Chariots of Fire

The way I am making this truck body is similar to what I did a number of years ago when I made a City of Miami Haz-Mat rig. This rig has roll up doors on each side a bit like E-27. In this case I made a body inside a body. The inside body was the scribed sheet painted separately with silver with the striping and decals added. The outside body is the red part with certain accommodations made to keep everything alignment. It was painted red. Once all of the external work was done on the red body, the striped inner body was inserted giving it a solid unit look. The Pierce will be the same in that there are inner scribed pieces that will fit behind solid exterior panels. Only this time I made the outer body rigid and will use only individual scribed sheets for the doors. Here the body has been opened up along pre-determined lines. In the photo you can see the vertical sections that hold the body rigid on each side of the wheel well. The corners take care of themselves. In front are each of the scribed panels of 0.020" sheet stock. They fit inside and are snug enough that I can show them in place. Before they are installed permanently, I will add sheet stock to the back side to stiffen them up a bit and keep them flat. Even now they look like they should. Think they will work out just about right.

Got some extra front fenders from an ALF 900 series hanging around? I think they would work.

It's got a body! Sort of like Frankenstein's monster. It's alive! It's alive! Well, not quite. The basics of the body are done. The next step is to cut out the sides along the lines that have been marked. The scribed siding representing the roll up doors will then be put inside. Trim on the outside and the lift bars will be done after painting. Lots of small stuff again required but it's getting there. I went to the local hardware store and found a hub end for PVC pipe that had the right outside diameter for the rear wheel well openings. I cut the hub in half and then sliced it across to get the width I needed. It's a bit on the thick side so I'll sand some away with the dremel and a sanding drum. I also need to check the height just a little. It should set level with the cab so it needs to come down just slightly. The rear view. There is a roll up door there also behind the opening that is cut into the back. That's a piece of aluminum foil on the back of the cab. I embossed the diamond plate pattern in it with a pencil eraser over a piece of plastic treadplate. Most of it will be hidden by the pump panel unit once that is done. The lines on the side of the body indicate where the cuts will be made. Between each one will be a section of the outside sheet left in place. On top will be another piece of treadplate. I checked the measurements of the model now that the body is set in place and it is just over 15 inches from front bumper to rear step. It's off a couple of millimeters from the actual truck length so don't tell anybody!?

Jeff's right. It's a matter of breaking down a big project into manageable parts. Work on one thing as a model unto itself. Looking at the project in its entirety can be overwhelming unless you take the time to study it a bit and see where all of the boxes and rectangles are. Except for a lot of the real modern stuff that is made of plastic they were all practically made that way in times past. So it makes if fun to try and replicate it in miniature. The other thing about older pieces is that so much of the mechanics and basic shapes are all out in the open to see. Nothing behind sheet metal and nice smooth covers. To those who have never tried scratch building I encourage you to try it. Start with something simple and go from there. A lot of satisfaction in creating something unique that you can call a one and only build. Anybody up for the challenge???

HAH! Gotta put it there even if it won't be seen!!??

So the Moluminum tires are a better fit? Are the AITM rims ok? I got a set of AITM tires a while back but the rims need to be shimmed to get a good fit. Love the work. It's a real treat to be able to work off detailed information and photos. If I can find that Oshkosh again I will take some photos of it.

Got a great start, Jeff! A great piece of subject matter, too. There is an old Oshkosh not too far from me that I have been tempted to get info on to do a similar thing. Maybe after the Pierce is done. Will check in frequently to see how things are progressing.

Got the mirrors on using the Trumpeter kit pieces. Getting closer to making up the pump panel unit now. Just a few more little things to add to the cab such as the front discharge plumbing, tow hooks and some lights to go under the steps.

It can see where it's going now. Headlights are finally on after much fiddling and adjustment. I used Alclad over gloss black and then used 5 minute epoxy to set the lenses. Epoxy was also used to attach them to the cab. CA would not have allowed any adjustment and that was critical because of the two sets of lights. I took the rear view mirrors from the Trumpeter ALF but they are not ready for installation yet. The kit has nice chrome mirror backs but they included a piece of clear plastic for the mirror part. BAD idea. I have some polished heavy aluminum foil that has a sticky backing. So the clear plastic was replaced with a strip of Evergeen with the aluminum stuck to the front face. BIG difference! The Federal Q2B siren was mounted on the bumper. Trumpeter again only went half way so I made a "F" face for it as a decal and put it on an aluminum backing.

What everybody else has said. Nice detailing and great clean work.?

Well, here we are after a few hours of work. There has been a ton of stuff to add to just the cab. And there is more yet to do including the headlights, two grab bars for the right side of the cab, tow hooks, "chrome" bolt heads for the front bumper, step lights. The list just goes on and on. In the meantime this is where things stopped as of this afternoon. Pierce has used a Great Seal of the United States on its apparatus for a long time. Each piece gets one. This rig has one too.?

Fine piece of work! Glad you had some fun with it. That's what it's all about anyway! God bless!

Bob, that's a great piece of work. Weathering and wear in just the right places not to mention all of the scratch building that went into it. Thanks for sharing!!?

I agree with Mr. O. It's what looks right that counts. But keeping things in scale is really important generally. It is very surprising sometimes to make something to scale, or so you thought, and then went out and measured the real thing only to find what you did was 2-3 times bigger than it should have been. Don't forget; 1" in 1/25 scale is just about 1mm on the metric scale.

Just a thought on the basket at the end of the boom. On rigs of this era they sometimes used reflective aluminum something like a proximity suit for fighting aircraft fires that they would wrap around the frame. Helped keep the heat away from the crew operating in the basket. Some silver duct tape might work if done in sections.

The BMF method works well as has been noted above. I've used it successfully many times as well. Rather than use thinner of any kind I like to use a polish to remove the paint from the raised letters. One trick in using the BMF has not been mentioned. Trim it close to what you want to cover and burnish it well. Do not worry about cutting out around each letter. The paint will hide the foil edges. Only the highest part of the raised image will ultimately show through once the paint has been removed. Really worth a try. The outside edge of the grill and the fluted part below it were both done with BMF before painting on this '37 Seagrave.

Had to do some decaling in order to get the headlight buckets in place rather than cut around them which would have been a pain. There are also some small round amber turn signal lights at the corners of the cab that are right in the middle of the striping. The Jacksonville emblem came directly from an image found on line and it copied nicely into the graphics program for sizing. The vertical bar on the back of the cab is an LED water glass to show how full the tank is. They've got everything on this rig.

More progress. made up the windshield wipers, set the grill in place and did a light above the windshield. Also laid in the "chrome" piece around the center side windows.

For the glass try using 5 minute epoxy. Let the epoxy set for a bit until it gets real tacky. Then set the glass in it. No runs or smears that way.

What were the issues with the glass? Maybe I can help.

This was our side yard about 4:30 this afternoon. And it's not even November yet!!? But it gave me a good excuse to get some more work done on E-27. The front bumper is permanently mounted to the frame. I used some bright yellow tape instead of trying to mask off and paint the stripes. Still to go are the air horns, LED's and two speakers for the front. The light bar came from the Trumpeter ALF. Again they missed the boat. No insides to it at all. Just the two mounting brackets. I may end up casting a clear one of my own.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. In my case necessity is the mother of make your own. This rig has 18 LED marker or warning lights and the Trumpeter kit has only 10. Five on each side and eight in the rear. That doesn't include the warning lights on the front of the cab or the light bar on top! I took 3 of the Trumpeter light bezels and made a mold from them. (I could have used more to cut down on the number of times I had to cast them but three it was). Some two part resin did the rest. In my stash of molds from a long time ago I dug out one for folding steps. The Jacksonville rig has four; three on one side and one on the other. I had done the master for it when I was working on a previous IH/Pierce rig back around 1996. The mold is still good so resin copies were made. They can be folded using a common pin as the hinge. Engine 27 also has a different kind of door latch on the outside. A vertical pull handle surrounded by a chrome enclosure. I made the base of the enclosure from brass and then a mold of it for casting four like pieces. After casting, the bottom and top sections were drilled out so that a piece of plastic rod could be inserted for the pull handle. Now I have plenty of LED bases and door latch enclosures to paint with Alclad II. The steps will be given a coat of bright aluminum.

Hey! JT! What better logo than UT Volunteers for a piece of fire apparatus! Looking pretty good, my man! Mirrors are just right, too! Ok........no more foolin' around. On to the boom!!!?

It's been a while since I used that last technique but it did come in handy. Years ago I used it to form some fenders for a 1955 Maxim aerial. Wrapped the plastic fore and aft and to the side. That left holes in the corners but they were easy to fill in with some sheet stock and then sand them round. Today I'd opt for the Renshape but 30 years ago who ever heard of Renshape! Here's the '55 Maxim that was done back in 1985 using the boiling water technique for the fenders. Remembering back I did it with the grill also on this piece. That is a former KW grill that I wrapped around a broom handle to soften it.

HI, Ed. Don still does business out of East Boston. I'm still able to get the square and round door latches and some nozzles from him. I imported the city seal from images on line and then incorporated it into my graphics programs to develop the striping. ALPS does the printing.