Gary's Grounded Van Body Diorama Competition Thread

Ok, I'm in...

Van, Louvre Van, Refrigerated Car (reefer), Box Car...., surely they are all the same in some degree ??

So, I'm going to enter an old HO scale 40' Box Car. It is one that I had intended to ground on one of the layouts, just never got around to it ! As it has no bogies, it is a worthy candidate !

Anyhow, I present you the box car or is it a van...??

Now I have to decide on what to do with it....

Cheers, Gary.

 

I want this old 40' box car to look well worn, rusting out in places you would expect, so I started with drilling holes in the body and door...

As I want the door open, the floor needs to be planked out, so out with the rule and I scribed planks into the floor...

More to follow...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Gave the floor and the exterior of the box car a little weathering. The top walkway way was painted separately. All done by brush and mixing colours to get the desired results...

The two pics above were taken inside under my light and it has washed the colours dramatically, so I took the box car outside into natural sunlight...

The floor all painted up...

Cheers, Gary.

 

I have cut myself a baseboard and sealed it in paint, it is sitting outside in our glorious sunshine as I write this...

Mean while, I have been cutting, texturing, gluing and painting balsa wood.

The balsa was cut to 3mm wide (3mm x 2mm) and 30mm in length. This is the same size as a sleeper. The surface of each sleeper was textured with a razor saw to give it heavy graining. This is something we see on old sleepers that are repurposed.

The sleepers were stacked to form a lattice like box for a small loading platform and supports for the box car.

Small rectangles of 1.5mm thick balsa sheet were cut and boards created using a scalpel.

The scribed balsa was glued on top of the sleeper supports to form a deck/loading platform. Once the glue had dried, it was painted and weathered with acrylics.

Whilst I have the diorama baseboard outside drying, I grabbed myself an off cut of code 75 flex track. I actually gauged the size of the baseboard from this piece of track.
The webbing between the sleepers has been cut to allow me to space out the sleepers. I want an old ramshackle look to the diorama. After this both the rails and sleepers were painted accordingly.

Okay, I'm heading outside to check on the drying baseboard and if it is dry enough, the track will be glued down and then trimmed to suit the strange baseboard shape.

More soon.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Philip. You would know that I like to build bespoke models, each one being a new challenge !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you mate. I'm using what I have on hand, nothing is new in this diorama, everything is coming out of the supplies I have.

Cheers, Gary.

 

So, I have ventured further again this afternoon/evening. I can only show you a photo of the base board with the track mounted. All the major items are in place on the baseboard, unfortunately the glue is still wet under all the scenic scatters and static grass...

Interesting shape ! I didn't want to go with the usual rectangle, so I went the kidney bean shape instead !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks Ian, I don't think I have any HO scale bitey, scratchy critters to put on here !

Thanks Toto. I may even have it finished by tonight....

Cheers, Gary.

 

So last night I ballasted the track and mounted the box car to the sleepers. Whilst the glue was drying, I scratched built an access ramp to allow movement of good up and down. For the rear landing, I scratch built a set of stairs from 1.5mm thick balsa wood. These were painted identical to the landings so they wouldn't look out of place.

After the glue had dried, I then glued the larger of the two landings (rail side) to the baseboard, followed by the box car and then the rear landing. Once this had taken hold, a ballast mix of PVA/water was spread over the base board and a mix of tile grout and fine Sydney sand was sprinkled over the top.
Before the sand/grout mix had cured, I added some taller grasses to the surface.

This was sat under my ceiling fan and in about 1 hours time, I could apply layers of static grass. Once again, I spread the PVA/water over the surface where I wanted the grass to 'grow'. A few liberal shakes of the static grass applicator was all that was needed. I allowed this to dry for an hour before turning the diorama up side down and lightly shook it to release any loose fibres.

Some fine clump foliage was added as well as a few car tyres. I left this to cure overnight for all the scenery, static grass, scatters etc and the diorama now looks like this...

More to follow...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you for your kind words !

I don't necessarily want to win, as this competition is about technique and sharing it with the members. I hope that some members here have a go at some of the techniques I have used here to create this diorama.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Today has been an eventful day on the diorama. I think I have completed another 18% of the diorama taking it to 98% complete. (I want to keep 2% up my sleeve in case I think of adding something extra... )

Anyhow, today I added many more details including goods inside the boxcar waiting for collection, general rubbish and a few more weeds, disposed junk, telegraph pole, old sleepers and a partially tarped roof !
Like I said, just a few extra details... Here is a few pics of the 98%...

1. Overall view of the front of the diorama...

2, 3 & 4... We will take a anti-clockwise walk around the model.

5 & 6... The inner details.

7, 8, & 9...The partially tarped roof.

Well there you have it. I'm thinking of I'll fixing a small back scene to the diorama to add some depth, then maybe an old pick up truck besides the rear landing and perhaps two blokes having a chat...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you kindly.

Cheers, Gary.