It is often mentioned in the forum that printed nameplates on new 'OO' locos are often found to be 'oversize' when fitting engraved versions.
Whilst this is certainly true, I would contend that many engraved plates from the popular manufacturers seem to be appreciably 'undersize' when compared to pictures of the actual plates - especially from steam days. Those with crests, or fitted to smoke deflectors, especially so....
Is this due to an undersize scale loco or engraved plate manufacturing?
More critically, has this actually been checked against actual nameplates such as the extensive collection held by the NRM at York? Scaling something down by a factor of 76 (in the case of 4mm) can readily lead to a situation of "that can't be right" in the case of something involving text as the eye/brain tends to will something to be legible which at that size it just may not be.
I'm pondering this at the moment as I'm tempted to try making a fake name and number plate out of MDF to stick on the wall, in the GWR style. According to a Brian Haresnape book on GWR liveries with the relevant font reproduced from a Swindon works drawing, proper lettering for Halls/Castles/Kings etc is a shade under 4" tall on the plate, the overall depth of a Castle plate including the plinth base is about 1' (the three steel bar brackets to attach it to the splasher were 1' long on a matching drawing) and around the piped border is about 6". In 4mm scale that's a serif face letter in barely more than 1mm, and a plate 4mm deep overall. The three sets of nameplates in my projects box for Castles, from at least two different manufacturers, look about to scale to me. GWR number plates had numerals of about 5.9" height so that's 1.9mm - also not really a lot.
Some companies, especially the LSWR and GCR, seemed to have gone in for plates with lettering smaller than that, though usually for fitting along or on splasher panels. I'm also not convinced a standard LNER or Britannia plate is more than 6" (1.5mm) deep across the edge surround either. Underscale in etched plates doesn't seem a problem, whereas even the fairly good tampo plates on many RTR locos - the ones that don't try to fool you that yellow ink is cast brass - seem too big, or appear so from spread and soft edges, still more so even quite good decals.
Etching has the problem that the mordant cutting down into the metal will also cut across at a radius, so a 1mm thick etch needs to allow for 1mm of creep from the line, tending to make the finished item too thin unless the photo-etch negative is drawn to compensate. Still not a problem for the Kings Cross et al nameplates that use a very thin etching layer to represent accurately lettering that's typically only 0.5" thick in real life.
Are you sure that the etch doesn't look small because the crisp edges show up against oversize splodgy edge reveals on plastic mouldings and overscale wheel flanges? Finescaling is about consistency and optical sleight of hand as much as dead-on measurement.
Rather symplistically, I'm subscribing to the "that can't be right/doesn't look right" club. I have a collection of some 300 'steam days' plate pictures, together with arguably the ultimate reference book - Frank Burridges 'Nameplates of the Big Four" Of my 60+ loco's carrying engraved plates, I'd venture that less than a third 'look right' - either in terms of size, lettering type, beading, differences within classes (eg A4's, B1's, Patriots, Scots) Pedantic perhaps, but one can now pay up =A315 for an engraved plate....
I'm sure this is not the case, as I'm invariably comparing against the 'real' picture - especially useful for correct plate location upon the loco! The plastic moulding base has no bearing on my assessment. Gist of my remarks is that most manufacturers do insufficient research, from the wealth of material that is available. I recall, some years ago, that a manufacturer (CGW?) chose to make a speciality of the many varying types of Class 45 plates and sought the loan of protypical photo's from enthusiasts.
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