It was great to see all the 1/48 scale kits at the Nats this year. Unfortunatlely the powers that be still don't belive there is enough interest in the scale to seperate 1/48 scale into it's own category. So we will need to try again in 2007. We had 40+ this year hopefully next year we can get 90 - 100 entries.

I wonder how many 1/48 armor modelers there are out there. And I mean guys who do most of their builds in that scale, and not just dabblers. I frequent the track48 often and I see the same 9 or 10 names pop-up over and over. Same deal in this forum.

Greetings All

After dabbling in 48th for a while I've just finished selling my Braille scale stash and I'm going 48th all the way. It's probabily still too early to say if Tamiya have backed the right horse globally, but Japan is a huge 48th market I understand and I know it's quite popular in France.

I think the English language 48th forums will grow but it will be slower than in the past, this is simply down to the huge number of modelmaking sites now, when Missing Links and rec.models.scale and others started up the field was much smaller.

As to how many dedicated 48th modelmakers are out there probabily not that many right now but I think it will expand when others enter the market, by other I suppose I mean Dragon :-) I'm old enough to remember the early Tamiya 35th scale arriving in the UK and how many dismissed them as inaccurate motorised toys. Look at it now

I believe we'll see a lot more multiscale model makers in future where a braille modelmaker makes 35th or 48th replicas of a favourite vehicle or whatever, and larger scale guys make variations in a smaller scale to depict a whole range of subjects. In fact pretty much what Steve Zaloga is doing already. 48th bridges the 35th and 72/76th scale divide quite nicely.

The important thing is to enjoy what you do, whether you build for competition, club display or your own personal pleasure.

Best Regards
Nick Perry

agreed.

I build a lot of 48th scale, but I will never do it exclusively because a lot of the tanks I like are available only in 1/35th. In fact I think Tamiya has a lot more of the popular subjects to model before they begin releasing some of the stuff which I'm a fan of (light tanks and spgs). That and I still haven't completely given up on 1/72 aircraft

I've only just started making 48 th but now tamiya have taken it up I think that will increase interest. The new Hobby Boss kits will help as they,re good quality at a reasonable price ,i'm planning on having a troop of mixed shermans with backup vehicles finished in time for Telford .