1:35 Trakař

A single-wheeled wheelbarrow for a yard scene

The hand wheelbarrow was among the most ordinary equipment of the European countryside and of town yards in the first half of the twentieth century. It carried soil for trenches, bricks from wrecked houses, potatoes from a cellar and shells from a truck to an artillery battery. It has no nationality and no clearly set period, so it suits German, Soviet and Allied vehicles alike and gives a scene a human dimension without drawing attention to itself.

Five castings and how to handle them

The set consists of five resin parts. Separate them from the casting blocks with a fine saw or a sharp cutter, never with cutting pliers, because the thin edge of the tray will snap. Then wash the castings in lukewarm soapy water and let them dry: the mold release residue would otherwise repel both the base coat and cyanoacrylate glue. Small flash can simply be gone over with high-grit abrasive paper.

What the scene gains

A wheelbarrow loaded with rubble and parked by a wall says more about a scene than an added figure. Set it at an angle to the wall, fill the tray with sifted soil and grit and sink the wheel slightly into the mud so that it looks loaded. Engrave the track behind it into the modeling material while it is still soft. The wood paints well from a gray-brown base through a dry brush to lighter edges, and the fittings and the iron rim take dark rust with wear in the places hands and shovels touched them. The final touch is a faint deposit of dust on the underside of the tray and on the spokes, completed with a few blades of grass caught between the rim and the fork. A wheelbarrow like that reads in a scene at first glance as something somebody set down a moment ago.