Over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays I was able to get to my bench and work on some very simple popsicle stick projects using craft sticks and the inexpensive HLW short plastic flat cars.
Some glue and sticks and you can get this:
and this:
Fun and simple. And cheap. Like me.
As always, comments and questions are welcome.
Best,
TJ
Very nice. I like the little work(?) caboose the most.
IRB,
Thanks! The work caboose was something that just grew one stick at a time. No planning, I was just replacing the plastic posts with wooden ones and starting gluing stuff together. Really had fun with that one.
TJ
Things like that are great fun…better even than a masterwork in many cases!
Enjoy doing more as I enjoy seeing your work!
You said popsickle sticks. How big are the ones you use? Around here I can get “popsickle sticks” which are more like tongue depressers (they’re really wide) or stir sticks. The stir sticks were a good size but recently all the stores have changed to plastic stirs.
Love your work. I had the same idea some time ago and I now have a small fleet of these little flatcars. I used larger timbers for the side and end beams, and distressed the popcicle sticks with a saw blade, then stained them with heavily thinned black and grey paint.
Here is a before and after shot.
IRB,
You said popsickle sticks. How big are the ones you use?
The planking on the flat car are the tongue depressor type cut on the ends and down the length were necessary to plank the floor.
The posts are basswood picked up at the LHS.
The walls are indeed coffee stir sticks which I found at Michaels craft store.
Best,
TJ
Mick,
Very nice!
Best,
TJ
Was just at Walmart, and they had bags of the smaller wood sticks in the crafts dept. westy
Are those the mini series flat cars? I just looked at their site and am very interested in getting a bunch of those. Will they be in scale with my 0-4-0 Aristo Craft engine? I am looking to make a logging set up and this would be a great way to add rolling stock. I tried my hand at making a flat car and after 2 tries it turned out pretty good but I think still a little big. what are the dimension of the mini flat cars?
I noticed at the bottom of their page it says they have a variety pack 24 kits / 6 of each for $17.50 do you think this is a mistake?
Thanks in advance,
Ed
Awesome build, looks like a wicked nice. I built my gn15 stock similarily, same with a couple of buildings. Heres a pic, in case your interested:
Ed,
You can’t go wrong for that price. They are very easy to work with and should look fine with your loco.
Best,
TJ
Heres a pic, in case your interested:
Very nice!
Best,
TJ
They sell in Oz for $17.50 each, so if you get six for that price, I will be amazed, then I will order some too.
P.S. I always fit metal wheels to mine, they track so much better.