1911 Christie fire engine WIP

[Harry P.]

I had a lot of fun doing my 1914 Dennis WIP, and now that I've finished that model I have the itch to try another piece of period firefighting equipment. This time it will be a "Christie" steam pumper. This kit has been released under several brands, including MPC and AMT (and also Airfix, I believe). They are all the same kit, though, in 1/12 scale. This is the MPC release, the AMT box art is similar:

You may look at that thing and wonder what the heck you're looking at. It's a strange item, for sure, and if it seems like the front and back end don't match, or even look like they belong together at all, you're right. A little history is in order…

Prior to the introduction of internal combustion powered, self-propelled vehicles, fire trucks, like all other road-going vehicles, were horse drawn. The most common type of firefighting apparatus of the time was a coal fired, steam powered pumper rig. The boiler and steam driven water pump were mounted on a simple wagon-like frame, and drawn by generally two (or sometimes three) horses. The pumper would arrive on the scene, and firemen would draw water from whatever source they had… a cistern, a well, a nearby pond or creek… whatever. This was before fire hydrants were common. As the technology was refined, ultimately these rigs could take cold water to pressurized steam in under 10 minutes. That was cutting-edge technology in the late 1800s. Here is a photo of a typical late 1800s horse-drawn steam pumper (restored):

As the 1800s gave way to the new century, horseless carriages were becoming more and more common. As the general public was making the change from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles, fire departments were likewise looking to upgrade to the new technology. But there weren't many self-powered fire trucks available in those days, and what was available was quite expensive. So how could a local fire department on a limited budget upgrade their horse-drawn rig to the new technology at a reasonable cost? Enter John Christie.

Christie was an engineer, inventor, and auto racer, who created several automotive and/or transportation innovations. Among his creations was the Christie tractor, a two-wheeled, internal-combustion powered, front wheel drive tractor. Christie sold his tractors to fire departments around the country, most notably in New York City, as a way to allow the departments to upgrade their existing horse-drawn steam pumpers to self powered units. The pumper's front axle and front wheels were removed, and the pumper bolted onto a Christie tractor. This way the horses could be replaced without scrapping a perfectly good pumper unit. The Christie tractors were front wheel drive for obvious reasons (no need to re-engineer the horse-drawn pumper to a driven rear axle). The Christie tractors had their four-cylinder engines mounted transversly, with a chain drive off the crankshaft powering the wheels. The radiator was mounted in back of the engine, below the driver, so the Christie's grille was non-functional and just for show. Here is what a typical steam pumper looked like after a "Christie conversion" (yes, that's Jay Leno at the wheel )...

And here is a period photo of a pumper converted to Christie power:

As clever as Christie's solution was, it didn't last long. As more manufacturers began offering a wider array of purpose-built, self-propelled fire trucks, more fire departments simply scrapped their old horse-drawn rigs and bought new trucks. While some of the old steam-powered "Christies" were kept in service as late as the 1920s, the Christie tractor's era was basically over in a few years.

This kit represents a model year 1911 Christie tractor mated to an 1899 Ahrens-Fox steam pumper. I think the model is based on a restored truck at the Nethercutt museum, in which the pumper is totally blinged out, with chrome plated everything, like the box art model. I guess that Ahrens-Fox offered options on their pumpers, like car manufacturers do, and I suppose the full-on chrome look may have been available, but I like a more subdued, down-to-earth workaday look, so that's how I will be building mine.

[Tom Geiger]

That's pretty cool Harry. Thanks for the history lesson, I hadn't heard that before. I look forward to the build.

[cobraman]

Very interesting. I wondered why that thing looked so weird. So will this be another wip in which you show us your progress ?????? I hope.

[Harry P.]

Very interesting. I wondered why that thing looked so weird. So will this be another wip in which you show us your progress ?????? I hope.

Yes.

[Bennyg]

Looking foreward to this.

Ben

[Harry P.]

BTW, Christie wasn't the only brand of conversion tractor sold. I don't know what make this one is, but it's a different take on Christie's idea. Here the old horse-drawn pumper was left intact. It even still has the driver's seat in place. The pumper was then bolted to the tractor. In this case it looks like the tractor was not propelled at all... the tractor's engine was connected via chain or belt to a large drive gear or wheel they installed on the old pumper's front axle. Same general idea as the Christie tractor, just a different way of going about it. This rig makes a Christie look almost normal!

[Ramfins59]

This should be another very interesting, entertaining and educational build Harry. I look forward to following along.

[Harry P.]

Now that the history lesson is over and you guys know what the heck it is I'm building here, let's dive in. As usual, I skip around in the building process and rarely, if ever, follow the directions step by step. In this case I started with the boiler tank and boiler cap/smokestack. The boiler cap is a chrome plated piece molded in halves. Two problems here: I don't want the "blinged out" look of the box cover model, and there is no seam in the boiler cap on the real thing. First step is to glue the boiler cap halves together using liquid cement. Liquid cement is the perfect glue in applications like this, where you're gluing a part molded in halves and there should not be a visible seam on the finished part. Liquid cement literally fuses the parts together into one, and the seam disappears, as you'll see in a sec...

On the real thing, this cap is composed of several different parts, and on the reference photo I'm following, some parts are copper and some are brass. I suppose I could have smoothed the seam, then painted and masked and painted again to get the brass/copper/brass look, but rather than risking paint bleeding under my masking, I decided to cut the cap apart into sections with my razor saw. The cuts are straight and run right along angles in the cap, so it only took a few seconds to make the cuts.

Once I had the three parts separated, I cleaned up the seams with various tools including a foam sanding block, sanding stick and small files to get into the tight radiuses. A foam sanding block is perfect for this, it forms itself to the contours of the shape, so you don't get any flat spots. As you can tell by the photo, my trusty sanding block has seen plenty of use.

As you can see, once you have smoothed the surface, there is no seam. It's gone. The two halves are as one, and no putty or other work is required, other than sanding smooth. The same deal goes for the boiler... liquid glue, then sand the seam smooth:

If you look at the photo of the boiler, you can see the seam across the top (which will be hidden by the boiler cap)... but you can't see the seam as it goes down along the sides of the boiler. Liquid cement is the secret.

[PappyD340]

This is going to be good, I just know it, Harry I was just wondering is that particular vehicle a part of Jay's stable or is he just doing some kind of photo shoot?

[Harry P.]

Here is the boiler so far. Not all of the various valves and do-dads attached yet, but enough to give you an idea of how it's looking. The boiler is painted semi-gloss black. As you can see, the boiler cap (top piece still not attached) looks a lot different than the chrome pieces as came in the kit. The gauges do not include decals for the faces so I had to hand paint the gauge dials. The bezels are done with gold BMF and the "glass" is 5-minute clear epoxy:

The way I got that "old timey" brass/copper look on the boiler cap is simple. First, the parts were sprayed either Rustoleum Metallic Copper or Metallic Brass... then I brush painted the pieces with a wash consisting of Future with just a bit of acrylic black. That gave the "metal" parts a nice "patina" and emphasized the character lines and creases. I also drilled out the molded-in screw heads and replaced them with brass "rivets" that are actually brass hull planking nails from a wooden ship kit.

In the photo below, the grab rail and all of the valves you see were all originally chrome plated, but all got my "old time" treatment:

The "brass" plaque on the side of the boiler was also chrome plated, but I think it looks much better after my treatment:

[MoparWoman Jamie]

I like it!

[sjordan2]

Super impressive. I just wish the images were larger so I could blow them up more to see all the fine detail.

[Harry P.]

I got a few more details finished on the boiler. The oil cans were chrome plated parts. I doubt that something as mundane as an oil can would have been chrome plated, so I "backdated" the look to late 1800s by spraying them Rustoleum Metallic Brass, then brush painting the bodies of the cans gloss black, then an overall wash of Future/acrylic black to add depth and detail:

[cobraman]

Looks great ! BTW who is the new Harry ? Looks like I should know but can't place him.

[Harry P.]

Looks great ! BTW who is the new Harry ? Looks like I should know but can't place him.

Well, "Everybody's Talkin' " about him...

[PappyD340]

Would that be Harry Chapin by any chance, BTW the Christie is coming along very NICELY Harry, detail is amazing!!

[Harry P.]

Would that be Harry Chapin by any chance...

Nope.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Nilsson.

Beautiful work on the model so far, by the way.

Fascinating history lesson too.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Ace-Garageguy

[cobraman]

I believe your correct Bill.

[Harry P.]

One of the problems with old kits like this is that over time, the molds get worn out, and the mold halves no longer align precisely during the molding process. What you get are parts–especially parts that are round or cylindrical, like pipes–where the two halves don't align. In other words, the right half and left half of the part is mismatched, sometimes so much so that the offset is almost 1/16 inch. On larger parts you can fix this by sanding away the mismatch until the part is smooth and the offset seam is gone, but on small parts or parts with a small diameter, sometimes sanding the mismatch all the way off leaves you with an undersized part.

A lot of the parts on this kit have this problem, and it's incredibly tedious to clean up all the various pipes, valves and fittings... a lot of sanding and filing, Here are a couple of typical parts that had this problem and had to be cleaned up a lot to get them to look this good. I probably spent close to a half hour just on these two parts alone... and there are a lot of similar parts in this kit:

But after cleanup and some paint detailing, they look pretty good. It's just a pain to get them to this point:

[cobraman]

Wow ! What a difference.

[Danno]

Yours is looking great so far, Harry!

But . . . here's a little something to inspire you.

Pictured in front of a 1:1 Christie Steamer is a build-up of the same kit you are building now.

This one is in a special case because it was built by a famous builder. Or maybe a builder who was famous.

Any idea who the builder was?

Hint: He was famous but not well known to be a model builder and this was his only fire apparatus build, perhaps his only automotive build.

[Harry P.]

My guess would be a diorama builder... but I have no idea who.

[sjordan2]

...But it can only make right turns.

Edited December 12, 2013 by sjordan2

[Harry P.]

Barry Goldwater!