"Widgets, Gimcracks and Thingamabobs........."

.......... These are the words of Rodger Letourneau in his December 1978 Model Railroader article, “Ersatz superdetailing in N scale”.

Rodger described how he turned various “Widgets, Gimcracks and Thingamabobs” into detail parts such as grab irons, ladders, winterisation hatches, ditch lights, avalanche lights and lots of others. Most of the parts wouldn’t be acceptable today, but 36 years ago, Rodger’s article was a game changer for me. Some of you who have been around the hobby a while may remember Rodger’s article.

It was his ability to look at an unrelated item and say, if I cut this here, file this bit off, bend it a little, it would make a great ………. We’d call it ‘Kiwi ingenuity’, or ‘#8 wire technology’. Coming from the need to have ‘something’, when that ‘something’ isn’t available.

Rodger detailed several Trix F-7s to resemble CP Rail FP-7s, complete with icicle breakers, cooling pipes, avalanche and ditch lights. I was just starting to develop an interest in CP Rail and its big Alco’s, so I did the same, only I started with a Rapido FP-9A. I later made an M-630 from a Con-cor C-636, and used sections of cable ties to represent the central air intakes.

To this day, I still use the plastic ties that hold a pair of new shoes together. They make great flexible cables, the thicker end pieces I use for simulating white strobe lights, as shown on the photo of M&E C-430 # 17 below. Some have flat ends that look like sign boards on a post, and others have weird shapes at the ends that can make dummy street lights, bells and other items. The only limitation is your imagination.

It’s one thing to take a model and kitbash it into something else, it’s a whole new concept to take an every-day, throwaway item and use it to enhance your model railroad. Take a second look at almost anything.

Thanks Rodger for the inspiration all those years ago, I still have that article in my files.

Cheers
Steve
NZ

 

I have so many 'doomahickeys'...'bopathingies'...and 'whatchmacallits' I've used for so many things on my layout. It still makes people scratch their heads and say there is no way I made what I did outta what I had...LOL

 

I have been eyeing everything that comes into view for years as possible whoziits, and whatchmadoodles for something model railroad related and I am notorious for repurposing HO parts into N scale.

 

I actually found a use for an old Arnold Rapido coupler left over from a conversion to MicroTrainsLines magnetics. I set it on end and converted it into a drill press in a repair shop.


Now I just have 699 more old Arnold Rapido couplers with no known use.

 

Good use for a Rapido coupler. That is the kind of inspiration I was referring to. Always pays to look at things from a different perspective.

mtntrainman, Love the Zucker-Abraham movies.

 

Same here! We own only a few DVDs and Airplane is one of them. We love Mel Brooks too, Blazing Saddles being another in our collection. I remember the MR story you mentioned. I added the odd word "ersatz" to my vocabulary after reading it. <g>

 

Kenneth, that's hilarious! Not for using the Rapido for that but for THINKING of using it for that. That's a great little scene, BTW.

I still have a water stand pipe and diesel delivery hose and rigging I made from bits of balsa, insulated wire, and safety pins I made for my Treble-O-Lectric trains when I was about 10 years old. I mean, they're not on the current layout or anything BUT they could be if I wanted them to be.

Doug

 

Of course, my avater is my first official Treble-O-Lectric layout. It was the Life-Like expanded styrene bead layout sold by Montgomery Ward. In the picture, it's less than about 6 months old and there are already several changes and additions I made to it. The picture is from early 1964.

There is a larger version of the photo on my site.

Doug