Parkside Dundas OO9 Hudson V skip.

Parkside make a rather nice little OO9 skip wagon (DM37). The only problem is with couplings, or rather the lack of loops. A length of chain is supplied, for making up permamently coupled rakes. There are hooks moulded on the ends, and locating pips under the ends for the chain. I once had a rake of wagons chained together, now sold on, personally I found that to be a bit of a faff.

I did wonder if Greenwich loops would fit, so decided to buy another skip and play around.
First of all I made up a loop and modified the wagon frame to suit, carving away material at the base of the end supports, as on the right;

The next modification is to fix a little pivot block under the frame, for the coupling pivot pin. This is simply made from 1.5mm x 3.2mm Plastruct (90756) with a .7mm hole drilled in the middle near the end. A short length is cut off, as close to the drilled hole as possible, then the piece is roughly shaped and glued under the frame;

Here is the built-up frame with the couplers temporarily fitted;

As if to prove once and for all that I am indeed a lunatic, I've added the body locking levers to the end standards and the locking bar to the underside of the skip body, all made from flattened .45mm brass rod;

Hardly noticable to be honest, but I like the fact that they're there.
Here it is painted;

The frame is Tamiya Nato Black (a nice greyish black) and the body Hycote acrylic car primer. Skip, and for that matter any steel bodied mineral wagon, interiors tend to be dark rust, a difficult colour to pin down. A lot of modellers have trouble with wagon interiors, not helped by the fact that few if any photographers point their cameras into wagon bodies even if they have the chance to (something that I'm guilty of!). After much experimentation I've used Citadel 'Rhinox Hide' mixed in fairly equal quantities with Humbrol 62 'Leather'. I'm not sure how succesfull I've been, painting and matching colours are not my strongest points.
Finally, for comparison, here it is against a standard gauge Hudson skip, built from an RT Models kit;

Paul.