Chariots of Fire

Work continues. I took the interior tub from the Trumpeter ALF kit but had to do a lot of cutting and adjusting to get it to fit. The Trumpeter kit doesn't include interior door panels so I have made some up and put some 0.020" spacers in so that I can sandwich the clear glass in the doors and the sides. The dash is completely different as well so that had to be cut apart and be rebuilt. I found a gage cluster from an old AMT cabover Pete that looks close so I put that in as well. It needs a bit of tweaking but not much. The cab is sitting on the ALF chassis but it will need to be lengthened about 12 scale inches to be right. That's a way off though. Still a lot to do to the cab to get it done, both interior and exterior. The grill is painted gloss black in anticipation of shooting some Alclad II onto it. But I have seen some tests where it is shot over a bright blue and it looks a much lighter shade of chrome. The black gives it a nice luster but it is dark. Anybody ever see ordinary graphite from a lead pencil rubbed on gloss black? Neither had I until I was doing some internet hunting for chrome paint and saw it demonstrated. I rubbed some on a very smooth graphics pen cover and the effect was amazing. Again, however it was a dark shade of chrome.

I tried to keep the ruler in the photo but alas you can't see the numbers very well. I do crop them when I transfer them from the camera to a file. But this one I did not.

I've had a Sherline lathe for a number of years now. Nice machine. I use it mostly for turning sirens and extinguishers for my apparatus models but I have done some other minor stuff with it as well. Sherline is US made.

Just type in ModelTruckBuilder.com and it will pop up. Not anywhere near as active as MCM but at least its there.

You guys have been talking about resizing photos. Never thought to do that. I just upload from where it says choose files and bring them in. Let me know if you think they should be smaller. I've tried to keep them large enough to see what is going on. Peter: That photo is not mine. Check out either the Pierce Enforcer project in WIP or the Sterling project. Those would be the sizes I bring in.

HI, Jim. Whatever they were doing to get the format up and running had too many bugs in it or maybe Chris just gave up. Either way it's gone. Aside from MCM forum and Model Trucks forum I go to fireengines.net now. Lots of smaller scale stuff but they made me feel welcome.

You guys have been talking about resizing photos. Never thought to do that. I just upload from where it says choose files and bring them in. Let me know if you think they should be smaller. I've tried to keep them large enough to see what is going on.

Nice job, Brian. Lots of great stuff in that build!

Write on, my friend!?

Here's a quick update. It took me a while to adjust the front of the cab. The corner radii were just too small and needed to increase a lot. So I cut things off and using a larger piece of PVC pipe made new corners. Much closer to the drawings. This allowed me to finish the top of the cab and then concentrate on the windshield. I can't tell you how many times I tried vacu-forming the windshield but to no avail; mostly because the windshield is so big. I could not fit the buck squarely in the machine. As a result the corners did not get pulled down enough. So I opted to another method using a slightly thicker clear stock. I heated a piece of aluminum rod to where I could bend the clear stock around it without distortion or crazing. It took a few tries but it finally worked. The trick was to get the curves to start in the right place and meet at the sides of the cab. In the photo above the "glass" is in place and there is a trim ring around it set loosely as it will be in a final fit. The trim ring is solder wire that bends easily and without strain on the cab or the clear. Both will be secured after the cab is painted. The windshield will be set with two part epoxy. After that the trim will be added. When the epoxy is fully set it will stiffen up the cab so that the trim can be tucked in tightly. Dabs of CA here and there will keep in place. I think the final setting will be with some clear lacquer so that the windshield will not be marred. That's it for now. The next part is to strengthen the inside of the cab, work on an interior tub (which will probably come from the Trumpeter ALF kit) and secure the way the window glass will be set.

That's the way I would have done it also. ?

Wish you well, Rockford on your cataract surgery. I have had both eyes done and what a difference it made. I waited about 5 years from one eye to the other but clarity and brilliance of color was fantastic. Do you have any bare metal foil or a Molotow pen? If so put some on the Kenworth emblem on the bottom front of the fenders. It will make a big difference. You have done a great job on this build. Snap kits are fun from time to time! Keep the tank trailer going! ?

Oh, WOW! Making progress! I like your work!

Hey, Brian: I forgot to mention in the PM that if you use the resin for the headlights stand the cab upright while the resin cures. Otherwise it will tend to droop and you will have a bulge at the bottom of each light.

I think the Frog tape is a bit nicer than ordinary masking tape because it has somewhat less tack. I found that burnishing the edges well seems to work. As for the graphic tapes yes, they made all kinds and colors; the one that comes to mind is Chart Pak. Airplane modelers use a variety of tapes, or at least they did. I bought a roll of gold colored and used the 1/64 width for pinstriping on the '37 Seagrave. It came in a variety of widths on the same spool. The only problem is that the edges can pick up small bits of dirt and it is hard to get it off.

lay down a piece of Frog tape on a glass plate that is clean. Use a ruler to cut yourself a strip to the width you want. What Mike 1017 says works too.

Looks like you are in business! Sometimes things just come together!?

Here's what I did for the IH R190 a while back. While the mirrors are obviously different, the basic idea is still applicable to the style that the ALF needs. I did some research on the cabs to see where the mirrors were attached. The kit cab does not have a frame around the door windows where the bracket would be attached to. So the choice is to either have the bracket fully mounted under the window or, as they did with open cab rigs, mount the bracket in front of the window using the A post and the cab for mounting points. The bracket below is made of straight pins bent as shown. I drilled three holes in the wood block to mount the bent pins in. Then I soldered the place where the two pieces meet to get the bracket shown in the bottom right. Hope this gives some ideas that might work to get rid of those ugly mounting brackets in the kit. Here's how it looks on the IH R190. This particular type was also done with common pins. and still another.

I did a tutorial on how to make mirror brackets a while back using long straight pins and a little solder. They were not hard to do. I'll repost here so you guys can see them.

Tom: Do you decanter the Molotow or get the refill? I like the Molotow product as well.

That price has gone up some. Latest figures are nearly $1.5 Million depending on the specification.

This is an example of the tower that our local FD is looking at. Very impressive. It will also be a quint, as this one is.

Whew! LOOOONNNNNGG it is! Local FD has been looking at a new tower built on a Pierce chassis. It's actually a platform that sits inside the length of the body and it is not that long. They accomplished it by making the aerial portion a 5 section unit. The bed portion is about 5 feet wide just to contain the other 4 sections. But what a difference it makes in overall length! It's a mid mount rather than a rear mount and the bucket sits in a lower section than the rest of the body. I'll try and post some pix. PS. Lookin' good, JT! BTW you going to look in on "The Return" on Saturday?

Just curious. What is the purpose of the added supports under the first bank of compartments? I can understand fishplating the frame but you would not see that typically.

Thanks, Guys. But there is already a "misteak"! The radius of the curve in the front is all wrong and pulls the front too close to the sides. I did some spot checking with the drawings and it stood out like sore thumb! So the front has to come off and get re-built.