The Horse and Wagon

It has been a month since a cotton wagon was mentioned, so here's the (almost) finished product.  The wagon is a Jordan Products, Highway Miniatures "Old Farm Wagon".  My version is modeled after a wagon I found on the Internet at:
http://outlawshideout.blogspot.com/2009/10/its-cotton-picking-time-down-south-or.html

Seems this might be at some sort of museum or display; isn't that a plaque of some sort on the side?  It also seems evident that this is not "live action" since there are no horses/mules hitched to the wagon!

I also "stole" from a professional modeling group -- at least their horse colors of dapple gray and a sort of buckskin.  Check this out:
http://www.cmrtrain.com/cmr-train-aiken.html
This is a layout in Aiken, SC; you need to scroll down a bit to find the horses and wagon.  Their wagon is loaded with bales of cotton whereas the wagon on Blacktop Crossing will be filled with raw cotton (I'm still looking for something to model raw cotton!).

Here is the wagon before and after:

OK, looks like a reasonable facsimile!  The wagon is painted tomato red with yellow wheels (pretty obvious) and flat black rims.  Added sides came from scale 1X4" lumber for horizontal boards and left-over 2X4" from the Corydon Country Store (used before).  Used an Early American stain before gluing together.  Reins are brown thread; they work OK, but are a little stiff.  The traces are felt laces that have been sliced, but they are still a bit too thick.  Jordan Products suggested using masking tape painted brown.

Some really SMALL parts gave me fits on the model.  In fact, one of the handrails on the buckboard popped out of my tweezers and was never to be found.  I had to use some "flashing" from a cast metal model to fabricate another handrail.

The harness still needs something between the tongue and the horses, and, of course, there's no cotton in the wagon.  BUT, is that a tractor and trailer behind the wagon?

Another model, the GHQ's Ford 8N Tractor, gave another mode of transport of cotton to the gin.  I've always wanted a little Ford tractor, so this might be it.  Although it came with a plow and a scraper, I left them off to allow the trailer of cotton to be towed.  The wagon is a Busch Gmbh with the hay removed:

Here is before and after!

The wagon needs some work -- at least some "stakeside" addition.  I was a bit disappointed in that it looks too large for HO.  But, maybe it will work.

Fortunately, the tractor came with two steering wheels (they can be seen in the "before" photo).  I used one for the Deuce Coupe -- again, lost when popped out of tweezers!

After I went to all that trouble to "make" a steering column for the tractor steering wheel to be used on the Deuce Coupe, I discovered that other models -- specifically, a Mack truck that I'm working on -- do not even have steering wheels!?!?