James River Branch: Farm Details

Landsend Farm, Part 7 of 8: Detailing the Farm

Farms are great places to feature loads of little details... everything from the obvious—cows, tractors, hay wagons and so forth—to more subtle things such as propane tanks, vehicles under repair, a mailbox, wildlife, and on and on. I've only begun to scratch the surface with the things I've added so far; I could continue to add a great deal more, given enough time and inspiration. You'll also notice that items come from far and wide, representing around a dozen different manufacturers!

Naturally, a dairy farm will have cows, and Preiser makes a beautiful set. Curiously, that one set, #88575, comes with either Hereford (brown and white) or Holstein (black and white) cattle; I chose the latter breed as having a more iconic—and eye-catching—appearance. Each set comprises six cows and one bull; I used two sets to create a herd of twelve cows. (I omitted the bulls—sorry, boys!)

The laundry and laundry-hanging figures are from Merten (set #Z2319), as are the deer (set #Z2410). Since the deer haven't been manufactured for years (the mold is said to be broken), this set is considered extremely rare, and sometimes fetches upwards of $40 or more in auctions. The propane tank is made by Mark 4 Designs, Ltd., while the doghouse is a GCLaser kit, and the dog is a Preiser figure (from set #88555). The old wooden wagon wheels tucked behind the tractor shed are spare detail parts from the BAZ Models Lew Skroo's Hardware kit.

The Nansen Street tractor is crude, but it's the only American tractor we've got in Z, and since it would be located within an inch of the edge of the layout, it needed some help. First, I filed the nose into a better contour, and improved the shape of the seat with a drill bit. Then I clipped off the steering wheel and made a new one from a bit of fine wire and a roller wheel from Tom's Modelworks Titanic lifeboat detailing set #3351. I also replaced the exhaust stack with a length of brass rod and a piece of fine wire insulation for a muffler. After painting it red (more or less branding it a Farmall), I carefully painted the details—tires, seat, exhaust. Finally came some heavy-duty weathering: step one, a dip in India ink wash; step two, a powdered chalk dusting; step three, splotches of Floquil Roof Brown, mostly on the tires, for mud. All of these refinements help detract from the fact that the model is still rather blobby overall.

Although the "honey wagon" (natural liquid fertilizer spreader) from MZZ came pre-painted, I repainted and liberally weathered it based on a real one I drive past on the way to work. The hitch rests on a pair of cinderblocks that came from the Lew Skroo's Hardware kit.

The fencing along the driveway comes from Miller Engineering (#Z-986). Before being painted, the fence parts were cut to length and shaped to fit the terrain, and the terrain was marked for the post holes that I drilled with an awl. One aspect of this fence product that's unfortunate is that the posts are all very short—evidently it's designed to be applied to dead flat terrain (so the drilling jig was useless on the uneven surface). So, of the four lengths in the kit, only two were usable for the farm as these had fret connectors, which served as post extensions. After installation, grass and weeds disguised the posts that didn't quite meet the ground.

The three oak trees are made by SAMTrees, which got a color adjustment courtesy of some glass stain that I sprayed on with a cheap pump sprayer. Grass and weeds are Silflor tufts. Shrubs are bits of Woodland Scenics foliage clusters: each tiny piece was applied individually with tweezers. This might sound like modeling for masochists, but I find it supremely relaxing.

One of several final touches was the scratchbuilt mailbox. I rounded the top of a piece of .020 x .030 strip styrene by scraping it with a sharp knife, clipping it to length, and mounting on top of a piece of .010 steel wire embedded in the scenery. After adding a flag made from .005 x .010 strip styrene, I painted it bright red so that it would stand out in the greenery at the end of the drive.