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Vintage fire engine WIP


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Here's a tip for you guys. Most of you already know this, but you can never have too many tools. I couldn't have built the engine in the previous photos without tools... and some of my most-used tools are these little guys:

tools_zps5c69711c.jpg

I found them sold as a set in the jewelry making aisle of Hobby Lobby. They weren't expensive, maybe $10 or so for the set. The set consists of round-jawed, flat jawed and bent needle nose pliers, and a cutter. They're all spring loaded (meaning the jaws open when you release pressure on the handles), they're about half the size of "regular" tools like the full-size pliers on the left, and I couldn't get along without them. If you build without tools like these, do yourself a favor and buy a set. You will not be sorry. Once you have them you'll wonder how you ever got along without them.

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All of the various small parts were removed from the sprues. Mold lines, sink marks and other imperfections were cleaned up, the parts were attached to bits of scrap sprue, and spray painted. Note that every part is attached to its sprue "handle" at a point that won't show on the finished model. The same process was used for various small subassemblies that would all be painted one color. This kit has dozens and dozens of small parts like valves and handles and brackets and things like that... so the process is pretty time consuming. But the payoff is that once the parts come out of the dehydrator, all I have to do is snap them off the sprue handle and install... no further cleanup or touchup needed. This is only a small sample of the parts treated this way...

painted-pieces_zps48f1ea53.jpg

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The rear brake mechanism was a problem. Out of the box, the rear springs were in the way of the actuator arms. I didn't find that out until I had painted the parts and tried to install them. I had to rebuild the parts using portions of the kit pieces, styrene and aluminum tube, and strip styrene. I had to extend the rods so that they come down outside of the rear springs and don't interfere with them. Since I had to rebuild these parts anyway, I decided to add bolt head detail made of hex-shaped styrene rod:

brake-mechanism_zpsf477c456.jpg

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I've been working on the chassis for several days. There are a lot of small parts... all sorts of brackets, linkages, control levers and rods, etc... all of which have to be cleaned up and painted individually before assembling to the frame. Everything is fitting together almost flawlessly... whoever engineered this kit really knew what they were doing. But it hasn't all been trouble free, as I showed you in the above photo regarding the rear brake levers. Another problem I found is with the shifter/handbrake assembly.

The floorboard extends out horizontally, beyond the faces of the frame rails... so much so that the molded-in mounting pins on the brake lever assembly are too short; the inside of the assembly contacts the side of the floorboard before the pins reach the frame rail. I found this out after I had assembled and painted the handbrake assembly, but this time the fix was easy. I slipped some short lengths of aluminum tube over the mounting pins, then added some longer pieces of brass rod into the aluminum tube sleeves. These pieces of brass rod are now the new mounting pins. A drop of CA holds the aluminum and brass to the kit piece. All I have to do now is brush paint the aluminum extensions to match the rest of the assembly, and install on the frame rail:

handbrake-fix_zps9db1b8c2.jpg

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Some progress!

This kit is very tedious to build because there are so many small parts that have to be individually cleaned up and painted. And for some reason a lot of parts are molded in halves–for no reason that I can see. They could just as well have been molded in one piece. But because they are split down the middle, that means more parts to clean up and then glue together before painting them as a unit. I have no idea why so many of these parts are molded in two pieces, but that's the way it is. On the plus side, most everything fits perfectly, no reworking or re-engineering of parts needed to get them to fit. However, many of the split parts have no locator pins or any way of positively aligning the halves. You have to line up the halves by eye. And for some reason almost every part has visible ejector pin marks! So a LOT of tedious cleanup on this kit.

Here's the chassis so far. Of course, most of the chassis components and detail will never be seen once the bodywork and fenders are in place, but oh well…

chassis1_zpse13ffb39.jpg

chassis2_zps2999c8ce.jpg

chassis3_zps4ef7e417.jpg

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The instructions mention gauge face decals, but there were none in the kit... so I had to hand paint the gauge faces. Not an easy job, as the speedometer is maybe 1/4 inch across! The gauge "glass" is clear 5-minute epoxy. The gold trim on the dashboard's edges is gold BMF.

dash_zps411ba360.jpg

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Here's the rear pump. The gold trim on the rear platform edges, on the pump and on the fire extinguishers is gold BMF. The brass handles on the extinguishers were scratchbuilt of brass rod and sheet styrene, because I thought I lost the kit supplied parts. Of course, after I scratchbuilt the replacements, I found the kit parts... :rolleyes: ... but since I had gone to the trouble of scratchbuilding replacements, I used them! At the upper left of the photo you can see the two valve handles are missing... I only have one, the other one is missing. I'll have to scratchbuild the missing one somehow. Also, the hollow vinyl tube supplied in the kit for the extinguisher hoses and various other hoses was way too stiff. I found some soft rubber tubing in the jewelry making aisle of Hobby Lobby that's just the right diameter, has a nice flat black finish, and is very soft and flexible.

I also added a black wash to all of the chassis components, like the large nuts you see here on the pump, for example. Adding the wash adds depth to the details and makes the model look a little less like a model and more like the real thing. I also "dirtied" the chassis, all the undercarriage components, and most of the brass-plated parts by spraying them with my old standby, Testors Transparent Black window tint.

pump1_zpsab4375ce.jpg

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I know that there are a lot of ways to do a black wash... the Detailer, thinned flat black paint, India ink, etc. Everyone has their own favorite way of doing it. Mine is a "homemade" wash. I can't give you an exact formula, because I just "eyeball" it. It's approx. one part black acrylic craft paint, one part water and one part Future (maybe a bit less on the black paint). If I use only the black paint and water alone, the wash tends to bead up on painted surfaces and doesn't flow well into the nooks and crannies. Adding the Future makes the wash flow nicely and settle into the recesses better.I don't keep a big bottle of it premixed, I mix up small batches as needed.

black-wash_zpsc1274103.jpg

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