Decided to have a go at making a fire truck out of Lego. Wasn’t trying to make anything specific, and it ended up being sort of an airport fire truck. Spent about 5 hours devising and constructing it. When I was done I realized I had forgotten any rear lights and no rear view mirrors. Whoops. Oh well. Gives me an excuse to try it again.
The seats rotate and the steering wheel tilts.
Tool compartments. The most involved thing to get right, and ultimately it’s hidden behind doors.
Hoses on the other side. I would have preferred it if they were all the same colour, but I had three black and three grey, so I made do. The 1x1 vertical clip plates are also different colours since I didn’t have enough of one colour. Use what ya got.
I went through my nephews collection of min-figs to find some that I could press into service as firefighters, and this is about the best I could do. I was going to get fancy and change the colour of them in PS, but I haven’t got time.
As always, a fun thing to build. 8x28 are the dimensions of it, and it’s solid and heavy. I think the wheels are too small, but on the next one I do I know how I’ll use larger wheels and build up around them. Couple of things missing (the rear lights and the mirrors I mentioned) but some features on it I really like. The controls at the rear were fun to do, the water cannon, the tool cabinets, the stabilizers, the steps on the side I like. The little step to climb into the cab are a fun touch. The ladder, hinge and the turntable are actually from a fire truck that I had as a kid. Like the wheels, probably a bit too small, but oh well. The doors and windows are also very old, and meant more for houses, but they’re what I had, so they’re what I used.
After I made this I had a look at MOCpages. (I’ve known about it for years, but I tend to avoid it for the most part. My Lego obsession is possibly already a bit too much and I fear that spending time on there will only make it worse. I keep debating whether I should join up and show some of what I’ve made and will make. The abyss calls to me...) I checked out some of the fire trucks people had made, and I particularly liked the very specific models people are doing. Reproductions of 1961 Ward LaFrance pumper trucks, that sort of thing. Very impressive stuff over there. Very inspiring. I get the impression some of the makers are firefighters themselves.
The other morning a pumper parked outside my house. It’s a quiet, out of the way, dead end street right near a park, so a good spot to hang out for a while between calls. I went out and said hi and asked if I could shoot some pics of their truck. I explained my interest, and they didn’t seem to think it was too dorky. Ended up having a nice chat with them for a while and they told me lots about their truck. Figured for my next one I should do a reproduction of a Hamilton fire engine. This one wasn’t anything specific, but it might be fun to try my hand at making one as close as possible to one that really exists.
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