HO scale river barge

Brian’s been back in touch, this time with his HO scale river barge build:

“Hi Alastair,

Attached is an article of my latest scratch build. A Contractors Barge for my harbour on the lower level of the layout.

This will be my third barge for the layout. I have a large harbour area stretching around the three side of the layout. I love a lot of detail on the waterways.

A few years back I owned a contractors barge kit made by Sheepscott models. At that stage I had no use for it and sold it to a friend but after seeing some photos of a built up one on the internet, I decided that I needed to have one for my harbour.

I asked my friend (who hadn’t built it yet) if I could have a photo copy of the plans to scratch build one for myself.

I did not make an exact copy of it but built it for my needs in my layouts harbour and modified it to the way that I thought would fit my scene.

Here is a photo copy of the original plans.

I borrowed the hull and cabin in order to get the right sizes for my model. A friend who is in the woodwork business cut an new hull and cabin for me using the originals as guides.

This is the cabin from the kit. (also borrowed).

My new hull cut to size and the new cabin. Checking out the placement of the superstructure on the deck.

The scrathbuilt superstructure with one of my resin pulley castings for the top.

The pulleys here is where the cabling will go over the top from the cabin pulleys to the top pulleys of the jib to raise and will lower the clamshell bucket.

Below, working out the length of the jib.

Superstructure in the process of painting before weathering and the temporary jib.

Below – figuring out what goes where. The set of winding drums shown here will be used to move the jib left or right as needed. Shown here on top of the cabin is the other set of pulleys.

Placing all the cabin roof top details – air tanks, water tank, pulleys for the cables and the smoke stack before adding the tarpaper covering. The smoke stack is for the steam driven engine inside the cabin.

Added the scribed siding all around the cabin as well as the doors and windows before adding the tarpaper roofing material.

Again checking the placement of the cabin and superstructure before gluing it in place.

Elastic bands to hold the scribed siding while the glue dries. Roof will be covered with tarpaper. The hole in the top is for the cabling to raise and lower the clamshell bucket.

Cabin has been weathered and glued in place. Note the coal box behind the cabin.

Gluing almost all the details on the deck.

Found a bigger clamshell bucket metal kit for the barge. I have assembled and painted it. It replaced a smaller plastic one which is now placed on the deck as a standby.

Added the boat for the crew on the back if needed for returning to shore. My smaller scratch built barge shown along side. The build of that one was in a previous article.