Port Vue, Pennsylvania Reo

[Chariots of Fire]

Gotta keep it making money! Been working on the body lately. Will post photos soon.

[Chariots of Fire]

An update on progress. The cab having been completed for basic construction, attention went to the body. I drew it out in a graphics program first using the side view in a photo for the shape. Then it was sized by comparing the width of the cab doors in the photo with the width of the cab door in the resin casting. With that matched up the size of the body was ready. It was printed out and used as a pattern for making the sides.

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The width was detemined by the track of the rear tires. It scales out to be about 90 inches to the outside of the tire tread so I made the body 96 inches wide including the flairs at the wheel wells. I quartered some plastic tubing to use for the corners of the body. There is still some cleanup to be done in certain areas but the basic construction of the shell is complete.

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[Chariots of Fire]

Prior to doing the body I opened up the hood and doors of the cab and hinged them using some small strip brass for the hood and some Micro-Mark "H" hinges for the doors. The hood is propped open similar to how the real hood would be using a single rod that runs from the radiator to the firewall and a sliding rod from there to a pivot point in the front of the hood.

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For now the doors are pinned in place using a stainless steel rod. When the painting is finished the rod will be cut off at each hinge point. A small amount of shimming was necessary for the doors since in the scribing process to open them up a certain amount of the casting is lost. Shimming was done with strip plastic and then sanded to shape. The plastic is visible in the photo below.

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[CCFR-45]

Looking good so far like always. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Chariots of Fire]

The back of the body is now done and work continues on opening up the compartment doors.

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There's a treadplate floor and the compartments in the rear have been boxed in. The openings were made for the doors. New pieces of sheet stock were fitted with some small brass tubing using CA and some sanding to secure the location. Then notches were cut in the body top and bottom to receive similar sections of tubing. A stainless steel wire fits smoothly inside the tubing for the pin. After some trimming and smoothing up of the opening and door it fits well and opens easily.

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The door latch is from Don Mills Models. They are still available but may not be chrome plated. But with Molotow chrome pens now available it doesn't matter. On this rig the locks were painted anyway.

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[Frozenfew]

Nice progress. Those fender wells came out great. So is Don going to stop making the chrome plated latches? I've seen the Molotow chrome around I will have to pick me up some and try it out. They say you can also use it in airbrushes with no gloss black undercoat.

[Chariots of Fire]

Don may have some of the plated locks still available but his plater is not doing much any more. I have not used the Molotow paint in an air brush to see how it works but others have and the results have been excellent. I think that for small things like the door locks using one of the #1 or #2 pens would be sufficient. I have done unpainted plastic, brass and painted plastic using the Molotow and the results are about the same. It has to be flowed on and let to sit to develop the real shine. And it takes 2-3 days to really harden up but after that is quite durable. Like other such products though it will not take a lot of handling. Doing so results in the loss of shine.

[Chariots of Fire]

An update on progress. Here is the truck body and cab in primer and with the compartment doors ready for primer. Small magnets have been installed on the inside of the doors with a small piece of wire located on the edge of the compartment opposite the magnet. When the doors close they "snap" shut against the compartment sides due to the magnet's attraction to the wire. A similar process will be used for the cab doors. The blue panel on the right is the color to be used on the truck.

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[hct728]

Nice contemporary styling on the fire body, and the blue colour is certainly unique, it’s gonna be a real eye-catcher!

[Hazmat]

Wow perfection at work 🤩