If you have a Wild West town, you need some wagons sitting about to make it look lived in.
But miniature wagons can be expensive. My favorite — made by Blue Moon Miniatures and sold by Old Glory — costs $33. For one wagon!
So while vacationing a few years back, I found myself at a Myrtle Beach gift shop called The Gay Dolphin that sells everything under the bright South Carolina sun. Including small covered wagon pencil sharpeners.
Now I don’t tote 28mm miniatures around with me on vacation. But the size looked about right. And the pencil sharpeners cost $1.99 or $2.99 apiece at the time. So I picked up two, hoping the scale would be right.
It was. And, once primed, they painted up very nicely. So I picked up more on my next trip to the beach.
The conversion was simple. Put some Green Stuff in the hole where the pencil would go (the opening is at the rear of he wagon) and carve some wood grain into it.
The pencil shavings land inside the covered wagon. I simply glued a small piece of balsa wood over the blade and painted it brown. If you’re going to keep the plastic cover on the wagon, you could really skip this step. The inside of he wagon won’t be very visible.
As a finishing touch, I created a tongue for each wagon by painting a small piece of craft stick with Snakebite Leather (Citadel Contrast) and gluing it to the front rear of the wagon.
A bit of dry bushing later and, presto, I had six covered wagons for significantly less than what one of my favorites would have cost.
You can check out the back of the covered wagon, where most of the adjustments are made, in this photo.
Just to the left of the bucket is the hole for the pencil sharpener that needs to be filled it. Trust me, it’s much more noticeable in the photo than it will ever be on a gaming table from a couple of feet away.
You can barely see the piece of craft wood placed inside to cover the pencil sharpener blades. That plastic covered wagon cover snaps on and off, so that’s easy to glue in place if you decide to deal with it.
The figure by the wagon’s side is 28mm, from Gunfighter’s Ball, so you can check out the scale.
I checked The Gay Dolphin website, and the pencil sharpeners aren’t available online. But do a Google search for covered wagon pencil sharpener, and you’ll find they’re still available, still for less than $5 per from some sites. You’ll be looking for the covered wagon pencil sharpener that does not have a horse attached.
