PlowGuy
Member
Well, I’ve taken quite a liking to customizing and painting 1:87 vehicles. I have always enjoyed painting and weathering trains for my display case (no layout) but never really gave much thought to the vehicles until I recently built my photo diorama. After taking a few pictures of the trains everything seemed so hum drum and a little boring. I realized that in order to get the great visual effects I was looking for I needed to add some more “action” to the scene…. You know, other vehicles, people, even build a story as to what is going on in the scene. I know this is nothing new and people model these scenes all the time, but I never really gave it much thought as all my stuff are static displays in 2 acrylic cases.
I am planning on starting another diorama soon, and decided I wanted to go with a logging theme. I figured the best way about building the diorama is to have the “story” ahead of time and that included having some logging equipment.
I went to the Amhurst Model Railroad Society show in Springfield Mass 2 weeks ago and saw many logging scenes; however the one thing that stood out like a sore thumb was that almost everyone’s scene was the same. What I mean by that is most modelers there had off the shelf models, and they all looked the same, only positioned differently. Seemed like there was a lack of customization on the logging equipment (most all vehicles to be honest) as most probably focus more on the trains and the other items tend to become secondary.
I knew then that I needed to kit bash and scratch build some unique things to be a little more visually appetizing. I did a lot of research online looking at logging sites, different manufacturers etc. The best thing was I realized that loggers are a unique bunch of fellows… lots of homemade equipment, shade tree engineering and basically using what they had. So, really the sky’s the limit as just about anything you can build could possibly be a legitimate piece of machinery.
Most of what I did was purchase some of these off the shelf items I mentioned earlier, take them apart, mix and match parts and pieces and add a few scratch built details where needed. A bit of grinding, sanding, bomding yada yada… Another thing I wanted to do was to have everything painted similar as if it was all owned by a local logging company, and painted so that when you look at the scene the individual pieces “Pop” out at you.
I still have a lot of detail work to do like paint the interiors, and touch up some of the weathering etc, but I wanted to post up a few pictures to get some feedback. I also plan on making some custom decals with a company name or logo for each piece. I have a few other pieces in the works including a feller buncher, a wood chipper, and some other odds and ends including a another excavator type tractor with an exposed engine with work being done on it.
Okay, enough yip yapping, here is what I have been working on as of late:
This started as an NZG excavator with metal tracks. I only used the tracks and the operator cab. The engine compartment is scratch built and the grapple and boom are from Herpa.
Next is an Athearn Skidder. I didn’t do much to this one except replace the rope on the winch with a length of 40 lpi chain.
This is a First Gear dozer that I added a Root Rake to the front blade, a brush screen to the front of the operator’s area, and a chain on the winch.
This is another Athearn Skidder that I removed the rear section from. The current rear portion is from the front of a Volvo Front end loader, and the grapple is a portion of the front of another Volvo log loader with some “adjustments”.
This was one of the most fun to build, It started off as a as an Athearn Flatbed used for moving intermodal conex boxes. I scratch built the log braces as well as the mesh “headache rack”. The grapple is again from Herpa. I figured the extra chain hanging on here was a nice touch.
Finally this was a case excavator I picked up at the show for a good price. I used the boom, cab, and the tracks but moved some stuff around a bit. The engine compartment was from one of the Volvo loaders. Not sure why they would have an Oxy/Act set up chained to the back of the cab, but I figured who knows…. Might need it for some backwoods repairs!!!
Overviews:
I am planning on starting another diorama soon, and decided I wanted to go with a logging theme. I figured the best way about building the diorama is to have the “story” ahead of time and that included having some logging equipment.
I went to the Amhurst Model Railroad Society show in Springfield Mass 2 weeks ago and saw many logging scenes; however the one thing that stood out like a sore thumb was that almost everyone’s scene was the same. What I mean by that is most modelers there had off the shelf models, and they all looked the same, only positioned differently. Seemed like there was a lack of customization on the logging equipment (most all vehicles to be honest) as most probably focus more on the trains and the other items tend to become secondary.
I knew then that I needed to kit bash and scratch build some unique things to be a little more visually appetizing. I did a lot of research online looking at logging sites, different manufacturers etc. The best thing was I realized that loggers are a unique bunch of fellows… lots of homemade equipment, shade tree engineering and basically using what they had. So, really the sky’s the limit as just about anything you can build could possibly be a legitimate piece of machinery.
Most of what I did was purchase some of these off the shelf items I mentioned earlier, take them apart, mix and match parts and pieces and add a few scratch built details where needed. A bit of grinding, sanding, bomding yada yada… Another thing I wanted to do was to have everything painted similar as if it was all owned by a local logging company, and painted so that when you look at the scene the individual pieces “Pop” out at you.
I still have a lot of detail work to do like paint the interiors, and touch up some of the weathering etc, but I wanted to post up a few pictures to get some feedback. I also plan on making some custom decals with a company name or logo for each piece. I have a few other pieces in the works including a feller buncher, a wood chipper, and some other odds and ends including a another excavator type tractor with an exposed engine with work being done on it.
Okay, enough yip yapping, here is what I have been working on as of late:
This started as an NZG excavator with metal tracks. I only used the tracks and the operator cab. The engine compartment is scratch built and the grapple and boom are from Herpa.
Next is an Athearn Skidder. I didn’t do much to this one except replace the rope on the winch with a length of 40 lpi chain.
This is a First Gear dozer that I added a Root Rake to the front blade, a brush screen to the front of the operator’s area, and a chain on the winch.
This is another Athearn Skidder that I removed the rear section from. The current rear portion is from the front of a Volvo Front end loader, and the grapple is a portion of the front of another Volvo log loader with some “adjustments”.
This was one of the most fun to build, It started off as a as an Athearn Flatbed used for moving intermodal conex boxes. I scratch built the log braces as well as the mesh “headache rack”. The grapple is again from Herpa. I figured the extra chain hanging on here was a nice touch.
Finally this was a case excavator I picked up at the show for a good price. I used the boom, cab, and the tracks but moved some stuff around a bit. The engine compartment was from one of the Volvo loaders. Not sure why they would have an Oxy/Act set up chained to the back of the cab, but I figured who knows…. Might need it for some backwoods repairs!!!
Overviews:
