Hello all.
I'm sure you're all familiar with the ugly little ore wagons that come in the Piko starter sets. If not, here's a picture.
I'm not such a big fan of them. They are approximately half the length of a Bachmann ore hopper, almost as tall, and only slightly narrower. My assumption that two of them joined into a single unit would improve the aesthetics considerably. Some trial fitting showed that if the chassis' were shortened by the length of the end span (from the outer edge of the bogie mount to the end) and joined together, the chassis visuals greatly improve. Done quickly with a hack saw, then neatened up after. The two offcuts were kept for later.
These two pieces were then glued together at the cut ends. Once dried, the two offcuts were then glued across the joint longitudinally to provide bracing. The addition of some plasticard, and filler, provides a box shaped structure, mostly just for aesthetics.
One end of each hopper is removed. I cut on the inside edge of the corner bars, then brought the corner bars as close to flat as possible. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this! Once this is done, the two halves were glued together, then after this had set filling and sanding took place. I did not pay particularly close attention to the join between the two hopper bays as these will be covered with a load when finished. Plasticard is used to cover the open holes. It's a bit of a bodge but it hides the big open spaces in the interior and actually doesn't look too awful up close. Once happy(ish) with this, it was primed. Followed by the inevitable re-filling, re-sanding, re-priming etc as the uniform colour highlighted my non-uniform work!
This has then been given an all over coat of matt black, with the steps in white. Unfortunately my first go at the top coats did not apply particularly well, as can be seen in this picture.
I've run out of time to continue with it now, so it will come down to a decision between sanding it back and reapplying, or lettering the wagon and hoping that some weathering will hide the exterior defects. This isn't going to be a show piece so depending on how a mockup looks, I suspect the latter!
Here is a picture of it with a Bachmann coal hopper for comparison.
-David Morris
I'm sure you're all familiar with the ugly little ore wagons that come in the Piko starter sets. If not, here's a picture.
I'm not such a big fan of them. They are approximately half the length of a Bachmann ore hopper, almost as tall, and only slightly narrower. My assumption that two of them joined into a single unit would improve the aesthetics considerably. Some trial fitting showed that if the chassis' were shortened by the length of the end span (from the outer edge of the bogie mount to the end) and joined together, the chassis visuals greatly improve. Done quickly with a hack saw, then neatened up after. The two offcuts were kept for later.
These two pieces were then glued together at the cut ends. Once dried, the two offcuts were then glued across the joint longitudinally to provide bracing. The addition of some plasticard, and filler, provides a box shaped structure, mostly just for aesthetics.
One end of each hopper is removed. I cut on the inside edge of the corner bars, then brought the corner bars as close to flat as possible. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this! Once this is done, the two halves were glued together, then after this had set filling and sanding took place. I did not pay particularly close attention to the join between the two hopper bays as these will be covered with a load when finished. Plasticard is used to cover the open holes. It's a bit of a bodge but it hides the big open spaces in the interior and actually doesn't look too awful up close. Once happy(ish) with this, it was primed. Followed by the inevitable re-filling, re-sanding, re-priming etc as the uniform colour highlighted my non-uniform work!
This has then been given an all over coat of matt black, with the steps in white. Unfortunately my first go at the top coats did not apply particularly well, as can be seen in this picture.
I've run out of time to continue with it now, so it will come down to a decision between sanding it back and reapplying, or lettering the wagon and hoping that some weathering will hide the exterior defects. This isn't going to be a show piece so depending on how a mockup looks, I suspect the latter!
Here is a picture of it with a Bachmann coal hopper for comparison.
-David Morris
