular scales to work in currently are 1/72 and 1/35 but other scales tend to be popular as well. If you choose to build your model tank from scratch then the scale will be much more flexible. Most that choose this route tend to follow the scale of commercially available models so that components can be found a great deal easier. Normally the larger the scale to which you build the more detail you can achieve. This is not always so, however.

Most model tanks are built from store bought kits. These kits should be made up of the instructions, the decal sheet or sheets and the parts that the kit will be built from. These parts are normally made by the injection of liquid plastic into very complex steel molds. These molds are usually comprised of two separate parts that stack on top of each other. As soon as the plastic has had a few seconds to set up the mold will open and allow the newly formed sprue with its parts to be removed and sent further down the manufacturing line.

The sprue itself can have either a few parts or a great number of parts. Much of this is determined by the scale of the model itself. The smaller the parts are then the more that can fit on a sprue. No matter what sort of models you enjoy building you can rest assured that model tanks can give you just as much enjoyment, if not more, than other model vehicles.