Chariots of Fire

Not on this one. That steering box on the P-A was a bear! I'll just go for posable front wheels. There is enough to do with all of the detail and such and I don't have the luxury of actual measurements. This one is strictly what I can see in photos and what I can glean from the two technical manuals I was able to obtain.

Now that the Pierce Arrow is done I'm getting started on a new project. This time I'm going slightly military with a crash truck that was first developed at the close of World War 2. The Class 155 was built on a Corbitt, Brockway or Kenworth chassis. American LaFrance did much of the body work. Below is a pic of the truck and some early construction pics of the frame so far. it is a large truck with a 197" wheel base from center of front wheels to center of the tandems. The frame is two Mack frames spliced together to get the right length. The tires and wheels are resin castings made to represent the 12.00x20 tires the truck had. I used the Mack rear ends from the Rubber Duck kit and then modified them to look like the type with torque rods that were used on the Corbitt. Springs front and rear are brass strips soldered at the ends. The axles were drilled out so that I could insert brass tubing to hold the tubing rods of the next size down. It eliminates a lot of play in the axles and wheels by doing that.

Looks good, Dave. It's great seeing some of the older builds come back for us to see.

Congratulations, Greg on 10 years of Model Cars Magazine. I wish you success for the next 10 years! Keep the good work going!

Thanks, Aaron! I'll look into that.

Thanks for the information, Dave. I'll look into it and see where things lead!

I can do that! Just sent out the tires for casting. Should be back in a week or two. Then I need some info on Hercules engines of that vintage. Anybody got any ideas?

Tim: No problem with the Mother's Carnauba softening up the Testors paint? The Duplicolor I can see as I have never had a problem with it. It sets up hard.

I think I did, Dave but I'll look at it again.

Does anyone have any info on 6 cylinder Hercules truck engines of the 1940's? I'm getting started on a Class 155 Army Air Force crash rig that had that type of engine. It also has a Continental engine on the rear to power a Hale fire pump. The pump I can do but the engine part I don't have any information for.

Aaron is right but there is a section of town that used to be known as Tremont and that is where I used the idea. The license plate is an up to date style for fire apparatus in Mass. I made it using my graphics program and then printed it out on decal paper using an ALPS printer.

I like the not so shiney paint job too. Sometimes a little toning down does something for a model. Keeps it more in perspective for the size!

Bare Metal Foil Decal Paper, Tim? Please enlighten me!

Thank you Dave and to all of you for your kind comments. It was an enjoyable project. It gave me more of an appreciation for the way that some of these old pieces of equipment were made and how well they were made. Charlie

It was a nice diversion, Chuck. I'm back in the fire apparatus mode again, though. Here is the next one on my list. It'a a WW2 vintage Mack with American LaFrance body work. They were only used state side and didn't come about until the latter part of the war.

According to what little information I have Pierce Arrow built about 50 of them. Yes the truck is scratch built. The one I modeled is at the Middlebury, CT Golden Age of Trucking Museum. It was originally owned by the City of New York but is now privately owned. I took many measurements and photos of the truck on my visits to the museum.

Yeah, well, they work and they don't! They are attached to the body and pivot upward so that the body can be lowered down into position on the frame. The two pinion gears engage he rack so as to hold the body up in just about any position. The racks are made from sections of nylon material obtained from a local scratch builder's supply house. He had some brass sections as well but they were expensive and would have been very difficult to bend. As it was I had to thin the nylon ones down so that they could be wrapped around the edge of a piece of 0.80" sheet stock. Once glued in place I could trim away the excess sheet. I glued a narrow piece of strip stock to the sheet that was left opposite the rack portion. Thinning out the nylon rack material and gluing it to the edge of a piece of thick sheet took all of the stress out of the rack so that it would keep its shape. Here are a couple of other pics for you. Here are just about all of the parts before they were finally assembled. and a couple more.

I did a Chevy of almost the same vintage. Did some scratch building, used Ford front and rear wheels, 2/3 of the tank from a Monogram Mack Bulldog tanker.

The Pierce Arrow 7 Ton dump is finally done. The body hoist is in place and the detailing is finished. Already for a test drive and showtime!

Can you post a pic?

I echo the sentiments of earlier posts! I used the dremel saw blade just once and almost took my pinkie off! I took it out of the dremel and tucked it away, never to use it again. Use a hand saw or the cutting discs. Much safer!

Yep! No Pics!

Got a bit more done on the Pierce Arrow. Crank and Pierce Arrow Society placard are at the front. Did the bolts around the front wheels, added valve stems and just about completed the running gear. Also did the Pierce Arrow badge on the hood sides. Here's a side view. And the underside. Here's the badge on the hood side. And the front end.

model! Tires are way to shiney. No name or other markings on the sidewalls either.

Ok, Ed. I can't say much about the reincarnation part since this is the first old non-fire apparatus model I have built. But here are some in-progress shots anyway. Top pic is some of the parts that went into the build. There were more done later on. The last two pics show how I did the tires. The original was an Italeri plastic tire selected for its outside diameter that matched what I needed. I chucked the tire blank in my lathe to turn down the surface tread so that I could do the front tires and back tires that have different tread patterns.