Kitbashing Hartland Flatcars

Kitbashing or just bashing refers to the act of taking a kit of prebuilt model and modifying it into a different model. For example, a kitbashing project might take a stationary model truck kit and turn it into a moving railtruck (This was a real project), or in the case of this article, the project might take a flatcar kit and modify it into something completely different, like a blacksmith car or a tender. Kitbashing is a very popular endeavor and can yield some amazing results.

One of my favorite bases for kitbashing projects is the Mini Series from Hartland Locomotive Works, specifically the Log Car kit. At the time of this writing, the kits cost roughly $11.00 on their website and thus go along with the low-cost nature of these kitbashing projects.

The basic unmodified Hartland flatcar is made out of plastic that is molded to look like wood with metal journals. However, they are unpainted plastic and as such, do not look anything like the wood they are supposed to imitate. So the first steps to any bash project I do with them is to sheath them in real wood.

I begin by removing the small boxes from the ends of the cars, giving me a flat surface all around the sides. Then I use 1/8x1/2 inch weathered strip wood to frame it. Two strips are glued to the sides and then two strips are glued to the end beams. I prefer to have the strips on the ends overlap the ones on the sides, but this is merely a personal preference. It is essential that the end strips are glued securely as the link and pin couplers that I use are then mounted to them. Framing the sides in this way is not necessary and my early cars did not have it. However, I have found that the cars look nicer when it is done.


The next step is to lay the deck. I have found that common popsicle sticks (a.k.a. craft sticks) are excelent for G-Scale wood floors and decks. They are slightly bigger than what would really have been used, however they still look quite good on the models. For my flatcars, I will use roughly 15 sticks. To make them into deck planking, I first cut off the ends. I never measure the sticks or mark the position for the cuts. Instead I simply estimate the proper placement of the saw and in doing so, I end up with a nice variety of lengths that add an extra bit of detail to the finished product. These craft sticks are subsequently weathered and glued to the deck of the car.


Hartland flatcars are equipped with the standard hook and loop couplers found on many garden railroads, however these couplers look far to big for the cars and I prefer to use link and pin couplers from Ozark Miniatures for mine. I will usually remove the mounting post that was used for the hook and loop couplers. I have not been able to find a standard for L&P coupler heights, but since mine tend to run only with mine, I can get away with my own standard (roughly 1 3/8" from the rail head to the center of the pocket). One benefit of L&P couplers is that there was no real standard for their heights on the prototypes either, which allows modelers a bit of leeway in their efforts. After painting the couplers a rust color, I drill a hole in the end of the car and then mount them to it with Gorilla Glue. None have been torn off yet.

The final basic step is to paint the side frames a rust color, push them into their mountings and add metal wheels (metal wheels both run smoother and add some extra weight to the car for better tracking.)

After you have done the basic detailing of the cars, there is no limit to what you can do with them. The most basic would be to leave them as flat cars, but you could also add loads, or even make them into full cars such as the caboose I made from one. The sky is the limit