The Fire Truck

One of the latest projects I completed was the fire truck. This was a request from my wife. It is made out of cherry, maple and birch. The plans are found in Making Heirloom Toys. It was not an easy vehicle to make. In fact I would put it harder than the fairy boat. It is probably due to the fact that I did not have the correct tools. It would have been nice to have a band saw and a lathe on this project. The hose coils were the most challenging to do because I did not have a lathe. I ended up using a router to cut grooves and then chucked it in a drill press to sand the radii.


The fire truck does come with an extension ladder. It is actually pretty cool if it worked. The instructions say to use friction washers. These worked for about a day and then compression set in and it can not hold up its own weight any more. Other than that it is a pretty neat feature. If I build another one I would probably use threaded rod and acorn nuts to assemble the ladder. This way I could tighten it as needed.
The truck is made out of solid wood so it is very heavy. It will actually be fun to see my son play with this toy when he is old enough.