Snoopy MTH hand car !?!

great job so far. You are right about the MTH version, depending on what you to pull the MTH handcar may be enough....

I've changed the dog bone to wagons with Peanuts characters in them

You are the man! ( I am bowing but you probably can't see that?)

That is great idea!  Maybe one day Lionel will reproduce the Snoppy Handcar with Charlie Brown on it.  

You could use a sound module on a stationary platform to generate the sounds.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

You could use a sound module on a stationary platform to generate the sounds.

I could use the protocast feature and play a cd thru it too.

This reminds me of a great idea re handcars that I saw in an old issue of a G-scale magazine. 

A chap had removed all of the motor/gearing from the handcar and made it as free-rolling as possible.  Then he attached a bar magnet to one end of the car.  The head of the figure at that end of the car was turned 180-degrees as if looking over his shoulder. 

He attached another bar magnet to the pilot of a locomotive so that the poles of the two magnets were aligned to repel each other.

Result?.....The hand car was 'pushed' by the locomotive, and closely so as to give the appearance the guy(s) on the handcar were literally a few scale feet from doom!!

What a hoot!  I'm sure it could be done with a derelict Lionel handcar....I've just not gotten to that level of my bucket list, yet.

FWIW, always....

KD

Well, I now have 2 Lionel hand cars doing nothin' so..... ?

Have to find some magnets!

I wish snoopy would turn his head so he's staring at you as he passes!

There is nothing like the excitement of the chase!

I guess I haven't grown up much at all!

Prototype duplicate #2!

Hi Joe,

Thanks for posting this! I'm literally in the middle of doing this exact conversion right now, due to Snoopy's anemic and picky performance issues, and I'm hoping you can help me --- the conversion is my young son's request.

1. I've got both characters of both handcars removed, and am now trying to first determine what position Snoopy should be in order to minimize any resistance to the handcar handle. I'm thinking Snoopy's base should be about ~1/16" from the platform edge -- is that about where yours is?
2. How did you attach Snoopy? Did you drill new holes in the platform to accommodate Snoopy's rubber-like pegs? When I position Snoopy to where I think he should probably be, the places for his new holes conflict with the screw housings for the MTH platform.
3. What glue did you use to attach Woodstock? I'm not sure if epoxy will stick to him.

Thanks!

Dave

From my memory the holes for snoopy went at the further ends of the slots away from the center of the car. I just made them big enough to get the rubber heads to squeeze thru. No glue there as they fit snug.

I glued Woodstock on with Gorilla super glue.

I'll try and get a picture posted to see which end of the car is the front.

I'm not sure it will matter which is the front? Here's what I chose...

I did put a small brass wire around Woodstock's tail.

Snoopy needs to be loose so he can work smoothly!

(Otherwise, some geometry might be involved.)

Thanks, Joe! I appreciate the photos and follow-up. When I checked the spacing of the holes on Snoopy with that of the platform, that didn't seem to match up for me. So I don't think the existing holes can just be elongated....at least one of them will have to be moved to the side. I just have to sit down with it a bit to figure it out.

Also, there are 3 screws attaching the platform to the chassis, 2 on one end and 1 on the other. I don't see how Snoopy could be mounted on the side with the 2 screws since those screws will interfere with Snoopy's plastic plugs, so I think it has to go on the other side. From your photos, it looks like that's what you did, too. 

I presume you used the brass wire on Woodstock because the glue wasn't holding tight?

Dave