Chariots of Fire

Yes it does! A drop or two on the bottom of the pan would finish it off.

Oh, Boy! You are making my mouth water! Great work, Greg!

In the past few days I've concentrated on getting some work done on the Port Vue rig. I started out by making a new front axle out of brass and quickly found that the one I made was too long. I cut it in half and tried soldering it back together after taking out a section in the middle.. It did not work well so I made a second one. In addition some work was done on the axle ends where the wheels will mount. An upside down view to show the axle and the u-bolts. Axle ends are all soldered brass as well and including the tie rod. If you look close at the frame you can see where the floorboard of the cab has been bolted in place. It's the only way I know to really secure everything in place for alignment of the various parts. Resin parts as a rule don't have nice locating pins or places to insert them so it's important to hold things in place as the build continues. I did the same for the bumper. The wheel backs have tubing that fits over and under the tubing on the axle end. The brass pins in the photo keep things all together. Eventually they will be cut off with ends to keep them from slipping out. The wheel backs have a section of tubing that runs through the brass bushing in the wheel. a small screw and washer fit into the axle once it is in place to hold the wheel on the axle. Same thing for the rear wheels. The tie rod is held in place by a small bolt. The bolt will be cut off once it is ready for final assembly. The cab, fenders and hood are joined but are really separate pieces. The bumper is bolted to the front of the fenders. The hood is hinged so that it will open to reveal the engine (eventually). I made up some hinges for the hood but there was an issue with keeping the hood flush with the firewall. I thought of using springs on the hinges but getting the right size and tension was more than I wanted to handle. So I mounted a piece of tubing to the center of the firewall and then drilled out the back of the hood for the next size of tubing that would fit into the one on the firewall. The firewall tubing will be disguised as a coil with a wire coming out of the bottom. The radiator is from the ALF kit. The resin wheels on the front will simply be glued to the wheel portion in back once final assembly is ready. All wheels will be painted blue like on the real rig.

Throw a little "oil" around the pan as if it dripped down and around the cover. Great weathering job! it looks old and just as if you did a power wash on it!

Study does its job, Aaron! Front top of the hood on the older version looks like it is not quite so squared up. I have a photo book on Reo's. I'll check it out to see if there is a real difference in the hood shape.

Nice fabrication! Neat and clean!

Some pretty ingenious solutions to the radiator problem! Great how the mind works, eh?

Here's one I did for a 1928 Pierce Arrow dump truck. The fins are made from threaded brass #90 rods. I ran out of them at first and so I made additional ones using a #90 die but the threads were not as prominent so I alternated them with the finer threaded ones. The effect turned out ok I think.

Every one is different, Josh. It helps to have photos of the real thing to go by. Time varies from a hundred or so hours to 500 and up depending on how much needs to be fabricated.

I was thinking about the grill change. I'll bet filling in portions of the grill with some putty would be all that would be required. When it's dry just sand the excess away with a small file. (Draw on the new lines first).

Will you modify the grill and hood sides to look like the '48? A neat rig with all of everything out in the open to see. Not buttoned up behind sliding doors! I really like it.

I goofed on the fenders, Aaron. But you don't see it unless you do something like this. See how much lower the front fenders dip below the frame? The ordinary bumper hides it but not when you extend it out. It can be fixed by adding some plastic sheet stock to it.

??

A little bit on the work so far. I have a thing for poseable front wheels so I began by making a new front axle based on the plastic one that came with the ALF kit. Drilling out the pivot point doesn't leave much in the way of strength so making the new one from brass was the way I chose. The axle is made of 5 pieces, a center web, two flanges, one on top, one on the bottom and the two sections of tubing that act as the pivot point. The angle for the tubing was drawn out on paper first and then long sections of tubing were used to get the correct angle. Using long pieces cuts way down on the error of trying to maintain the angle. The frame is a previously used ALF frame. I drilled out the rear axle and inserted a piece of brass tubing for strength and for a clean bearing surface. Other sections of tubing were used in the wheel hubs along with a small screw and washer that holds the inner wheel in place. The outer wheel will be glued to the inner one eventually. Rear wheels came from a 1/25 scale Volvo kit. Both the front and rears are 6 spoke design on this rig. The resin pieces are the castings that came from AITM for the Reo.

I have used Renshape for a while now and the block I have is rated 400 series. It may be low on the chart but I found to be excellent to work with. I have thinned it out when doing hoods and fenders for truck models and have had no problems. Anyone who has found a good size block of it is fortunate as the stuff is real expensive. I don't throw out even the smallest workable pieces either. Tom Decker said it well. His work is outstanding and shows what can be done when you put your mind to it. I'm back to doing a model of a 1953 Reo with parts from several sources and will use much of what Tom has said in the process.

It's already molded, Tom. AITM has them. What you see are the pieces that AITM has already cast.

Now that the Pierce Enforcer is done I'm going back to the Reo project. It was set aside after an initial build of the Reo cab and now I'm ready to tackle this one. The doors and hood of the cab have already been separated and will be ready for hinges. Here are the cab and other parts that are from AITM. The hood separated easily with a straight cut across the cow. The cowl section stayed intact so that it still meets up with the floorboards. The doors were scribed open with an Xacto knife. Small brass hinges will be used for the doors. Thinking about the type of hinge to use on the hood that will make a reasonable replication of the real ones. The grill is easily opened as well. There is only a skim coat of resin on the inside of the nose that can be removed with a knife and smoothed up with small files.

Been there, done that, Paul. I've painted parts at different times forgetting how many coats that I applied and got similar results. But I like what you did. Don't see many raised Chevy's of that day.

That's pretty cool, JT! Pretty good load for that dualie! It's good to see your work! Got any more to share?

I thought I saw the cylinder on the model but was not sure. Now I know! Thanks.

I'm liking it! The expanded metal screen really looks right. Just asking: How does that whole mechanism get raised up for travel? Hydraulic pistons up front of the grill?

Yeah, but don't you know that anyone following a piece of fire apparatus is supposed to "stay back 200 feet"???

Thanks for the comments, guys. Much appreciated. It was a lot of fun bringing the build to the Forum.

I like the combination of the IH cab with the body from the Peterbilt kit. Nice work! But that guy loafing in the crew compartment? Better get his butt in gear! And I think the pump operator (PO) charged the line a bit to soon!? It adds some real life experiences for some of us!? Eh, Danno?

What excellent work! Beautifully finished to look faded but well taken care of. That's not easy to accomplish without some practice.