Scratch Built Milk Float
A thoroughly modern milko
Geoff Byman
Pictures by the author,
except where
acknowledged
otherwise
The prototype electric milk
float (Pinterest)
In building my garden railway, Sutterby Junction, Sutterby town was built as a backdrop to the railway in the indoor shed section. When it came to the final detailed bits, such as figures, animals, carts, etc., I needed a milkman delivering on his rounds. As I already had horse- drawn vehicles such as the brewer’s dray and a carter delivering mineral waters I felt like I needed another form of delivery vehicle. So what was going to work in my chosen time-frame of mid-to-late 30s? Doing research on the internet I came across horse-drawn carts, hand carts, motor propelled vehicles and small petrol and electric driven vehicles. I remembered from my youth in the 50s and early 60s seeing our milkman with a milk float that was battery propelled, with a steering handle which he lowered, pressed a button and guided and accelerated the vehicle to follow behind him as he walked. But were they around in the mid-30s? Further research found that the first one was available around 1935 which fitted in excellently with my ideas.
The milk float components
My choice was then to find an image I could work from. The problem was knowing what size they were. Finding a few different images with milkman walking along with the float I could guesstimate the height and width of these vehicles from an average height of a man, around 5ft 10in.
With a little bit of Adobe Photoshop® magic on the chosen image it could then be transposed to enable it to be used as the basis for a CAD drawing. The individual bits were drawn up to be produced from 0.018in brass sheet. With the easy bit out of the way, the components were marked out on brass sheet and cut to size but then I needed wheels and tyres for it. My thought was that Dinky Toy car wheels would probably be ideal but scouring the internet for them came to nothing. Eventually I decided to create the wheels and tyres by turning up from brass bar and adding the tread pattern using the knurling tool.
The various components were folded up as necessary, with the end panels being secured in place with brass angle bar to locate them.
The roof was curved using rolling bars and then cut to size. The cooler box at the back of the float (for eggs, butter, etc) was folded up, soldered into place and the lid finally soldered on. The two vents at either end were formed from a piece of brass bar turned up in the lathe and located in the pre-drilled holes. Weather strips on the side of the roof and locating edge strips on the sides of the main platform were formed from flattened brass wire.
The turned milk bottles and base
Now I needed a load to put on the milk float. Again, searching the internet, I found photographs of the shapes of the bottles needed but could not find these in 7mm scale, though there were plenty of beer, wine or lemonade bottles. Reverting back to the lathe and brass bar, I machined up twelve bottles. These were soldered to a suitably drilled baseplate and the wire crate made from strips of polystyrene glued around the bottles. From this pattern a silicone mould was made and the milk crates were cast as needed in resin.
As Clover Dairies was an old company local to me, photographs were sourced of their emblem. The front and rear panels of the float were created in Adobe Photoshop® and printed on adhesive backed photo paper.
The vehicle was painted with self-etch primer and finally painted in enamel with the front and rear graphic panels added as the last stage.
The Clover Dairies float end graphic
The completed electric milk float
