Latest Scammell 16c Preservation, Cal Fire!

[Tinman]

Well, maybe this will be "Scammell Week" for me. Here's my 3rd Scammell Snow Plow beater rescue. This one is a small fire truck and I've painted it one of my favorite colors for "equipment" which is Old Caterpillar Yellow. The truck itself was in really bad shape. The cab was good but the frame rails were bent and broken, the dumper mounting was broken off and of course the plow was long gone. It's now working for Cal Fire helping to put out California wild fires.

[Tinman]

Scammell Week!

[paelzermaen]

The rim wheel suits the fire truck very well. Like that

[Tinman]

Thanks. I had to mix it up a little bit to get the look I wanted as the plane jane black wheels weren't doing it for me (on this one).

[johnboy]

That's another very nice job, I like it a lot. Out of interest Joe, have you ever turned your hand to weathering models/making dioramas, etc?

[Tinman]

That's another very nice job, I like it a lot. Out of interest Joe, have you ever turned your hand to weathering models/making dioramas, etc?

Thank you!

I've weathered lots of models for HO railway layouts, dioramas and various displays for our Science Museum. Weathering is fairly straight forward and is done mostly using chalks and powders.  Weathered models are best suited for a diorama, a model railroad layout or a sealed display.  Due to the nature of the powders, they can't really be handled without messing them up.  A fixative can be applied to make them more easy to handle and longer lived if handled, but the fixative often changes the colors enough to create an undesirable result.  I don't have much room to display my stuff and I certainly don't have room for the amount of volume I tend to produce. 

The end result is that nearly everything I make goes into someone else's cabinet. Attempting to ship a weathered model would be difficult.  It would have to be mounted and sealed up. Even then, some of the more bone jarring aspects of shipping might have a negative effect. The last diorama I made for a competition was a military battle scene from WWII. It was entered it in a contest at my favorite local hobby shop. It won first prize and they had the thing on display there for years.  I'm not sure when I finally noticed it was gone, they might have given it away to someone's kid or finally tossed it in the rubbish bin (who knows).  The last diorama I made for myself was a garage scene of the interior of the German Car Repair Garage where I was the Service Manager.  I gave it to the owner and it was on display inside a glass cabinet at the cashiers counter. Last time I saw that one was about a year before the business and property was sold to new owners who leveled the building. The last diorama I made for someone else was for the Science Center and featured the Explorer 1 satellite sitting atop a Redstone rocket (on the launch pad) at Cape Canaveral Florida. The contest diorama was made in around 1969 to the best of my memory.  The 2nd mentioned diorama (the garage scene) was made in the mid 1980's and was the last one I've made. The science center diorama was made in the mid 70's.

I go through enough decal paper, printer ink, paint, thinners, stripper, spare parts, reproduction decals with white lettering and other sundry supplies to rack up quite a bill. The sale of models on ebay (and elsewhere) allows me to continue to buy supplies and keep my hobby going. Some beater models I have to buy. However, I am very fortunate (thankful and very grateful) that there are some wonderful people out there who send me all manner of broken and play worn Matchbox models so I can keep going.

I have photographs of most of the stuff I've made in the last 15 or 16 years.  Even with that I've had to cull them down to one or two views per model as the data content was just getting too large.  While I'm rambling, I had a large HO scale railroad layout. It was about 75% finished when a local Dr. found out about it.  He had a look and wanted to help me finish it up. Doc started coming over on a regular basis to help and together, we reached about 98% complete.  In 1975 (the year the war in Viet Nam ended), so did my model railroad layout. Everything was packed away and stored and the physical structure dismantled/torn down. In 2005, I unpacked the whole lot and sold off all the buildings, scenery, rolling stock, locomotives, track - pretty much everything. Prices had gone up since the days most of the stuff was purchased in the 1960s and early 70s so I did quite well on my sales. Now, it's a rich man's hobby and I couldn't begin to think about doing another layout.  I kept one building of a small lumber yard, a scratch built grain elevator and culled out all the Matchbox vehicles stored with the train stuff. All the rest was sold off. It took nearly a year of ebay sales to completely divest of the railroad items.  It was a good addition to my retirement fund.

[johnboy]

Thanks Joe, fascinating reading. Keep up the good work!

[Tinman]

Thanks Joe, fascinating reading. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for taking the time to read an old man's rambling comments. Please pardon me for rambling some more and I promise to get to the point eventually.  A few short years back, a friend of mine had entered a wake board water ski contest.  I wasn't able to go watch the contest because it was on a weekday, but after the contest, I saw him come back into work holding a giant trophy.  I asked if he won and he said he won second place. I was impressed as hell (not the least of reasons because he's only four years younger than me). I proceeded to ask him how many contestants were in the competition. He said three contestants showed up but one failed to qualify.  He could have simply held on to the tow rope and let the boat drag him through the course on his belly and still won second place LOL.

It was a long time ago, but I seem to recall there were only five or six dioramas entered in the contest. My odds were pretty good, in the overall scheme of things, that I might win 1st, 2nd or 3rd place.  

[johnboy]

great story, but you are far too modest.