This is a 1/12th scale model of a Butchers Light Order Cart — fully Scratchbuilt.
These Carts were very popular with Butchers all over Australia back about the late 1890’s thru to the early 1900’s.
They were made so a Butcher could go out scrub to the farms, sometimes to deliver pre-ordered meat, as well as to get next week’s meat order. This new meat order, could either be delivered the following week, or, could be picked up on the coming weekend from the Butchers Shop, if the family decided to come into town.
These Light Order Carts needed to be very light and strong, as they had to cover some bloody terrible roads and long distances, over a short period of time.
The Butchers didn’t mind advertising their wares either, so a “very flash paint job” was normally in order.
Saw one of these vehicles at a Heavy Horse show at Werribee, Vic and liked the look of it.
Took lot’s of photos and when I got back home, went thru my stash of Horse Drawn Vehicle Working Drawings/Plans and bingo, I had it, only whoever built the full sized vehicle, added a little bit of extra pizzaz to the timber work, just to give the vehicle his own personal touch.
I used the working drawing from J.E Bishop, which was printed in “The Australasian Coachbuilder and Saddler, November, 1895”, this is an ORIGINAL working drawing, used by the vehicle makers from back then.
Just had to change a few details to get it to look like the original vehicle, not much bother at all to do the changes, other than that, it was made as per the working drawing.
Used mainly wood once again for the construction, quite a bit of brass used to replicate the painted steel bits.
The blue colour is ‘Testors French Blue’, had a bottle for years and thought about time that stuff was used.
The Cream colour is just plain old ordinary Enamel house paint, even bought it from the local hardware store, nothing special, expensive or flash about painting it.
I use a very El-cheapo single action air brush and you seem to get the same finish with it, as what others get with the very expensive double action air brushes, they both just spit wet paint onto whatever you hold in front of either of them.
Art work is done on an old Windows XP computer loaded with CorelDraw and then printed onto a clear decal sheet with an ALPS MD 5500 printer.
Swiped some of the art work from the original vehicle in the first pic, just changed a few details so that the model has my name on it.
The Headlights/Lamps are made by me as well, just used a pic of what they should look like and went at it until they appeared.
First photo shows the vehicle I used for inspiration, then the working drawing from “The Coachbuilder and Saddler, November 1895”.
Followed by a few photos showing the finished model.
Have a look thru the pics and any questions, then please ask ————————————
These Carts were very popular with Butchers all over Australia back about the late 1890’s thru to the early 1900’s.
They were made so a Butcher could go out scrub to the farms, sometimes to deliver pre-ordered meat, as well as to get next week’s meat order. This new meat order, could either be delivered the following week, or, could be picked up on the coming weekend from the Butchers Shop, if the family decided to come into town.
These Light Order Carts needed to be very light and strong, as they had to cover some bloody terrible roads and long distances, over a short period of time.
The Butchers didn’t mind advertising their wares either, so a “very flash paint job” was normally in order.
Saw one of these vehicles at a Heavy Horse show at Werribee, Vic and liked the look of it.
Took lot’s of photos and when I got back home, went thru my stash of Horse Drawn Vehicle Working Drawings/Plans and bingo, I had it, only whoever built the full sized vehicle, added a little bit of extra pizzaz to the timber work, just to give the vehicle his own personal touch.
I used the working drawing from J.E Bishop, which was printed in “The Australasian Coachbuilder and Saddler, November, 1895”, this is an ORIGINAL working drawing, used by the vehicle makers from back then.
Just had to change a few details to get it to look like the original vehicle, not much bother at all to do the changes, other than that, it was made as per the working drawing.
Used mainly wood once again for the construction, quite a bit of brass used to replicate the painted steel bits.
The blue colour is ‘Testors French Blue’, had a bottle for years and thought about time that stuff was used.
The Cream colour is just plain old ordinary Enamel house paint, even bought it from the local hardware store, nothing special, expensive or flash about painting it.
I use a very El-cheapo single action air brush and you seem to get the same finish with it, as what others get with the very expensive double action air brushes, they both just spit wet paint onto whatever you hold in front of either of them.
Art work is done on an old Windows XP computer loaded with CorelDraw and then printed onto a clear decal sheet with an ALPS MD 5500 printer.
Swiped some of the art work from the original vehicle in the first pic, just changed a few details so that the model has my name on it.
The Headlights/Lamps are made by me as well, just used a pic of what they should look like and went at it until they appeared.
First photo shows the vehicle I used for inspiration, then the working drawing from “The Coachbuilder and Saddler, November 1895”.
Followed by a few photos showing the finished model.
Have a look thru the pics and any questions, then please ask ————————————
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