Some dabbling

There are times when you get bored of working in just one scale and now and then Ill go back to my roots and dabble in ho. I picked some ho scale heavy equipment for 5 bucks a piece at the Midland Train Show last weekend intending to work on them as a rain day project down the road but here I am already starting them. For the price they are not to bad looking I figure they are a good bases for some super detailing but there is going to be much work ahead to get them to look awesome.

 Here is the excavator pulled apart.

 I cut off the toy wheels on the bottom as well as the removed the gear boxes on the one end, typically excavators only have hydraulic motors on the one end of the chassis. I then used styrene and filled covered up the open areas on the bottom.

 I then cut off all the cylinders attached to the boom and stick arms as I will be making new ones that move in and out with the articulation.

 I felt the tracks weren't wide enough for the model so using a dremel tool with sanding drum I took off the old tracks and then applied some new ones using u shaped styrene. 

 The pieces that went into the center of the tracks didnt look prototypical of any excavator I have ever seen so some more scratch building was in order. I did save a small portion of the original section for the planetary drive hub which I used, the sides are looking much nicer now after adding some idlers wheels, still some more work to go on them though.