Low Cost 18th Century Coach For 28mm

[War In 15MM]

At the swap meet last weekend I picked up three plastic wedding decoration coaches in various stages of disrepair.  It looked to me that out of the three I could probably put together two carriages and certainly one.  Since the price for all three was only $1, it seemed a pretty safe gamble, and it looked like it would be a fun project.  My plan was to keep the basic look of the carriage in terms of its structure and detail.  I made the necessary repairs (gluing on a broken wheel) and I added a piece of plastic sheet beneath the fancy corded roof so the roof would be solid.  I also added wire seat railing to the driver’s seat and a rear luggage box that also serves as the footman’s platform.  Finally, I used plastic to close the windows because I didn’t want to detail the interior.  The driver is a London War Room Spanish tillerman I bought for 50 cents, and the footman is a figure from West Wind’s Sleepy Hallow collection (when I bought the Village Elders’ pack, it included two of the same figure/a man standing with a sword).  I removed the Sleepy Hallow figure’s head (how appropriate) and sword.  I replaced the head with one from another London War Room figure.   I changed the right arm using the arm of a not-much-loved figure I had already borrowed body parts from.  The horses are from the Blue Moon Wagon Ho collection.  I have quite a few of them available because I used 1:43 scale horses with the Wagon Ho work wagons I used with my Victorians.  I’ve included a picture of the original coaches and a couple pictures of the completed makeover.  I’m pretty happy with the way it came out.  Hope you like it too.  Richard

[kidterminal]

It looks great Richard! The wheels are very fancy as you've said Its a good thing you had enough for one carriage as I think it would be hard to get replacements. Now you'll have to re make your pirates setup.

[Franz_Josef]

Excellent, and with different coachmen easily adaptable to the 17th century as well. 

[War In 15MM]

Thank you both for the kind words and taking the time to write.  I would think that the coach would work extremely well with the 17th Century.  One of the things I found when I was doing my Victorians is that those coaches (the real ones as well as the toys) were very expensive, and as such they were kept in service for many, many, many years.  Thanks again.  Richard

[Eric the Shed]

Good job....I bought a dozen of these off eBay ...they came in a pack of 12 for £15

Still have a number left to convert...I did give away half of them

[gringo]

lovely piece of inventive work Richard..tres grande!!

regards
Ged
www.gringo40s.com
www.gringos.blogspot.com

[War In 15MM]

I'd obviously heard about people doing a makeover of this party coach before.  Frankly, I wasn't sure I was up to the challenge of making it work with my 28s.  But once I got over looking at the bright gold finish on the original and started working on the actual coach, it turned out to be a lot of fun to do and a really nice coach that I think works pretty well with the 28s.  Thanks to both of you for taking the time to write and for the kind words.  Richard