Flatcar with Hanomag K55 tractor

The LGB ToyTrain range brings a bit toy-like carriages and cars that are often produced in very bright colors. Although the toy-like look of these cars they are basically well detailed and can be converted to more realistic cars easily. They are often offered on online auction sites for a friendly price and that makes them very suitable for modelling projects. I did some myself.

One of the easiest conversion I did was this ToyTrain flat car.

The donor car is a bright yellow LGB ToyTrain flat car (I think it is from the Lake George and Boulder starter set).

The chassis and flatbed where detached from each other. This can easily be done as they are connected with a few screws at the underside. Than the flatbed was sprayed in a gray color using a rattle can with grey primer paint. Actually I found this shade of gray just perfect so I left it this way, but you can of course spray (or paint) whatever color you like over the primer. My advise is to always use a sprayed primer first before applying an other color as this will give much better results.
   

The chassis was given a brownish/rusty black layer and a dry brush as I wanted a bit of a weathered look for the car.

Then both parts attached together again.

The flatbed was weathered using artist oil paint (those little tubes from a hobby shop). I thinned the oil paint with white spirits and applied it with a brush. I just led it flow over the model and the paint find its own way. This give shade effects and the grain of the plastic wooden planks shows up. The two beams molded on top where given a brownish/wood color so they stand out more and look like they are placed on top of the flatbed temporary.

The crates are made from balsa strips glued on a Styrofoam block (left over pieces from package material cut in shape). The Hanomag K55 tractor is a 1:25 Wiking model which is slightly weathered (yes it is missing the steering wheel on the pictures...).

And without the crates it looks like this.

Finally I have put on some chains and ropes that holds the tractor and crates in place but I do not know if this is very prototypical or not as it seems to me the tractor would be a heavy load that will holds itself in place fair enough. Trains stay pretty level so sliding of will not occur easily. But anyway it looks OK so I keep it this way ;-)

Here is another one, same process but not weathered:

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