A Crossbreed Crossley - Crossley FE1 Crash Tender from various parts

[Heather Kay]

Finding models of airfield crash tenders that suit the period of RAF expansion in the mid-1930s right through World War Two can be an exercise in frustration. The usual recourse has always been to the venerable Airfix Emergency Set, though the Austin was quite resolutely post-War. Brave souls kit-bashed or scratch built, and eventually some kit makers finally started to produce suitable vehicles.

 

 

MMS, now sadly retired, produced a white metal cast kit for the Crossley FWD. To be strictly accurate to my 1940 rule, the FWD is a little too modern, entering service right at the end of that year. I still got one anyway, as pretty much the only decent early period purpose-built crash tender available.

 

Some years prior to that I had acquired a Crossley IGL 6x4 breakdown tender. It was a somewhat indifferent resin and cast white metal kit, with a workshop body and breakdown crane. I originally built it as such, and so it remained on the shelf. After I’d built the FWD kit, though, I was left with one or two spare components which were common between the older Crossley 6x4 FE1 and the FWD. Usefully, they were things like the pump assembly, hose parts, and what I think are air vents. I got to wondering, as you do, whether it might be possible to convert the breakdown truck into the fire tender.

 

 

Happily the breakdown body came off without issue. I think it might find a home on an Austin K6 chassis in due course. The cab was eventually removed, leaving the basic chassis, front bonnet and wings, and the wheels. Now to see what parts I had I could re-engineer into the business end.

 

I wasn’t happy with the original chassis. It was a simple plank, which was adequate, but I felt it would take too much to modify to accept a tank and so on. I wondered if the old Airfix K6 chassis might be usable. Amazingly it was exactly the same wheelbase as the Crossley, so I decided to scrap the resin lump, salvaging the running gear and bonnet/wings. In the end, I also decided to ditch the cast axles in favour of the Airfix ones.

 

 

Raw materials. There are bits here from the Emergency and Refuelling Sets. I just dug out parts I thought might be useful, even if I didn’t use them all in the end. At the top can be seen the remaining MMS castings left over from the FWD.

 

 

In a short space of time I had got a chassis together. The front and rear overhangs were too long for the Crossley proper, so I chopped them back to suit. I was working by eye, gauging shapes and locations purely on the basis of photos of the real thing. If a decent drawing turns up, I might well have a go at scratch building one, but for now, I had something that was beginning to generally sort of look like a Crossley FE1.

 

 

Repurposing the water tank and rear mudguards from the Austin, I set about arranging various parts to see how it looked.

 

 

A basic centre superstructure was made of various styrene sheet parts, the CO2 cylinders from the Austin kit with brass tube embellishments, and the MMS parts installed. The cylinders are too large, and I suppose I ought to have considered scratch building new ones. These lumpy ones will do, though. In fact, the overall proportions of the whole thing are a bit out. The tank is a bit high, but I felt this was a price worth paying. I'm not after museum quality replica, more a good passing resemblance.

 

 

I realised the Crossley chassis had the fuel tank on the driver’s side, so the moulded Austin one was chopped off, and a replacement from the K2 ambulance chassis glued on the other side. Hose reels were made up from K6 parts and styrene strip, grab rails from fine brass wire. A crew was mustered, including the classic Asbestos Man figure, who had a new head grafted on and his helmet placed on the ground.

 

 

A coat of paint later, and the end result looks the part. An aero windscreen was fitted, and the driver took his seat, and my Crossbreed Crossley was delivered to the display cabinet as part of the crash team. It's not perfect, but I was pretty pleased with what was a couple of evenings' work all told. At last, a proper period Crossley crash tender for my collection.

 

Thanks for looking!

[robw_uk]

very nice work (and the Tilly on the other thread). 1/76 is way to small for me but am enjoying scratchbuilding in 1/35th

[Heather Kay]

Thanks Rob! I dabbled with 1/35 stuff many moons ago. I stick with 1/72-ish mainly for space reasons and the range of kits out there. That said, there are some keynote 1/48 kits lurking in my stash. One day...

[frankie]

[cngaero]

What a great piece of modelling. 

It's certainly an inspirational demonstration of what can be done. 

Great stuff indeed. 

Thanks for sharing it with us. 

[phildagreek]

Looks good!