Sometime last year I took a serious look at one of my vehicles. I leave my vehicles out all year, and the weather takes its toll. I could strip the pickup and repaint it, but I’m planning a firehouse in my town, so why not make a fire truck?
The vehicle is a Solido 1:19 scale 1936 Ford pickup, a bit small for a fire truck. I needed to extend the body and make several modifications, so I used my motor tool to remove the cab roof and the paint.
Next I cut the fender section (there is no separate frame) in half and added brass sheets and strips to lengthen the body. I used JB Weld to hold the metal to the pickup’s frame. I had some copper sheets in my scrapbox that I soldered together to make a bed.
It was starting to look more like a fire truck, but the project stalled out as I couldn’t figure out what to do with the inside of the body.
I decided to start with the “easy” stuff first while I kept thinking about the rest of the truck. I wanted a ladder on one side and fire hoses on the other. This vehicle will stay outside, so I didn’t want anything that wouldn’t stand up to the elements.
I cut styrene tubing and painted it black to form two hard suction hoses. I cut brass tubing into narrow strips that I’ll place on each end.
Poking around the Internet yields lots of possibilities for a load in the back end of the fire truck.
I got inspired by prototype photos but discouraged with my efforts to replicate the load. Neither a tan shoelace nor a block of PVC looked like what I wanted: a long length of fire hose.
I’ve had pretty good luck with Sculpey clay outdoors, so I thought about that for a bit. Trying to produce an even looking hose might be problematic with my limited sculpting ability. Then I thought about an extruder; that would give me something even looking.
There’s lots to learn about extruders, and I eventually found one I felt I could use. It’s from Walnut Hollow and it works very well. It comes with about 12 dies, one of which is a narrow rectangle that looked like it could produce a flattened fire hose.
I started to extrude the Sculpey and fold the hose; the first layer will just be at the bottom of the stack. Then I added more layers of hose, and to my eye, it looks a whole lot better. I also added some plastic fittings from Plastruct for the ends.
I primed the truck and baked the pieces in the toaster oven for about 40 minutes, then painted the large hoses and ladder. I also painted the long hose so it looks less like a stack of rubber bands. Finally, I drilled a hole in the truck bed so I could use a screw and a nut to hold it in place.
After the primer, it was time for the final coat of paint.
A bit of twisting and drilling and tapping, and it was done. I ordered decals from Stan Cedarleaf, who even gave me a little dog to ride along.
It looks great outside in front of my firehouse.
