Aaronw

If I'm lucky maybe 10 hours a week, but all to often 0.

Very nice, C cabs make great fire vehicles. With all the ways they have offered the C cab and Louisville kits I'm kind of surprised AMT never offered them as fire engine kits. The ALF conversion you did is fairly straight forward and makes an accurate commercial cab American LaFrance engine. I think it would only require longer frame rails, and the box truck ones might even work, so it would not take a whole lot on their end. I have one nit pick for you, and it is a common one with this kit. The nozzles on the hose reels are really for 2 1/2" hose, reel lines are typically 3/4" to 1", and rarely 1 1/4" at the largest. AMT has that wrong on the instructions. They would be more accurate standing on the tail board or on the end of a hose load in the back. I set up this website for modelling fire apparatus. If you go into the builders reference section I have lots of photos showing how equipment is mounted if you need ideas. http://modelfireapparatus.com/

The lack of primer was probably your problem then. I've been using krylon for years, and about 2 years ago I got lazy and put a coat of gloss black directly on a plane I was building (it goes under the aluminium top coat) and it did weird things. It didn't appear to damage the plastic but wrinkled up and showed the grain of the plastic through the paint. Even weirder it absolutely would not come off even after soaking in Superclean for a week when usually a few hours will do it. As far as Fusion over bare plastic it actually lays down a really nice coat, and you almost have to try to get runs in the paint. The part I don't like is if you don't prime it will show any grain in the plastic, all the swirls etc. I haven't really had any trouble using it over primer, but it doesn't seem to work as well as the regular stuff.

I use Krylon all the time, I think it is great paint. Were you using regular Krylon or Krylon Fusion (the stuff for plastic)? Personally I don't really care for Krylon Fusion even though it is marketed for use with plastics. Did you prime it first? I find it works much better over a good coat of primer. It can be a bit hot for bare plastic.

There are many holes in our truck selection. Ford is pretty well covered through 1956 with the only glaring hole being 1942-47. 1957 through 92 or so is pretty empty (yes there are some kits in here, but they are mostly long out of production, even the Model King 70s Ford from a few years back is hard to find today). Chevrolet is completely missing until 1941. From 41 to 99 most Chevrolet body styles except 58-59 could be pretty well covered with the right re-issues. GMC versions could mostly be done with grill / badging modifications (but a 1960s GMC V-6 would be a very welcome extra). Dodge is the real loser of the bunch with nothing pre-70s. We have 1972-73(?) through 78 available, maybe through 81-82 (was a pickup kit ever offered for this period or only the Ramcharger SUV?). Then nothing until the complete redesign in 93-94, then again nothing since. Of course modern versions of all 3 are missing. I realize trucks don't have the popularity of cars, but I don't think it is asking to much for at least an example from each of the big 3 per decade.

Sometimes the red sprues are actually factory painted so you can strip the red color off with non-acetome nail polish remover, rubbing alcohol, superclean or similar paint stripper. I'd try it on the sprue first though. You can always add red again with clear red paint or tinted future. If it is actually molded in red plastic though not much you can do except paint it silver or white. Silver with a wash of white paint works ok for lights with the older semi-opaque white plastic lights.

I've seen most of the issues raised here, but the advice I quoted has always worked for me as well. There are some shady people on ebay but they are fairly easy to spot. Rare is one of my favorites. There was a guy for a while who was listing kits I could find stacks of at Micheals as rare with prices 4-5x retail. PT Barnum would have loved ebay.

Detroit Diesel introduced a 3 cylinder engine in the 1930s, it remained in production until the 1990s. To keep this on topic, the 3-71 was about the size of a Ford Fiesta.

Happens to me all the time, but eventually something always gets me going again. Nothing wrong with just taking a break until it is fun again. I find changing up subjects now and then can really help.

Stewart, your example is much rougher than mine. Sure some of his stuff has pin holes, but I've never received anything from him with large bubbles like in that light. I hope that was just something that slipped past him and not a sign his quality control is going down hill.

On the otherhand sometimes you get lucky and get a two for one. I bought a bagged P-80 Shooting star jet fighter off ebay last year, when it arrived it was actually 6 complete kits, 2 T-33 (P-80 trainer), 3 P-80s and a P-94 Starfire (P-80 nightfighter) .

Yep, there you go, gasification. Power your car with wood chips and chicken poop.

Yep, I have a US Forest Service Model 56 fire engine I was building. It is from the early 1960s and I didn't have a lot of photos to go from. I almost finished the body when I found more photos. I discovered the right side (which I had no photos of) is very wrong and I haven't touched it since. I will eventually do another but have to start over from scratch, there is really nothing to salvage.

That is a big part of the reason I've stuck with the 2 gallon I have. Once we get back into a place of our own, I hope to have a proper shop building (wood, auto, model) where I can isolate and install a large compressor, then run airlines thoughout.

Hard to pick just one, but Bullitt and the Seven ups are in the running.

I've got a craftsman with a 2 gallon tank. It is a good (but loud) compressor that I've had about 10 years now. My only complaint is I wish I had gotten one with a 5 gallon tank. The 2 gallon tank just doesn't hold enough air to let me finish a paint job without firing up the compressor (did I mention it is loud ).

Those spring benders work fairly well, but for sharp turns I've had better luck bending it around tubing the diameter of the bend. So say I want a turn about 1/4" in diameter I'll get a piece of 1/4" styrene tubing then gently massage the aluminium tubing around the styrene tubing with my thumbs.

Eh, its not all doom and gloom. I just did a paper for school on rapid pyrolysis and gasification, two technologies that basically create fuels from trash. I expected to find mostly theoretical stuff but found this stuff is beyond a handful of prototypes, and is starting to enter actual use in small numbers. Gasification was used during WW2 to create a gas from wood or coal used to power around 1 million cars / trucks in Europe. Gasification fueled on landfill or forest slash is currently being used to power generators up to 100kW. The process is simple enough that there are kits for the do it yourself type with 10kW and 20kW generators which would be sufficient for a decent size home off the grid. Camp Lejune, NC has been powering the bases 1mW power plant through gasification fed by landfill since the late 1990s. Rapid pyrolysis converts carbon based waste (animal byproducts, forest slash, landfill etc) and turns out bio-oil which can be used as a petrolium feedstock and made into gas or diesel fuel. Price wise it isn't quite there yet, but as gas prices increase and the technology gets more established this will change.

That is quite a truck. Thanks, being off highway trucks I don't see these things running around much. The only time I've actually seen them is quarry / mining operations in the Eastern Sierras (California) along 395 or in Nevada and those are all pretty high dollar operations that can afford to buy what they need (lots of IH Paystars). I thought some smaller operations might resort to more do it yourself methods. I also assumed that the fenders were used due to harsh conditions and needed frequent replacement, but I guess they are actually built really tough and hold up for the normal servce life of the truck.

Hmmm, I'm not seeing them at Tandy or Micromark, perhaps I'm using the wrong name? Gregg, were you looking at the corner punches at Micromark maybe? It looks like they can be used to make squares. I may order a few if I can't find actual square punches. http://www.micromark.com/5and16-Inch-Corner-Punch,7805.html I have a set of round punches like this one http://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/punches/9-piece-hollow-punch-set-3838.html I was hoping someone might make a similar set but square.

So this is a tasty fish?

Those are nice, the tin stuff is pretty early, WW2-ish I believe. My dad is a huge train freak with a rather large collection of Lionel and American Flyer (it makes my model stash look quite reasonable ), so I grew up with a lot of this kind of stuff even though it was already getting collectable by the time I was born.

Are square punches available anywhere? I've got a set of round punches that are very useful for making round bits from sheet styrene. I've been thinking a similar set for square pieces would be really handy, but I don't recall ever seeing something like that. I know I can make one by sharpening the end of a piece of square tubing, but that would need frequent replacement, a steel punch would last me a lifetime. Thanks

Thanks, but I guess now I have a second part to the question. Are aftermarket / locally fabricated pit fenders common, or do most stick with factory / commercially available units? Basically I'm trying to figure out if it is really going out on a limb to scratchbuild heavy duty fenders to personal specs on an off highway truck, or if it is something worthy of finding good photos to duplicate factory / commercial aftermarket fenders. No particular truck in mind at the moment.

Are the heavy duty pit fenders found on many off highway trucks a factory option, or are they usually fabricated locally?