From pickup to farm truck in one afternoon.....

Garden Railroading
1

I’ve had one of those cheapy Maisto '41 Plymouth stepsides around the layout long enough for the paint to start coming off the chrome flaking and looking just pretty ratty in general.

I decided that a plain repaint wasn’t going to work because I really didn’t want to strip it sown to spray. I’d been using it at the Giant Gnome farm anyway, so I decided that remaking it into a flatbed farm truck was just the ticket.

First I unscrewed the plastic undercarriage (6 screws), then cut the running boards off even with the back of the cab…

Next I gave the cab an Earl Scheib paint job. Farm trucks around here are generally chalky and faded looking. At least when they aren’t just totally rusted out… So I used ‘denim’ and ‘grimy black’ to look like 20 year old paint.

For the bed, I had an old Monogram Mack AC bed that I cut down. It probably would have been just as easy to scratch it.

Bed installed.

Then painted and loaded with farm type ‘stuff’…

Front view.

And the bed? It’s well on it’s way to becoming a cart for another part of the layout.

And it only took around 3 hours. Much of that just waiting for glue or paint to dry enough to go to the next step.

2

Good Job, I didn’t think the farmer would spend so much for Chrome wheels.

Dave

3

Chrome? If you look close, those are ‘cast iron’ wheels from a 1/35 1920s Mack AC on the trailer. It’s now primer grey and the wheels are raw umber (rust). The tongue even has a ball hitch courtesy of coffee stirrers and half a bead. When Methuselah was a tad you used to see those things behind about everything on summer weekends - from farm tractors to Cadillacs

4

we had a trailer like that when I was growing up…used to haul our camping gear up to our log cabin in the woods.

It was heavy as all get out. I dont remember what we pulled it with…when I was small, we an old rambler (well it wasnt all that old then but it might as well have been) later we had VW wagons…not too much power to spare.

5

What’s next? A stakebed? Or attaching the trailer to the truck?