Left to right - A 1:19 Ford Pickup, a 1:20 person, a 1:20 Ford, a 1:22.5 person, and a 1:24 vehicle.

A top down view of the same vehicles. Notice how tiny the 1:24 car is.

This 1:20 person looks way out of scale with the 1:24 car.

I built a van body for the end of this model truck and put on some custom made decals.

A 1:20 person inside a 1:18 car.

A 1931 Chevy Phaeton from Hubley (Scale Models). This is a 1:20 model.

Ford 1931 Wagon - a metal kit. (Another 1:20 model)

2 more 1:20 Hubley Kits.

A street full of Hubley kits. (These 4 are all 1:20 scale.)

February 23, 2015. I leave my vehicles out all year long and the weather takes its toll. So, I could strip it and repaint it, but I'm eventually planning a fire house in my town, although who knows when that will be. Why not make a firetruck? Well, it's a small pickup: a Solido 1:19 1936 Ford pickup. It doesn't really look like a firetruck. Hmm. Not that I really know what a firetruck really looks like, but that's never stopped me.
Out comes the dremel!

Firetrucks back in the day did not come with a roof. My Dremel tool helps to remove the roof as well as the paint.

But, the body is a bit too short. I get out the Dremel again and I cut the fender section (there is no separate frame) in two an insert some brass sheets and strips to lengthen the whole thing.

I also had some COPPER sheets that I soldered together to make a bed. Starting to look more like a firetruck, but here the project stalled out as I really couldn't figure out what to do with the inside of the body.

I decided to start with the "easy" stuff first. I knew I wanted a ladder on one side and some firehoses on the other. This will stay outside, so I didn't want anything that wouldn't stand up. I have some styrene tubing. I'll use that and paint it black. I cut some copper tubing into narrow strips that I'll place on each end.

Poking around the Internet yields lots of possibilities. I come across pictures that show the back of the truck filled with a long fire hose all curled up.
Neat idea. I'll just get some tan shoelace and glue it together to look like folded fire hose. My initial thought is to have it look like there's two layers of hoses, so I'll just do a short one to try out the idea.
Ack. It looks like a blob of tan, not a folded hose. Not at all what I was hoping for.

But, I have a 6mm piece of homasote. I'll just carve it to look like a fire hose; this should look pretty good.

It's a start but at least it doesn't look like a blob of tan. Not sure it looks like folded hose, but it might be considered progress. Painted up, I think it will be OK. At least the back is filled up.

I got inspired by the prototype photos...and even more discouraged with my efforts to date.

March 4. I had to have something that would look more like a hose and not like a block of pvc. I've had pretty good luck with Magic-Sculpt outside, so I thought about that for a bit. But, trying to produce an even looking hose might be problematic for my limited sculpting ability. Then I thought about an extruder - hmmm, that would give me something very even looking. But, I got to thinking that maybe it wouldn't work with Magic Sculpt? What would? Poking around via Google, I ran into some posts about extruders and how well they worked with Sculpey.
OK, that would work, since I have a little toaster oven in my shop from when I was using Sculpey trying to make some figures.
There's lots to learn about extruders, but I found one that got some pretty good marks. It's from Walnut Hollow and it works VERY well; I'm quite pleased. It comes with about 12 dies and one of them looked like it could be a fire hose.
I started to extrude the Sculpey and fold the hose - the first layer will just be at the bottom of the stack.

Then I did some more layers and, to my eye, it looks just a whole lot better. I haven't glued it in place yet, as I plan to paint the truck first. I'll probably put some acrylic on the hose as well.

March 19. I primed the truck and baked the pieces in the toaster oven for about 40 minutes. Got the large hoses and ladder painted. I also painted the long hose so it looks less like a stack of rubber bands. Finally, I drilled a hole in the truck bed so I could use a screw and a nut to hold it in place.

March 19. Just a test fit to see how it's going to look with the accessories in place.

March 24. Most of the parts are painted. I'll let it dry a bit then it's time for assembly. Found I need to drill a few more holes. It's been so long since I took this apart that I had forgotten all the screws...

March 25. A bit of twisting and drilling and tapping and it's all done. Well, mostly so. Need to get some decals...just need to come up with a design.

March 25.

March 25.

August 12. I finally got around to putting the decals on.

August 12, 2015. There's no rush to put it outside as there is no firehouse yet.

November 4, 2016. The firehouse is complete but won't go on the layout until the Spring.

March 25, 2017. The firehouse is finally put out on the layout after returning from the Drag & Brag in York, PA.