Chariots of Fire

After making a trip to New Jersey to see a real Class 325 I was able to get some drawings put together for the hood and side pieces. My first attempt was to sculpt the entire hood piece from Renshape but then I realized that the only difference between the civilian and military versions of the hood was the front third. I think Chevy just cut off the front of the civilian version and welded in a new piece that would compliment the grill guard. So I took the existing hood and cut it at the length where the change was made and glued on a piece of the Renshape. Then it was sanded into shape. The next step is to make molds for the hood and hood sides. After the side pieces are cast they will be scribed in the back and bent outward to follow the hood contour. The louvers in the hood sides are made from 0.040" quarter round strip stock.

Looks like a LOWstar to me.

Honor the trust. That is the most important part!

Hello, Juergen: The wheels originally came from the AMT/Ertl American LaFrance fire engine kits. The problem with them is that the front wheels are quite flat in cross section. If you notice the front wheels in the photograph at the top of this post you will see that the middle part of the rim protrudes away from the tire. I should show the difference in the two rims so you can see what I did. As I explained above, I took two of the rims and cut both in two pieces; one to save the center portion and the other to save the outer portion. Then the center portion was re-inserted into the outer portion, leaving it slightly protruding out to improve the cross section. It was then glued permanently in place from the back. The hubs came from the same ALF kit. The tires came originally from a diecast Dodge Power Wagon. A mold was made of the tire and castings were made from there. The cab and engine came from the Revell 1941 Chevrolet pickup kit #85-7202. They are the exact pieces that are needed for the build. Hope this helps.

Well, we've got a start. Here are a couple of photos of the very initial beginnings of the build. We start with tires and wheels. The tires are resin castings that are the right size and tread pattern. The wheels are some adjusted pieces that I had in the stash. The fronts needed to be wider in order to project away from the tire like in the photo above. So two originals were modified. First part was to cut away the center portion, just leaving the outer rim. The second part was to do away with the rim but leave the center that could be moved outward. The result is what you see below. Before I made castings of the wheels I shaved off the 10 lug nuts as these rigs only had six. After the castings were made I drilled holes using a hexagonal drawing template to locate them. Then lug nuts and bolts were made from 0.020 plastic rod and some fusion hex beads. I still have to cast the outer rings for each wheel. The mold in the middle is for the hubs like you see at the lower right. The photo below shows the Revell Chevy cab, the dash board with the gage portion cut out for the military gage cluster insert and the finished Chevy six engine. I've glued in the firewall but that is as far as it can go until the interior floorboards are set. They will have to be cut away from the kit frame and to be installed on the larger brass frame yet to be made up.

Chatham Township which is about 25 miles west of Manhattan. I actually saw the truck and took a few photos back in 1990 at the 125th Anniversary parade of FDNY. I took a chance and contacted them to see if it was still around. Their answer came back immediately in the affirmative. I'm looking forward to meeting their crew.

Hermann, that is a lot of real detail work! What is the source of all the information? Do you work with rigs like this and/or do you have documented information? Whatever it is you really know what you are doing. Great job!

In 1941 Chevrolet produced 1-1/2 ton chassis with 4x4 running gear for the US Army. They used the standard civilian cab and 6 cylinder engine but made a heavier frame for the 145" wheel base. Several variants were made including a dump, cargo rig, communications rig, bomb truck, and three different versions to use as fire apparatus. The Class 325 was the fire version and had a front mounted pump, a 300 gallon water tank, a hose bed and a couple of ground ladders. It carried a variety of hand tools and fire related fittings. Here is what it looked like. Maxim Motors, along with a slew of other fire apparatus manufacturers built the body. This one is not Maxim as they (Maxim) rounded off the bottom of the hose reel compartment you can see just aft of the cab. No real differences between manufacturers other than that. As you can see the front fenders, hood and grill are strictly military style but the '41 cab is exactly the same as the Revell 1941 Chevy pickup kit. I've already started by building up the Chevy engine and it is painted olive drab like about everything else will be! The end result will be a 1/25 scale version of the Class 325 and will be sent to a 94 year old WWII veteran who was assigned to one of the fire fighting units that saw action in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. He is still active, lives in Hawaii, and has supplied me with a ton of information for the build. In a couple of weeks I'll be traveling to New York to see an existing 325 that was preserved so I can retrieve measurements, photos of various items and details that cannot be obtained really any other way. As with other builds I will be posting as I go along. (The '52 Reo is on hold for now).

That's why I model in 1/25 scale. Since there are 25.4 mm in one inch, using a metric ruler is pretty well on the mark. That 0.4mm doesn't really make that much difference for most of what we do so to make things easy use a metric ruler and for every full size inch call it a millimeter. A 145" wheel base in real life would be 145 mm!

You mean as a ring or a solid circle? I made some punches out of brass tubing by beveling the outside edge so that it was sharp at the inside. A couple of taps with a hobby hammer and I had some nice wafers. No sure how it would work to create a wafer with a hole in the middle. I think I would rather go the photoetch route than try to make thin circles in plastic.

Take a piece of soft wire and wrap it around a piece of tubing or stiff wire of the diameter you want. Wrap it several times. Slide it off the tubing or stiff wire and it will look a bit like a spring. Cut into it with a pair of sharp small cutters more than one turn of the "spring" at a time. Several individual rings will fall out all at once. You just have to straighten them a bit and close them up by trimming the crimped end. Make 'em all the time for all sorts of things.

Clean the resin good with detergent or what the other guys recommend. I use Duplicolor scratch filler/primer with good results.

Before you put on the color coat cover the script with BMF. Trim it close to the script but do not worry about getting into every little crevice. Do your color coat as usual. After it is dry take a soft cloth, some good polish like Novus and rub away the color coat on the script. It will leave a nice clean raised script on the top surface.

Checked my A64B kit. Yes they are 6 spoke with a web in between but a close match to the first photo. Mack wheels are not that close.

Putting the trailer behind the tractor will not do away with the dive of the cab on the model. I'd adjust the cab if you are going to attach the trailer to make it look right.