Eisbrenner Seagraves

[DumpyDan]

Just Amazing Work

[maxwell48098]

Here's the one I built in 1987 from the second set of Mike's castings.

 

 

[hooknladderno1]

Charlie,

Works of art as always!  I have often thought of buying one of the Uptown Automotive incarnations to build this 1951(?) Seagrave TDA.  It originally served Mount Holly, NJ.  It was later purchased by Masonville(Mount Laurel) NJ.  It is maintained by a good friend of mine.  As much as my heart would like to take on this project, my head reminds me of the many unfinished projects that I already have "on the shelf"...  I know it would involve modifying the grille, front fenders, body AND fabricating the trailer...

 

David

[Chariots of Fire]

AJ:  Thanks for posting your Detroit Seagrave!   Where did your info come from, Matt Lee's books?  Really nice work!

David:  that would be an awesome build!  I'm studying the trailer and some of the details I see there.  The trailer I did for my '37 Seagrave is almost identical except for the series of compartments along the sides.  The way the rear fenders and front fenders of the trailer are laid out are exactly the same and the aerial looks similar.  If you ever want to give it a try let me know.  I have photos and dimensions of all that stuff.

[Chariots of Fire]

Browsing through some old S..... A... Mags (that other model mag) I ran across this article in the Model Firehouse section by Tim Bongard.  April 1990 issue #66.

To bad the photo is so poor but the written part is clear enough.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Chariots of Fire

[maxwell48098]

Charlie,

Glad you like my Seagrave Sedan.  I got some reference info from Matt Lee, but then living in the Detroit area, there have been several that over the years have been at local apparatus musters.  When I moved to Detroit in the late '70's they were still in use all over the city.  A friend of mine used to work for the DFD and we spent a day down at "the shops".  There were probably 10-15 of them in various states of repair, or going out of service.  The rust really took its toll on most of them after being on the streets for 15-20 years.

 

A.J.

[Danno]

Beautiful model, A.J.!   And, neat first-hand experience with the 1:1s!

Charlie,  Tim lives here in the Valley [of the Sun] now.  He's doing well and back into modeling.  He's an active member of a couple of the local clubs.  He and I have a couple of joint projects in the works. 

He's inspected my original Eisbrenner and my two recently-acquired Eisbrenner/Uptown resins.  He's actively engaged in trying to beat me out of one! 

 

[Chariots of Fire]

Say hello to Tim for me, will you?  We met years ago at a MassCAR show back about the time he ventured into a new modeling mag called "IN SCALE".  I still have the one and only first issue.

[Danno]

Will do!  He's busily scratching up a master for this project:

Mesa AZ Engine 208 - a Pierce Quantum.  Mesa has a boatload of these.

 

 

[Agent G]

Will do!  He's busily scratching up a master for this project:

Mesa AZ Engine 208 - a Pierce Quantum.  Mesa has a boatload of these.

 

 

Mesa has a tax base...........................

G

[Chariots of Fire]

The one thing I never understood about the Quantum is that they never matched the lines of the front wheel wells with the rears.  The front lines probably would have looked hideous on the back so it would have meant some kind of compromise, but hey........... what do I know!

[Danno]

The Quantums are UnGainLY, that's for certain!

[jtsjc1]

Quantums are not attractive rigs. I'm old school ALF 900/1000 series to me were the best looking firefighting apparatus ever made. Those Seagraves are beautiful though amazing work!

[kilrathy10]

These things are smokin'.....Excellent work....Just some beautiful work....

[Mike C]

WOW! Those are amazing!

[Ace-Garageguy]

Absolutely amazing what you do. Beautiful models every time. Incredible detail and realism.

Just a note...the shell shown below isn't "slush cast" as was speculated in the OP. Rather, it is polyester resin and fiberglass mat. I make things (full scale things) from this material all the time and recognize it immediately.

[Chariots of Fire]

Having worked with it, Bill, how did Mike end up with such a smooth exterior?  Did he coat it (the mold) first with a thin skim coat and then build it up a bit at a time?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Having worked with it, Bill, how did Mike end up with such a smooth exterior?  Did he coat it (the mold) first with a thin skim coat and then build it up a bit at a time?

That's pretty much the technique. Usually, on larger parts that will need surface finishing, a material called gel-coat, which is nothing more than thickened resin, is applied to the inside of the mold first. This provides a slick surface (duplicates exactly the surface finish of the mold, which duplicates exactly the surface finish achieved on the master) which can be lightly sanded, and which isolates the glass reinforcing fibers away from the surface. Gel-coats may be clear or tinted with a wide variety of colors.

The next laminations will be dry glass mat, "wetted-out" with liquid resin.

Timing and thickness of the first layer gelcoat layer is somewhat critical. Too early with the additional laminations and you can disturb the surface and get fibers too close to it. Too thin and you can get a phenomenon called "alligatoring", where the gel-coat wrinkles and partially releases early from the mold. Laminating too late and you may have adhesion problems between the gel-coat and the reinforcing resin / fiber matrix.

It's a lot of trouble to go to to make model-sized parts. I used to make molds for some of my own custom model parts from the identical glass-reinforced polyester material your early truck shell was made from (its in the center of the shot below), but now, after much experimentation, I use a high strength epoxy that makes much thinner, lighter molds and parts...and with the procedures I use now, eliminates the requirement to use a gel-coat to get a slick surface.

 

 

Edited August 26, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Chariots of Fire]

Thanks for the information!  I guess that is why most of the resin castings you see today in the model world are based on two part molds.  I know that is how Tom Coolidge did his castings and they came out flawless.

[GLMFAA1]

My error as I did not know the proper term for the casting, This is how corvettes and boats are made if I am correct, That answers the question of different colors as Mike must have had this done in a shop where different gel coats were used. If I am correct in my recollection when building mine this was the sprayed fiber and resin as when it was cut there was not mat appearance to the body.

thanks for the info

greg

[Ace-Garageguy]

Thanks for the information!  I guess that is why most of the resin castings you see today in the model world are based on two part molds.  I know that is how Tom Coolidge did his castings and they came out flawless.

Yes, two-part molds insure the material of the finished body will be relatively thin and uniform...depending on how precisely the inner mold segment is made. My completed epoxy molds and parts these days have perfect surface finishes and can be as thin as .020".

                           

My error as I did not know the proper term for the casting, This is how corvettes and boats are made if I am correct, That answers the question of different colors as Mike must have had this done in a shop where different gel coats were used. If I am correct in my recollection when building mine this was the sprayed fiber and resin as when it was cut there was not mat appearance to the body.

Early Corvettes were made using a similar process to what I described, but today's 'Vette bodies are made in matched steel molds using a process called resin-infusion.

Boats, kit-car bodies and aftermarket "tuner" parts are still very often made in open molds with the chopped mat and resin mixture sprayed in, as you mention, but it's still quite common to see short runs of parts, and tooling in particular, done the old-fashioned way using brushes to wet-out the dry mat.

If the manual wet-out is done correctly, there is no dry fiber apparent when the part is cut or trimmed. Hand layups often produce higher quality results than the "chopper-gun" spray layups, but require more highly-skilled operators, more time, and are more expensive.

I apologize if you feel this is too much of a digression and detracts from your thread, and I'll happily remove it in that case.   

Edited August 27, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[GLMFAA1]

Do not remove as the history and information is needed,

thanks for the contribution

greg

[Danno]

Do not remove as the history and information is needed,

thanks for the contribution

greg

Agreed.  The more, the merrier! 

Many of us take the position that the Eisbrenner bodies are a very important part of fire apparatus modeling history.  I, for one, want to know all there is to know about them.

And, BTW - Bill is spot-on.  My first Eisbrenner body is one of the first handful he produced.  It is fiberglass layup with gelcoat exterior.  As I recall the original account by Mr. Eisbrenner himself, those fiberglass bodies were formed in a female plaster mold that was taken from his original hand carved wood buck.

The resins came much later and they were cast by Resin Unlimited with Mr. Eisbrenner's collaboration, and they were marketed under the name Uptown Body Works by Uptown Automotive of Utica, NY.

[Casey]

On 7/10/2016 at 7:29 PM, Chariots of Fire said:

I'm glad you posted yours, Greg.  It confirms what I remembered that the second edition castings were numbered.

There's one on ebay right now, in case anyone is looking, and pics for future reference:

 

[slusher]

Very impressive!