This project was made in 2021. The Ham-Ham Express is from an innocent children’s anime called “Hamtaro” which I loved as a kid. It always bothered me that they didn’t make playsets based on some of the iconic vehicles and locations from the show, so I decided to try my hand at model designing/building. To start, here’s a nice picture of what I based this build on:
I started with a PVC pipe, scaled relative to the Epoch brand Hamtaro figures from the 2000s. I bought a large acrylic hemisphere and cut a circle from it to use as the face of the train. I also cut a cattle guard from the same pipe, just cut at a specific angle as to give it a taper. Two lines were scored into the pipe’s circumference to indicate panels.
I laser cut the eyes and nose onto the face (those will get cleaned up later, don’t worry), and built out a little platform for it all to sit on.
I began to flesh out the box on the rear with laser cut acrylic. I also added some wheels. You can see some marks on the cattle guard indicating some future cuts as well.
The cattle guard’s detail was cut using a bandsaw. Some faux rivets were added along the bulkheads, and everything got a coat of primer.
A whistle, smoke stack, and bell were fashioned and attached, some decals were made using cut vinyl, and everything was painted.
