DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

Since the acquisition of the 1:50 scale figures, I've been getting more and more ideas for making tools, utensils and many other objects in scale with them (as well as their planned derivatives). In particular, many small pieces of machinery I've seen in real life, in fiction or online seem to be very underrated (or outright obscure) even if they have toy versions; which normally brings them exposure and appreciation at very young ages. That orange tractor I made was a good starting point for other heavy equipment, so I thought I should start by recreating smaller ones before taking on their larger, more popular counterparts. Here we have my interpretation of a skid-steer loader.



Instead of a white and red livery like the ones made by Bobcat, I chose a yellow and black one inspired by CAT, Gehl and other companies (albeit darker and without markings). I currently used a yellow marker to "try out" the colour scheme, but most later construction vehicles will be painted acrylic to get brighter shades. I've since repainted it gold with the same yellow marker over it. The cab and bonnet were initially made separately, until I switched to a shroud with one-piece sides to look more like other cardboard skid-steers I've found. Matchsticks were glued to the corners of the cab to make it a bit sturdier. The bucket is pretty much the same design(s) I made for Jack, only without teeth. I currently don't plan to make other attachments since, among other reasons, they likely wouldn't function. Inserting or removing an operator is easier than it may look. One way to do it is to insert him from the front "on his back" and then push the legs down until he's seated. Thanks to an unintentional feature, he can also be "ejected" by picking up the model so he drops out through a gap behind the wheels.



My favourite detail is the netting on the sides of the cab, which was achieved with a silicone anti-slip net for carpets (IKEA name: STOPP). I have other planned uses for the rest of the leftover, including a caterpillar tread experiment before trying to use it for tracked vehicles. Having seen my gears can mesh with it, I believe that might be possible. One problem is it loses its shape very easily when stretched, so I'd have to make sure I cut and glue the treads to the 'exact' length of each tracked wheelbase.

I feel it turned out half decent, apart from the paint job, flat wheel rims and other missing detail (esp. the hydraulics).