Wagons

I recently finished the first of many sugar beet wagons for the layout.


This neat model was built from an N Scale Architect IHC Farm Wagon kit. This is an etched brass kit that goes together with superglue and some tweezers. Assembly is fairly straightforward. I primed the metal with some gray spray paint before beginning construction, and painted the various components along the way.

The figure is from Preiser, he was originally holding a fishing pole. The horses are from a Noch wagon set.

The sugar beets provided the biggest delay in the project. I wanted to capture the irregular look of sugar beets, and wasn't sure how to do that. I considered using ballast or other smashed rock products, but those looked too much like smashed rocks.

In the end, I settled on cork roadbed, broken and chipped to make irregular edges. I drybrushed the cork various shades of browns and grays.

I'll probably need at least 12 - 15 more of these to fill the layout, so.... that's a lot of tiny metal parts.

I also put together a few other wagons from N Scale Architect around the same time:

The first, was the Milk and Bread Van

I'll repaint that wheel at some point

This quickly became a test run. I'm pleased with how it turned out, but there were some lessons to be learned. I built this, then painted it. Which was a mistake, because it made painting the wheels very challenging. It also meant that I was applying dry transfer decals to the side of the finished model. It took some finessing to apply enough pressure to get the decal to sit, without mashing the delicate model. I also installed the roof, before attaching the reins to the figure (random Woodland Scenics guy).

The cow is from Preiser, with some scrap styrene to make the harness

The third, and by far simplest, new wagon I built was the Shire Scenes Tip Cart. This went together fairly smoothly, in about an hour or so. The back is loaded with coal, as well as a supplied shovel, and two small buckets (taken from another Woodland Scenics figure set or roof workers).

These were all pretty simple to build, assuming you pay attention to the instructions and take your time. I used various tweezers to help bend the tiny parts into place.  I plan on purchasing an etched metal bending tool one of these days, which should help with the bends. 

Products Used:
Figures: Preiser Fishermen Set 79077, misc. Woodland Scenics guy
Animals: Noch Horse Drawn Brewery Wagon, misc. Woodland Scenics horse, Preiser cow

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