Inspired by my Steptoe cart in the previous article, I've gone cart making mad and created a further 9 different models. Some time ago I purchased a pack of white plastic animals in N Scale 1:150. These included several horses in various positions. After painting them I found I had really too many for the field I had set aside on my railway layout so the idea was born to add carts to them, starting with a Steptoe & Son rag and bone cart. Now my collection includes one for my coal merchant, timber merchant, Hodges the grocer, a Double Diamond brewery cart, an Esso Blue one and a cart for Manor Farm. I then took the design a little further and created a horse drawn milk float under the United Dairies brand.
I have added the model plans to my Etsy store if anyone would like to make these themselves. For the loads in the carts, I made these as follows.
Milk churn load. I created milk
churns by cutting the ends off a cotton bud and pushing this onto the
end of a cocktail stick. I then carefully cut off the end of the
cocktail stick together with the cotton bud shaft, so that about 1mm
of plastic remained on the cocktail stick to form a lid. I made about
20 of these and painted the ends light grey. I then stuck each
cocktail stick's remaining pointed end in plasticine to dry. Once dry
I cut about 5mm off each painted end of cocktail stick, creating milk
churns.
Coal Sacks load. For coal sacks
I cut off the ends of cotton buds and painted the ends a light grey.
Once dry I cut them into 5mm pieces using a pair of wire cutters.
This has the effect of squashing the thin tube into a more sack like
shape. I then filled my sacks with a little bit of black plasticine.
Timber load. For the timber I
painted several cocktails sticks with brown and black water colour
paint. Once dry I cut pieces roughly to the length of the cart.
Barrel and sack loads. These are
from the Ratio 221 plastic kit of sacks, barrels and pallets. These are quite often on Ebay and are generally no too expensive at £3-£4.
Paraffin/Gas bottle load. Cut
off the very point (about 2mm) of several cocktails sticks. Paint the
ends a light blue and allow to dry. Then cut 5mm pieces off the ends.
I was very pleased with the results and was able to create some little scenes as you can see in the photos. The knocked over milk churn and the United Dairies horse enjoying a surprise breakfast. The coalman filling the sacks and the brewery cart delivering to my Railway Inn pub.
