Previously, my ladder truck project hit a roadblock when I could not figure out a way to make the ladder move: I made some progress this weekend on the rig. I wanted a modern quint that would fit into my late 1990's era layout. I settled on this design loosely based on an E-One HP-75. Wile most of the dimensions are a bit off (a few feet too short, the ladder is too large and the pumping area is a bit strange), I think the model captures the general look. The stick is based on one of the Tomytec Japanese Hino ladder trucks that came out a year or two ago. I bought two, one to display and one for kit bash fodder, The ladder itself was very American, but the turntable is not the low profile variety that seems to be prevalent only in the US, I ended up using a small compass with an Xacto blade instead of a pencil to cut the turntable the proper size from sheet styrene. I then glued a C channel styrene strip on top. The ladder was mounted to the C channel with wire acting as the pivot point. The wire extends up the ladder a little way and this will become part of the pneumatic assembly. It’s not quite right but it should look OK. Ladder mounted to turntable. Ladder in the up position. Fully extended.
Daniel, thanks for the idea for a ladder!!!!!! very cool truck, maybe once we get all of ours done someone will finally do some modern American fire apparatus!!!
