My home-made Mexican carreta / tumbrel cart (1 Viewer)

[Bid_kahuna]

I wanted a two-wheeled Mexican cart to add a little color to my Southwestern and Mexican setups. BMC and Marx both made carts like these, but I haven't had any luck finding any lately, so I decided to make one myself. I went to Walmart and picked up a few bags of assorted craft sticks. Craft sticks are not just those big awkward popsicle sticks anymore. You can get a lot of very good sized timber for toy soldier projects at Walmart.









It only took a couple of hours of trimming sticks and gluing them into place. So far I have been too lazy to paint it, but a coat of paint and weathering would probably do wonders. This cart is going to serve a lot of purposes on my tabletop in almost any historical period. My next project is to do a copy of the Atlantic 1/72 siege tower to replace the ones I can't find in my boxes in the garage.

 

[Ivanhoe]

I wanted a two-wheeled Mexican cart to add a little color to my Southwestern and Mexican setups. BMC and Marx both made carts like these, but I haven't had any luck finding any lately, so I decided to make one myself. I went to Walmart and picked up a few bags of assorted craft sticks. Craft sticks are not just those big awkward popsicle sticks anymore. You can get a lot of very good sized timber for toy soldier projects at Walmart.

It only took a couple of hours of trimming sticks and gluing them into place. So far I have been too lazy to paint it, but a coat of paint and weathering would probably do wonders. This cart is going to serve a lot of purposes on my tabletop in almost any historical period. My next project is to do a copy of the Atlantic 1/72 siege tower to replace the ones I can't find in my boxes in the garage.

Great job !

Really like the wheels also.

Thank you for posting.

 

[The Katzie Kid]

My next project is to do a copy of the Atlantic 1/72 siege tower to replace the ones I can't find in my boxes in the garage. Has the wife been out there lately?

 

[Bid_kahuna]

Great job !

Really like the wheels also.

Thank you for posting.

Thanks! I kind of cheated with the wheels. I just glued two thin wooden discs together for each wheel and etched them with a pocketknife for the plank look. I used little wooden furniture plugs for the hubs and pieces of craft sticks for the connecting planks. The wheels actually turn, too!

And sadly, about the Atlantic siege towers, my wife does indeed have a history of rearranging my stuff in the garage to accommodate all the classroom stuff she no longer needs. This means that my bins of books and toy soldiers are constantly getting shifted to the back of a 5' high x 5' deep x 15' long pile of boxes of schoolbooks, kiddy toys and games, stuffed animals, building blocks, old chairs etc. Hopefully my things are all still THERE, but as all my collectible stuff is just "old cr#p" and her extra classroom stuff is very important, her stuff has to be more accessible.