Started construction of the AMERICAN MODEL BUILDERS Volunteer Fire Company kit.

Opened the box


Painted all exterior parts - well most all



Added the second floor and finished the major roof construction


To be continued ......

Don't forget the pole!

very cool. whats the name of the product you use to ensure that the right angles are true ... looks like one of those things that comes in handy!

btw: judging from your avatar, shouldnt that be a cowboy hat in the background?

please keep the pictures of progress posted for us to see!

Nice looking kit. Looking forward to the progress reports.

Thanks,

John

pennsyk4, a volunteer fire dept is a project I have been planning to do from scratch for some time and yet haven't seen much done on it until now.
This looks like a neat kit.
I'll be following this one closely.

quote:

Originally posted by bfishma:
very cool. whats the name of the product you use to ensure that the right angles are true ... looks like one of those things that comes in handy!

Looks like one of the "grips" that come with plastic sawhorses... hope I can find mine again, 'cause that does look useful!

Cubie, I think you are right now that you mentioned it

The windows and doors are peel and stick makes it easy and faster.







The windows in place. been wondering if I should detail the second floor and with what pooltable. spare fire hose and axes, a bar and TV ? bingo tables?

I don't know???

quote:

The windows in place. been wondering if I should detail the second floor and with what pooltable. spare fire hose and axes, a bar and TV ? bingo tables?

I don't know???

Bunks and lockers; kitchen and eating area; bathroom even?

Poll table might be a bit much since some one had to lug it upstairs...

How about a cardtable and some dogs playing poker?

How about a ping-pong table?

Let me know where you get your balls.

Vulcan,

They'd best be brass, balls of course..........

My thinking is a ping-pong table is an easy scratchbuild. Styrene for the tabletop,brass or styrene rod for the legs. Wedding veil for the net. Make the paddles out of styrene. The ping-pong balls are the hard part. And it won't be convincing....if you don't have the balls for it.

If you don't mind living with slightly over-sized balls (!), you could use those tiny beads from the craft store. They are called seed beads. A thick coat of white paint will fill the holes.

The other possibility is with solder splatters. I know that sometimes I wind up with tiny solder balls on my workbench after a soldering project. I'm not sure exactly how they were produced, but some experimenting should do it.

Bird shot should be available too in a size that's close.

Jim

(I am constantly amazed by the range of discussion topics I find myself in here on the Scenery Forum!!!)

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Policastro:
(I am constantly amazed by the range of discussion topics I find myself in here on the Scenery Forum!!!)

Jim, it gets cramped in here sometimes, we have to stretch our legs every now and then !

I've noticed, and saved some of the solder splatters myself. Birdshot actually might be the closest, size wise. To ping-pong balls, that is.

Now tell me how you are going to suspend the ping-pong ball in mid-flight over the wedding veil net......

Super-conducting magnets?

too funny fellas! might i recommend the tiny balls you get when roughing up beaded white styrofoam?

when dangling them above the layout, just make sure they dont hang too low

quote:

Do your balls hang low? Do they swing to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot? Can you tie 'em in a bow?
Do they have a hollow sound when you drag 'em on the ground?
Can you do the double shuffle when your balls hang low?

Another suggestion that I will pass on - a Zn3 layout inside the 2nd floor...

I would just change the stance of the players, making the game look intense. You wouldn't even need a "ball" if one player looked like he just spiked it. It would be blurry!

Ran into a problem, the stair trads S4,S5, S6 not on the parts sheet as shown on the instruction layout.
E-mailed American model builder about the decrepency, missing stair treads. Hope to hear back from them.

Having grown up hanging around a volunteer fire company as my dad was Chief there for years as well as being a paid firefighter in the city and then years spent as a volunteer myself, we always had a pool table upstairs in the game room. Ping pong table was pulled out of the closet and set up in the bay when we wanted to play.

Finally something I know about. They would be oversized balls and black n blue from always being busted. I don't think they're brass either, that's to fragile. Probably steel.

It really depends on what time you are going for. If you want to use horses and steamers. Upstairs would have held an office for the chief (something to do with the balls) bunks, storage and not to many walls. If you are going for motorized equipment then you would start to have more walls, bunks, an office (yes more busting), and maybe a pool table. Pool tables and recreation really didn't start coming into the fire hall until after World War II. You could probably use that model to represent up until the 70's in a small town.

When I first saw that kit I immediately thought of 1937, and the town is out for a celebration as they unload their first motorized apparatus out of a box car. For me it would be a Ahrens-Fox piston pump. I can just imagine that building with red, white, and blue bunting. Don't forget a flag appropriate for the era.

Do a search for old pictures, there are lots of them out there that show interiors.

Man now you got me started on my other passion.

Gene Anstine

The small NJ town I grew up in (1947-60) had a wonderful looking old brick firehouse. My father was on the Town Council when the fire company demanded a new "modern" firehouse. They said if they did not get one, they would refuse to be in anymore parades. My father found this very ammusing, to say the least. They finally got the big, ugly cinderblock building they wanted. Owen, this was in Peapack/Gladstone. Joe

AMB returned my e-mail the very next morning. The instruction sheets were taken from their ho kit. The stair treads moved to the window sheet, but not in my kit. AMB may send the correct sheet with treads, I e-mailed them back.

Will wait about 10 days to see if the treads are sent but have already made styrene replacements. Also, to see if the detailing stuff I want are available. Otherwise I will finish it up without the second floor detailing.

Very nice-looking building. The suggestion on the beads is a good one, as are the others. You'd be surprised at the variety of stuff like that you can find if you peruse Michael's Craft store, or A.C. Moore, if you have one nearby. I'm almost certain you could find a package of tiny balls (!) that would be the right size.

John
--
Tennis players have fuzzy balls.

If you wanted to show two FFs playing ping pong, you could try using a bead and to get the "air time" use a piece of that new super transparent fluorocardon fishing line.

I made balls for a "carnival game" from #9 shotgun pellets. The craft store beads have a hole through them. However, flatter beads worked well for donuts, for the coffee/donut stand I built (they fit nicely into the hands of the policemen and state troopers, the sole patrons of the place). Joe