New Trucks

 Last year I was asked to donate a home made fire truck for the annual John Cowell curling bonspiel and I was very honored to do so. Once again they asked if I would like another one, I was happy to do so, but I thought I'd make two this year as I was setting up to make one. These trucks are made from many different spices of wood. I used purple heart, walnut, mahogany, lace wood, zebra wood, birch, oak, clear maple, birdseye maple and rock maple. There are 107 pieces in each truck, 95 are visible and 12 you can't see, because they are hardwood pieces used as pins to hold the lights, siren and mounting brackets for the ladders and hard suction hoses. A few are made of several pieces and then reshaped, such as the fenders and engine block. All are hand made, turned on a lathe and/or hand sanded, milled from rough stock or previously milled material. It usually takes about a week to make one. I finished them off with poly to highlight the natural beauty of the wood and to protect them. Here are a few pictures of how it went and the finished trucks.

The new trucks.

One side view.

The other side.

How they started.

The factory floor.

Some assembly and finish applied.

58th John Cowell Curling Bonspiel Fire Truck

 I was asked to donate one of my fire trucks to the annual (59th) John Cowell Curling Bonspiel, as I enjoy working wood and it's been a while since I made one the decision was easy. I used several types of wood such as maple, Birdseye maple, oak, mahogany, walnut, lacewood, and purple heart. Like the other trucks I made, all but a couple of the parts are hand made, either on a small lathe, hand sanded to size, even the little pegs I used to hold the lights in place, about 110 pieces. Here are a couple of pictures of my latest creation. 

Fire Truck for my Uncle

This new truck was made for my Uncle Norbert, it still has the same basic design, I have to work on that. It is mostly birdseye maple, the tires are were from an old loom I did some repair work on, the ladder rails are walnut, the tool boxes are zebra wood and the dash and engine cover divider are bloodwood. And like my other work all parts are handmade.

Fire Trucks

Here are the Fire Trucks I made for friends and family. They are made from Oak and Maple, (curly and birdseye). The first few were made as initially recommended, such as using wooden dowels for certain parts and commercial buttons, except for the tires, they were all handmade. Later on all aspects of the trucks were handmade and tediously sanded, a very relaxing and enjoyable process, not to mention rewarding. I'm not done making them and will always improve and make changes. None were done in order of importance just done as I went.

For Sylvain Gauthier - Jan 2007

For Dave Stone - Feb 2007

For Connor Logan - Apr 2007

For Howard Wining - Jul 2008

For Roger Gosteau - Oct 2008

For Allan Rau - Feb 2008

For Yvon Roy - Feb 2008

For Steve Tucker - Apr 2009

For John Cornelius Sep 2009

For Ben Peetz - Jan 2010

For Bruce Paradis - Jan 2010