Firebuilder

Brian, Thank you. The black pump panel does stand out and is the latest trend in fire apparatus. They still do produce many with stainless steel, or aluminum panels. All of my older builds had the chrome look, so the black stands out in the display cases. Dom

Some work has been started on the pump panel. Still need to make the intake and discharge fittings. Also made a mold for the rear axles housing from and old axle half I had in my parts bin. It fit perfectly over the kit axle and allowed me to add the drive shaft for the tandems. Have to do some sanding and clean on the frame. Then on to paint.

Scott, exceptional work on the boom and under lift . Paint nd decals look great. Dom

Charles, exceptional work, I like what you did with the hard suction, looks really good. Dom

Jeff, great job on the chevrons , very neat and clean, sharp edges. Dom

Gary, looks great. The tri axle is awesome. Really like the color! Dom

Looks good so far, I like the shortened chassis. Dom

Wow, what a great build! Looks really great and not a build you see every day. Very outside the box. Dom

I did a mock up of the pump panel and deluge, deck guns. I think the one above the pump may to to large. So I may go with a smaller one that I have. I also made the piping for it from Plastruct elbows and some tubing. The pump panel area will have three 2 1/2 inch hand lines. I made a mold to cast some of the parts I will need multiples of. Will see how they come out once cured. Dom

Gary, looking really nice , excellent work. Dom

Charles, thank you, I was pleased with how the body came out. I cut as carefully as I could and the seams were very close. Once the putty is sanded they should be mostly invisible. The reason for the dual panels is that most of today’s industrial pumpers can pump 5,000 + gpm at draft, and over 10,000+ gpm from a pressurized source. Here are some of the pictures I based the pump panel off of, they are way oversized . A lot are top mounts panels also. I went with the kit pump panels being I don’t think I have the patience, or the skill to make my own pump panel from scratch. Dom

Agreed , it adds a lot to the overall kit, and it opens up a lot of possibilities for other apparatus.

That’s a good possibility,

Very ambitious future build. I think most of us have multiple projects going at once. Especially if you burn out on one, you move on then come back to it eventually. Dom

Scott, Nice job on the paint

Looks great! The green chevrons will be perfect. Dom

This is an SSB resin casting. I have built several of his kits and never had the cracking problem. It was all of the red only, the silver chrome did not crackle. I did clean it with soft scrub and rinse thoroughly and let dry a few days ,then primed it and let it sit for a week or so. I used model masters primer and red paint. Maybe the paint was bad…….

Jeff, here is a pic without the double pump, my first idea was to make this into a pumper/tanker. All you would have to do is add a place for the out riggers/ stabilizer’s

Thank you Brian

Thank you Henry

Thanks Scott. The only Detroit I have is from the amt pumper kits.. they are very old style compared to a modern engine! But at least it would be something .

Thank you Lee, I appreciate that! And yes that is a tractor drawn tiller. It’s been on the bench for a few years. It’s a resin casting. The aerial ladder took a long time to clean up, fill voids and sand. Then for some reason the paint crackled in spots. So there it sits until I get the ambition to strip it and redo the paint.

Good detail work, I like the brake lines. That takes a lot of patience I bet! Dom

Jeff, great job on the paint. It looks bright from here! Seen many apparatus in that color combo from way back in my career. Dom

Lee, Good start, I really like the orange. Will look great when done. Dom