Hello everyone! I’m a long-time lurker, first-time poster here. I’ve learned a huge amount from reading this forum and watching you guys at work, so when I started work on the Post-Apocalyptic Tank Wagon I thought I should jump in and be brave enough to show the work in progress. So…
First off, a couple of caveats: I wasn’t sure where to post this (it’s got scratchbuilt elements but it’s more a kitbash than a scratchbuild; technically it’s science-fiction but it’s MY science fiction; etc). But it’s basically armor, and I learned all the stuff I’ll be using from reading the armor section, so I’m putting it here. Purists, forgive me please [:$] Also, it’s likely that it’ll take a while to get this done, and that there will be gaps in the posts when Real Life intrudes, dammit. But I’ll try to keep it up to date with actual progress.
A word of explanation.
About two or three years ago I had a sudden, weird impulse to build something from a kit and paint it. I hadn’t done anything like that since I was a teenager (I now have kids of my own…) and for about six months I kept kind of pushing the idea away as being a bit immature and unjustifiable. Then I realised I was being an idiot: why should anything that makes you feel good (and doesn’t hurt anyone else) need justification? Why on earth shouldn’t I built a model tank or something?
But then I realised I didn’t just want to make a kit from a box, I wanted to do something that I’d had in my head for a while. A kind of machine that had grown bit by bit in the back of my mind.
Bear with me here.
Who hasn’t, in their quieter moments, fantasised about steaming across the charred wastes of a post-apocalyptic future in a heavily-modified, defensively-armed and armoured steam train / battle tank hybrid? (And if not, why not?!) With tracks and gun-emplacements, coal bins and living quarters for a family of four or five, it’s a self-contained ship of the plains. When society comes crashing down, this is the post-nuclear version of the VW Camper Van [:D]
So, having decided that I ought to have a proper go at this madness, I bought some bits and some paint and a fishing tackle box to put it all in and had a stab at making what I was imagining – using kit parts from a Centurion tank, an empty hairspray bottle for the steam engine cylinder, and a lot of plasticard and rivets. It ended up looking like this:
It’s unfinished: there’s supposed to be a lot of cargo on the sides, and the interior is supposed to look properly inhabited and have coal in the hoppers, etc. I kind of ran out of steam because I wasn’t really happy with the structure itself. The steam engine part didn’t look convincing to me. But I learned a lot about scratchbuilding and painting techniques doing it, so I’m trying to think of it as an investment rather than a waste of time [:)] I’m putting it here at the top because iit gives an idea of what kind of effect I was aiming for, and it’s going to serve as the basic template for this project: steam train at the front, weird stuff at the back, tank tracks under the whole lot.
So that sat on the shelf for a couple of years until a month or so ago, when I suddenly had the urge to give the whole thing another try, this time with a proper loco at the front. (Have to admit I didn’t know for sure that 1:35 locos actually existed when I thought of this… but hurrah, they do!)
The new plan, then, is this: use the Trumpeter BR86 as the basic steam locomotive that our post-apocalyptic family have converted to run on tank treads, and kitbash it into oblivion until it fulfils their purposes. The Post-Apocalyptic Tank Wagon Redux! [:P]
I have a ton of reservations, concerns and worries about this. Things like
- The Trumpeter BR86 kit turns out to be HUGE. Probably should have realised that. Am I biting off too much here? Also, the BR86 kit has more teeny tiny pieces than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life before, and I’ve already snapped one of them.
- Am I supposed to make it credible? Do I have to work out how the steam engine connects to the tank tracks? Is it going to bug the hell out of me if I don’t do that?
- Is it okay to drink and model at the same time?
- I discovered while doing the first one that I’m waaay impatient. Things that need to be left overnight to cure get hit with a hairdryer and then messed up five minutes later. The skills needed for this may be significantly beyond me.
- Shouldn’t I be feeding my children or earning money or something?
Aargh. Probably shouldn’t have actually written those down.
Anyoo, here’s progress so far. In the past three weeks I have, intermittently…
- Built the basic cylinder part of the BR86. Fair warning: quite a lot of the bits here are fiddly and delicate and it’s almost certain that at some point I’m going to grab the thing and break some or all of them. I can’t see any way round this. When it happens I’m almost certainly going to call it “battle damage”. I’ve also left off, from the front, all the bits that I’m not yet sure will mate up with whatever I put under it. My optimistic hope here is that I can add them in later.
- Built up the sides of the original BR86 cab into little armoured emplacements. These are going to go on at an angle. Looking at them here, I think they need more rivets round the slots. The curved parts were set as curves by bending the plasticard around an empty Coke bottle, tying it in place with elastic bands, then letting the whole lot sit in really hot (just boiled) water for 2 mins. When it cools, the plasticard retains the shape, which is pretty cool [:D]
- Grafted what will be the body of the living quarters / armoured emplacement to the loco section. The gun emplacements above will sit on those 45-degree angles, which is going to give me some interesting angles to work with as I keep adding wall sections to them. Still not sure quite what’s going underneath this as undercarriage… the BR86 comes with its own, complex, undercarriage but of course it won’t stretch that far back and it may not want to mate to whatever wheels I get for the tank part. So… um… still a bit unclear on that stuff. But yay! White plasticard! The grey boards are from another kit, this one for a basic railway wagon which I’ve completely hacked to bits, poor thing [:^)]
Like I said, it’s likely to be slow progress, so comments, criticism and feedback would be really appreciated. Even if it’s just asking, “Dude, why?” [:(]
