Fire Apparatus Model Forums

The letters to the editor column of issue 26 of Vintage Fire truck features images of a Tom Showers built Young Crusader. Charlie rebuilt the model for Bob Milnes, who had Tom make it for him many years ago when he was a Young dealer. Last year Bob disposed of most of his collection of fire models, but kept his Tom Showers pieces.

It was an interesting re-build. Tom Showers as many of you probably know started model building during World War II. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and had one of his models destroyed by a stray bullet. He used a lot of Aurora kit parts in his builds as well as some turned aluminum and balsa parts as well. Much of his plastic was heat swaged together with a hot knife. I guess he did not believe much in primer paint either. When I redid the Crusader I used my Xacto knife to peel off the orange and black paint in big pieces with no damage to the plastic underneath. It only took a small amount of sanding to get the rest off.

In case you have not seen the article in Vintage Fire Truck here is the model as I got it and when it was "refurbed".

Awesome job

That's a gorgeous looking model. Great work

Thanks for sharing

Wowww....
What scale is it?
Thank you for posting!

Sorry to take so long in answering about the scale. It's 1/32. Tom Showers never built in any other scale to the best of my knowledge. The Aurora parts he used were 1/32 as well so it was a good scale for him to continue with.