My big wheel buggy thingy…

Welcome back, it’s been too long. 

I am going to be showing you a little vehicle rework I have been working on. 

The Ramshackle Ramstoat as it should be.

So I was returning to Last City from a scouting run in the Ram Stoat when I heard a nasty crack noise. Before I could say “What the Spaff was that?” the ‘Stoat skidded wildly losing power. As I wrestled the controls one of my wheels went rolling past. There I was stranded at least six days march from home with a severely busted rig and low supplies. Looking at the Stoat the rear wheels had been ripped off. Often the metal quality is often poor unlike those vehicles of the ancients. 

As I tried to salvage what I could from the rig to start the long walk home a huge steam powered rig roared towards me. Fearing scavengers I prepared for a fight as a hatch opened and a face appeared. It was the fabled Mad Dan from the scrapyard. He cackled and yelled “stuck huh, let’s get you fixed up!”. 

He hauled the Ram Stoat into his fortified scrapyard and ran off into the piles of junk cackling while these huge mutant hounds stared at me growling. I retreated up some piles of junk to put some distance between me and the mutant mutts. In the distance between the junk piles I could hear clanking and crashing with Mad Dan muttering or cackling. Eventually I fell asleep and when I woke up he had fitted this huge wheel to the stoat. I managed to drive back to Last City, Mad Dan only asked for a “future favour” for the repair. I dread what the old loon will ask me to do in return.

The Ram Stoat is a resin vehicle for Nuclear Renaissance by Ramshackle Games. Sadly some rough handling of the model has resulted in the rear wheels spanning off.  I like this model too much to throw it out so a repair mission was launched. Initially the plan was to drill out the old spigots and refit new wheels but as it turned out there wasn’t enough meat on the model to do this.

Option 2 was to fit a new axel and wheels under the bottom of the chassis. This would have given the Ramstoat a more aggressive jacked up back end hotrod stance ala Fury Road. Except the front wheels and ram appeared to be digging into the ground as the model is low. Digging though my capacious bits box I ran into a rear wheel and swing arm off a 1/12 scale Yamaha Virago motorbike kit that had lain there for 25 years. The modeller maker’s mantra of never throw anything out has yet again paid off. Alas the shock absorbers from the kit have long since vanished. They would have made a nice bit of detail. With a bit of filing and sanding the swing arm and wheel fitted perfectly. Some sprue made up supports and the brake operating arm was made from some plastic rod. Gift cards made up some side panels. A couple of Orc Jerry cans were added for extra detail. 

Looking at the Jerry Cans they look a bit too large, I may replace them with 28mm scaled items at some point in the future. 

Thanks for looking. Stay safe out there.