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1/32 1914 Dennis Fire Engine


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Okay, so 5 weeks late to the party but I wanted to get the Carriers Ahoy Seahawk finished before I started anything else.  In fairness the last time I made one of these it took me an afternoon so being a few weeks late should make that much difference.

 

Part of me would like to go to town on this and super detail everything to see what it is possible to make from one of these.  But there are no aftermarket parts available to the best of my knowledge so any detailing will be scratchbuilt.  Nothing wrong with that but it does take a wee bit longer and knowing the pressure of work that I am under at the moment, coupled with the fact that I will lose 3 weekends in the middle of this for the annual family, holiday, I think I will keep it as close to out of the box as my conscience will allow!

 

Initial look at the sprues reminds me that it is a s clunky as we might expect for a model first produced over 50 years ago.  But in fairness the mouldings are reasonably crisp with not too much flash although I'm not sure what I will be able to do with the figures.  they really do show their age and I fear will make it look very toylike when complete.  I'll see what they look like after a clean up and a coat of primer.  I must confess the red plastic takes me back a few years.  I think the last kit I had in red plastic was the AMT ambulance and that must have been 40 years ago.

 

I had a look for a copyright marker but the only one I could see lacked a date, simply saying Airfix Hobbies ©.  But I don't think there's any doubt that this is the original mould.

 

So the box shot:

 

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Sprue shots:

 

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And the instructions.  Sadly as you can see, I have 2 sets of Fire Engine instructions and no omnibus instructions.  Though I don't need them just now, i will at some point.  I'm sure I can download then from ATF.  For the same reason I won't publish every page of the instructions; if you're interested they're almost certainly on ATF.

 

 

 

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Bit of trivia, a number of Dennis N type fire engine chassis ended up in WD use on the Western Front- they were converted to general purpose trucks. The plant was dismounted to form "trench pumping" engines.  There's a few photos in the Tankograd volume "British Military Trucks of World War One".

 

Good luck with the build. This kit belies its age.

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1 minute ago, Killingholme said:

Bit of trivia, a number of Dennis N type fire engine chassis ended up in WD use on the Western Front- they were converted to general purpose trucks. The plant was dismounted to form "trench pumping" engines.  There's a few photos in the Tankograd volume "British Military Trucks of World War One".

Didn't know that so thanks.

 

Surprisingly, for a model that the actual vehicle still exists, there's not much reference material.  This particular vehicle was restored by Dennis and used to sit in their factory near Guildford but in recent years seems to have been transferred to the Transport Museum in Coventry.  But unfortunately it was "upgraded" in the 1930s and a lot of the original details were lost.  Also the iconic wheeled ladder seems to have been replaced by a smaller standard ladder.

 

So I think my main reference is going to be another build thread but for the 1/16 version of this vehicle built by a real master here: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80618.  I know his is twice the size but that is stunning.  I've been pondering how to quilt the seat in 1/32 scale...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally made a start after a week of utter mania and then house guests over the weekend.

 

I think it is true to say that this kit is suffering from a plethora of ejector pin marks.  None especially deep, just lots of them.

 

The engine block and cylinder heads are together as is the pump drive transfer box and now waiting for the filler to set before I can smooth off.  Although I cannot see in any of the references, I am sure that the flywheel would be solid and not ollowed out at the rear, so accepting that it will be fractionally overscale, I have glued it to a 5 thou sheet of plasticard to make it appear solid.  When its completely dry I will have to drill the centre of that out as the driveshaft sits inside that

Next step is to strip down the cooling fan and fanbelt which is way too thick.  Intention is to remove and retain the two pulleys, then craft a new set of fans from some cast-off PE frames and make the fanbelt from 5 thou plasticard, hiding the joint under the drive pulley.

 

I'm struggling to work out the best approach to painting the chassis/engine.  Put it all together, spray it red then mask and Alclad the metal bits?  Or spray the metal then mask and spray the red.

 

43448550242_0f4488fb54_b.jpg

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10 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I'm struggling to work out the best approach to painting the chassis/engine.  Put it all together, spray it red then mask and Alclad the metal bits?  Or spray the metal then mask and spray the red.

 

The clothes pegs give a sense of the small scale here - masking would be a nightmare. Perhaps it is brush painting of the details with small pointy brushes? 

Edited by Ventora3300
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After much deliberation I decided to go down the hairy stick route, at least for the chassis/engine components, so first paint applied last night.  Shame with that was that I wanted to use Alclad, at least for the engine block and of course that can't be brushed (trust me, I have tried!) so that ended up being Hu 11 as that, I thought, was the dullest I had but of course on this occasion it came out far too bright and shiny.  Trip to LMS later today to have a look and see what Vallejo or Tamiya can offer me that looks like a dull light coloured steel/aluminium

 

I also took the fan belt off the two pulleys and cleaned them up.  Then the fan blades themselves came off and were replaced with suitably twisted scraps of PE:

 

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They're now all painted in Vallejo natural steel (sadly too dark fro the block but perfect for the fan according to the references I had)

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Engine and inner chassis now painted and a fair bit of engine detailing done yesterday.

 

Firstly the replacement fan belt was fitted:

 

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This took about 4 attempts as every time I put tension on it to pull it around the top pulley, it snapped.

 

Then the distributor was detailed

 

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I then turned attention to the other side and added the carburettor and air filter to the intake manifold

 

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And scratchbuilt the water pump

 

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The airfilter and water pump "red cylinders" were from scrap sprue cut fro the leaf springs.  Waste not want not!

 

 

 

 

 

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Engine almost complete.  Water pump is complete and fitted as is the brass tube connecting the pump to the cylinder head.  Spark plug leads fitted.  Unfortunately I then spotted that there were some extensions to the leads coming out of the back of the distributor before going into the rubber pipe and in trying to drill the holes in both parts I managed to knock off a whole raft of add ons.  Now back on but not quite as square as they were before :angry:

 

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Just got those leads to finish off and then that's the engine done until the radiator is on then I need to work out how the coolant gets too and from the rad.  The top pipe looks simple enough but I can't see where the bottom hose goes.

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On ‎22‎/‎07‎/‎2018 at 20:36, Lawzer said:

wow - this is like an episode of wheeler dealers in 1/32!! 👍

At least its easier than trying to do it full size.  At least there won't be that agonising moment of getting to the end of a 3 year restoration and you turn the key and nothing happens.

 

The engine is now complete just need the exhaust adding when I put it in the outer chassis but I can guarantee that will break if I do it any earlier.

 

So I turned my attention to the pump gear and main bodywork, and that was when, in the words of Lord Blackadder, we had "a visit from Mr C*ck-up".  The doors to the storage bins have very prominent raised panel lines.  Unsurprising, I thought, for a kit that's over 50 years old.  So that's not a problem, scrape the raised panel lines and scribe new ones.  I might not be the best in the world at re-scribing panel lines but at least these are mostly straight lines.  And so the offside one was completed.  I then picked up the top panel and noticed that its lines were recessed.  Strange, I thought, if they can recess those, why not recess the storage bins.

 

Then the reality dawned on me that the storage bins are outlined in gold and it was only at that point that I bothered to check the reference photos.  Sure enough, the edges of the bins are raised above the surrounding panel :doh:.

 

Never before have I had to add raised panel lines to a model!  I tried 4 techniques.  Firstly 10 thou plastic rod but that was too brittle and broke whenever I tried to make the 90 degree turns at the corners.  with hindsight I probably should have softened it slightly with liquid poly.  I then tried extended sprue but it was either too thin or the thickness not consistent enough.  0..1 mm Albion Alloys nickel rod next, but that was too thin and so in the end I settled on some brass wire from the top of an Italian wine bottle.  It was about 0.3mm so thickness about right but a bit of a swine to roll out straight.  It's not perfect by a long way but I will simply need to make the focus of the model the nearside rather than the offside!

 

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Motto of this - always check the references before getting a sharp implement anywhere near the plastic, not matter how confident you are.  Where's the embarrassed smiley when you need it...?

Edited by Chewbacca
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54 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

It was about 0.3mm so thickness about right but a bit of a swine to roll out straight.  It's not perfect by a long way but I will simply need to make the focus of the model the nearside rather than the offside!

I'm not sure how long the lengths that you require are and you may already be aware of this technique, (so I apologise in advance) but if you put the wire lengthwise under a steel rule and roll it back and forth on your cutting mat you should end up with some nice straight lengths of wire to use. HTH

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19 hours ago, nimrod54 said:

I'm not sure how long the lengths that you require are and you may already be aware of this technique, (so I apologise in advance) but if you put the wire lengthwise under a steel rule and roll it back and forth on your cutting mat you should end up with some nice straight lengths of wire to use. HTH

Great tip John.

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22 hours ago, nimrod54 said:

I'm not sure how long the lengths that you require are and you may already be aware of this technique, (so I apologise in advance) but if you put the wire lengthwise under a steel rule and roll it back and forth on your cutting mat you should end up with some nice straight lengths of wire to use. HTH

Thanks for that.  Funnily enough it was exactly that technique I used to straighten the wire but even that couldn't cope with some of the twists which was why the larger middle piece comprises 2 lengths of wire.  The only thing I would say different to your suggestion is that I tend to do it on an old tile rather than a cutting mat; I fin the harder surface works better.

 

Still doesn't mean that I will get them on straight after I've had to put four 90 degree bends in them though...

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Outer chassis, suspension and exhaust added:

 

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Main body assembled, small amount of filler needed especially around the front plate and seat.  Ready for final rubbing down and then primer

 

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Then turned my attention to the front axle and steering gear.  I guess the first question I must ask is why does a single piece that is only about 45mm long need 5 ejector pins, 3 of which are in really difficult places to eradicate (highlighted in yellow)?  I really want to open up the steering gear so that I can reposition the front wheels as if going around a corner as this offers much more interest.  But I think I may wimp out looking at the challenge of the cuts that are needed to separate the stub axles from the uprights (black circles).

 

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As I was preparing some of the larger parts for painting I thought I would look at the bulkhead/instrument panel.  I have virtually no reference material here of the real vehicle, just one grainy photo that shows the left hand extremity and shows that the brown storage box is much larger than the miniscule item on the kit part.  But there is a set of good reference photos in the build thread I referenced earlier for the 1/16 version: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80618.  that correlates the size of the storage box so I have to assume that the rest is accurate.  Which means the speedometer is about half size (based on relative sizes of the speedometer to the length of the panel I think this should be about 5mm diameter whereas the kit version is only 2.5mm).  And unfortunately just doubling the size of the speedometer would put it too close to the steering column mount.  So out with an X-Acto #17 micro-chisel and remove all of the detail on the instrument panel.  I will build that all back up with scrap plastic.  Looking at the supports for the bell and sidelights they may go as well as I am pretty certain they are too thick; I can replace them with brass wire.

 

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I recall reading somewhere that someone else had noted there was no fuel tank in this kit and sure enough they are right.  But the reference photos (both the real vehicle and the 1/16 build) show a brass tank on the driver's side between the front offside leaf spring and gear lever.  This should be a simple build from some scrap sprue, plasticard strip and plastic rod.  I'm not sure though whether this is a the main fuel tank or just the tank for the paraffin lights.  It looks somewhat small for a vehicle of this size (and likely fuel consumption) and there appears to be fuel hoses going to the lamps.

 

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And finally, the rear of the radiator has also been built up with plasticard as the original was way too thin (but no photo I'm afraid).  Unfortunately I have no reference photos of it so have no way of knowing whether the core tubes were visible or not.  in the interests of simplicity I've assumed that you can't see them.

Edited by Chewbacca
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Oh well, the urge got the better of me:

 

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Just a test fit while I work out how to modify the steering arm to fit as well

 

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It's amazing what a wet afternoon can bring out in you!

 

 

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After last weekend's success with the steering and then most of the week away on business, I got back into this yesterday and spent a few hours sorting out the ladder trolley.  I'm not sure how I managed to do it, but just as I was going to bed last night I took anther look at the near completed item on the workbench and it struck me that if it was possible to put a piece on the wrong way around, I had done so, despite what I thought was checking and double checking the instructions.  So longitudinal spars fitted facing both the wrong way and the support struts facing inboard rather than outboard (which meant that the ladder couldn't possibly fit), brackets to mount the trolley on the rear of the fire engine back to front..  The only saving grace I suppose was that the liquid poly hadn't fully set so I could cut the parts away without too much damage being caused.  Today's activities will focus on cleaning that up and rebuilding it correctly, rather than getting the main components into the spray shop that need priming ready for airbrushing.

 

I was so annoyed with myself that I realised as I removed the final piece that I hadn't taken any photos of my errors.  Perhaps that was for the better!

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