Scratch-Built Flatbeds | 16mm Scale

Making wooden wagons out of balsa creates unique cars with wood grain texture. Flatbeds with boarded tops display wood that's exposed to spills, dust, and stains from the cargo they carry. Here's progress I made on two I experimented making:

Often found in Welsh quarries to carry large boulders and rocks, and used to carry cargo in yards and on the waterfront, flat cars or skips are a common wagon and are quite easy to build in large quantities.

Just fresh from being painted and weathered, these cars sport bolts that hold the frame together, working couplings, and printed labels designed from Adobe illustrator as name plates for the railway they serve and their numbers.

All the wooden parts are glued together with White Glue, with Crazy Glue for the detail parts like the craft wire couplings drilled into the buffer beams.

I blended various natural colors of acrylics to create wood stains, sometimes using water to distribute darker pigments across specific boards, often using a paper towel handy to pick up excess water as it spreads.

I did the same thing for scrap pieces of balsa and driftwood in addition to pieces of cargo especially made for these cars to fit on for the diorama. They can carry rocks easily with their sturdy construction. A wound piece of rope to tie them down adds a finishing touch with the spare boards to cushion the load.

 These are fun and easy to make, and make a great way to display your cargo on any industrial set.