Chariots of Fire

With a bit more done on the body sides the fenders were glued in place. The front fenders will need a bit of tweaking along the bottom edges to even them up but otherwise than that the fit is pretty good. Next will be to build up the inside of the hose body. That will add considerable strength and stiffness to the back as right now it is a bit wobbly. The running board will extend to the front fender and will taper in at the same point as where the cab tapers toward the grill. The bottom of each fender actually extends below the running board. The body sides and behind the front fenders will have to be cut out now that the fenders are in place so that the springs and axles can be set. The hood will be made of brass and hinged in the middle. The interior of the grill will also be cut out. In the stash is some nice photoetch mesh that will be curved to shape and fitted into place. The hard part will be the headlight bezels. Unlike other light bezels these are teardrop shape so I haven't figured out quite yet how they will be made. The part that fits the fender is easy enough but the chromed part where the headlight and parking light go is the teaser.

Measurements and photos translated into line drawings Dave. The relative dimensions of various parts are critical and basic. Once you have those you can use the drawings for the details. I also have a little trick when using photos. For example if I want to reproduce the fenders of this truck it would take a ton of measurements to get the curves right. But by getting the overall width in front and back, and the overall length I can do the rest with photos. So if I take a good straight shot of the front fender looking dead at it I can put the photo into my graphics program. Now the only thing left is size. If the overall fender length is say 50", I make a line 50mm long and put it over the photo. Then the photo can be scaled either up or down to where the overall length in the photo is exactly the same length as the line. Having that I print it out to scale and then cut the fender profile out to make a paper template, stick it to the medium the fender will be made of and start cutting. With the basic shape accurate the edges can be sanded and ground to round them off. that is essentially what I did in the first couple of photos of these posts.

And here is the rest of the roof made up of sheet stock and parts of plastic tubing.

Work on the Maxim is continuing with some progress made on the body and cab. Having the dimensions of the truck helps immensely to make up side and top view drawings. Measurements of the stock to be used can be taken directly from the linework and it insures that the construction will be square. I started with the rear top and then added the sides. Since the cab angles in at the back of the cab doors to the front grill those pieces were cut out of sheet stock and glued in position. Then the cowl was shaped out of some porch railing stock. Adding the firewall stiffened things up some but it will become much better once the rest of the top is in place and the cab interior is made thicker with stiffeners. The hood and doors will be made of brass sheet stock. The front fenders need to be worked on a bit before they can be glued into position. In the line drawing behind the model you can see that the rear of the fender drops below the running board in order to be parallel with the hood line. After the body and front portion are made more rigid the fenders can be glued up.

I went back to see if my piece of left over Renshape was enough for the rear fenders and found it was nowhere near enough. What to do? I searched and finally found a source for a good size piece for short money so I've ordered it. In the meantime I have this old stash of porch railing plastic material that I was given a long time ago. I actually used it to make the fenders for my '37 Seagrave ladder truck. So I got out a piece, traced the fender oulines as before and cut them out on the band saw. A little final profile shaping and grinding and I had the fenders. The photo below shows the rear fenders and a piece of the railing stock in the back. It is a bit harder to sand than the Renshape and is a bit more porous. But that can be taken care of with some filler like clear Testors lacquer. I'll slosh around some two part resin on the underside just to smooth it out and give it a bit more strength. But it is still amazing how much overall strength it has even when it is thinned out like what you see. Like the front fender beside them I'll take some brass wire and wrap it around the edges to make it more rigid and more like the real thing. The wire is filed flat after being super glued on. The primer and finish paint will act as a filler to make it look more like part of the fender itself.

Having finished up the basics of the front axle I decided to get on with making up the front fenders. At first I tried soldering some copper sheet over a wood buck the the results were less than perfect so it was on to Plan B. I have a block of Renshape which is an extruded plastic material that has the look of wood. But unlike wood it has no grain and carves beautifully. So I cut out the fender patterns in the profile and top views and taped them to a piece of Renshape block. The I cut the profile out on a bandsaw. Using a dremel with a drum sander it was easy to round off the corners of the fenders and then sand them down smooth. After the outside shaping was done I used the drum sander to carve away the underside. In the first photo you can see the completed fender on the left, a Renshape block remnant in the middle and the other fender that still needs to be hollowed out. In the second photo it's apparent how much material has to be removed. And in the last photo is the piece of round plastic that will form the grill. I used the other half of this plastic on the 1955 Maxim Aerial that I built more than 25 years ago. I purposely kept this piece in the stash with the idea it would come in handy for a future project. Lesson? NEVER throw extra pieces away!

Me too! He recently did an IH Workstar grill for me in 1/25 scale. It is awesome!

That will be a nice piece. Will you be dropping the cab down any on the frame?

You got it, Casey. I made a paper template, taped it to the piece of flat stock, cut and shaped it. Then top and bottom were soldered in place.

That machine is a secret, Tom! Only the trolls know how it works and they know to keep mum about it! I'll be sure to keep the build coming. Next is to get some strip stock to begin making up the springs.

As promised here is a photo of the start of the Maxim. The frame is made of brass strip stock with the top and bottom flanges of the frame rails soldered to the web. Temporary spacers of strip stock hold the rails in alignment until I see where other components will be located. The front axle is made of several pieces of brass strip stock and tubing. The hubs will be cut down once it is known how the wheels will be located. It will be important to make sure that the tires and wheels are inside the fender openings but not far that they look too small. The brass work is sitting on a cad drawing of the truck profile done at 1/25 scale.

Aaron: Here's a tip for you. I'm doing up the front axle and it has a lot of small pieces as you will see when I get the photos posted. Using two different temperature solders has solved the problem of small parts coming off because the solder melts. I've used the higher temp. solder for the smaller initial pieces and the lower temp solder for the last ones reducing the chance that things will all fall apart. I don't have a resistance soldering tool for this but it would come in handy! Maybe Santa Claus has one in his sack he could crop off!

Got started the other day on the frame for the truck. The front axle is a bit different in that the center of it is dropped down to clear the bottom of the engine. As soon as I finish it up I'll post some photos.

I've got the decal sets here and I also have the Ward LaFrance emblems in decal form that you can put on top of a piece of aluminum. If interested give me a shout.

Hey Towman.. I built that a few years ago. A tip about the cab: Plan on putting some crossways stiffeners inside the top to keep the top from sagging. The real rig would have had them anyway. I also found the resin bumper to be very soft. If I accidentally placed it on an uneven surface it took the shape of that surface. So I made a new one from brass strip stock. Plastic strip stock would work also. I also have some Ward LaFrance drawings of the body. And there is a walk around video of E-51 that shows you what it looks like as well. I think if you just type in "Engine 51" it will pop up on U tube. Let me know if you run into any problems. I'd be glad to help.

Mark: Give some thought to using aluminum tubing for the hydraulic cylinders. By using telescoping tubing you can easily make the assembly so that the piston end of it moves in and out nicely. Here's one I did as an example.

You did good! Congratulations!

Talked with the manager of a camp ground where the current truck is stored. Will be getting the critical measurements and some more photos this coming Wednesday! Can't wait to get started on this one.

Here's an in progress pic of an AP Mack that was built about 3 years ago. I started with the AC but made new fenders based on Autocar A64B fenders. The front tires are resin castings and the wheels are straight from a later Mack kit. Rear wheels are from the AC kit but the tires are resin castings made from a Renshape master.

Hey you guys! I see lots of great stuff in this post! Everybody! "Gitter done"!! They are awesome!

Hi, Gabe. Nice feeling getting something done, eh? Next time you post try getting in closer with the camera so that you can crop the image and get more of the model. Will be easier to see all of the nice detail you put into the work.

That's a nice job KJ! I like your setting. It makes the rig look as it were ready to go.

The topic post says the "secret to building a better model". To me there are no secrets. Just a bit of patience and experience will solve a good part of the answer. Look at other people's work that is better than what you do. Ask the builder about how he (or she; gotta be PC here!) did it. See if that technique works for you. Chances are though, that through time and experience you will develop your own techniques that do the trick. There are a lot of things that have been said above, however that are a must if you want a model to be of contest winning caliber. NO need to spell them out again. Bill Geary has the right idea. Consider each part a model in and of itself and do it up right. A little patience here will make the parts fit better and look better. As some of you may know I'm a scratch builder. As such I build models of things that interest me. I never start a build with the idea that I am going to build a contest winner. But I do set an occasional goal for myself to do something better that I may have done before. I also make notes and sketches of techniques or particular details that worked and that I might want to use again. Last and not least, master the basics of model building as have been pointed out here. Every model, no matter how much time you have spend in building, should all have been built using the basics before anything else.

Art's right. Sanding the tread gets rid of the casting flash but leaves the tire opposite to what it should look like. Repainting the tread with a darker color and doing a lighter wash in the groves will improve the appearance. Flat appearance on the sidewalks is a plus as well. Here's an example of the former treatment on a resin cast tire. Not the best shot but you can see the interior portion of the tread is lighter as if it may have been driving on a dirt road.

That is nice work! I love seeing scratch building coming together. And that's quite a support you have for the end of the boom! Congratulations on the new addition to your family. As the Bible says " train up a child in the way she should go and when she is old she will not depart from it" God bless!