Ertl Ladder Fire Truck

Worked with a couple of the kits and just aquired my third one. I have finished one and it was promptly got ahold of by my youngest. I did up a review of the kit in general which is here.

http://scalefirehouse.com/ladderchiefreview.html

It takes alot of patience to build it up but does turn out pretty good. There are some minor things you can do improve the kit easy enough. Things like useing some brass rod to make new grab handles that are more to scale, extending the exhaust with some aluminum tubing so it actually comes out from under the truck, getting a real light bar or bubble gum lights to replace the chrome lights. I can't remember where I have the pics from the one I actually finished, but here is a link to one I am making into a tiller truck, a bit of a long term project. Might give you some ideas.

http://scalefirehouse.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=buildup&action=display&thread=1115930957

If you have any other questions, I would be happy to answer them.

Black may not be a high visibility color but I agree it is a good look. I particularly like the Peterbilt pumper/tankers from Mt Horeb fire department in what they call "safety black" you might have to dig around a bit to find them but its worth it.

Cool link Aaron. A lot of interesting paint schemes. The black trucks were particularly cool.

I have this kit but have not built it yet, I have built the pumper. Lizardquig has done a pretty good build up of this kit but I don't recall where he posted it, he will probably be along soon enough and can point it out to you. Basically the kit does build up nice but has a number of issues that need to be dealt with making it a poor choice for someone who doesn't like to fix stuff in kits.

As far as colors, there is always the slime green that came out in this era, another popular option I find rather elegant is white with a red or blue stripe. Really though fire engines come in many colors other than red and slime green. Here is a site that might help there are all kinds of colors including black, green, blue even purple and pink fire apparatus, maybe you will find something you like.

http://www.youngstownfire.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=d4d6d65b1905b15527a58186d763f929