Working in HO Scale and wondering what folks use for realistic size fire hose for truck loads and for working fires.
floral wire that the florists use to hold plant stems together works very well. It’s easy to bend and stays in place once it’s bent…chuck
One of the barnacles that attached itself to the good ship Tomikawa Maru is a length of salvage phone wire, about 22 gauge, with grungy off-white insulation that looks just like canvas-jacket fire hose. I’m reserving it for the Tomikawa Fire Department’s exclusive use. (The matching orange-red insulated wire has been stripped, chopped up and used to make rail-joint jumpers.)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in 1:80 scale)
I am using yellow coated stranded wire for the hose that pumps out my quarry. For real fire hose, some of which would be collapsed, I would experment with gray knitters yarn and white glue for stifener.
Please post pics of what you end up with, for we are all learning this stuff together.
A friend of mine uses waxed dress shoe strings painted buff white to simulate fire hoses.
Hi There;
I used solder painted tan. You can form the solder so it lays like a real hose.
Tom
I use solder too. Comes in a variety of thicknesses, easy to find a suitable one - works very well for this purpose, and you always want to have some spare solder in your toolbox.
I third the solder idea. It’s easy to paint, bend, and glue and can be used for both hose on an engine and hose laying everywhere at a fire scene. Cheap and, like steamnut said, you can never have too much solder on a layout.
Tom-> I like the guy calmly walking into the bar while the place next store is burning down![(-D]
For fire hoses that are not in use, I’ve flattened solder with a round file, rolling it over the solder. This leaves a pattern on the solder that looks like the canvas hoses are (or were) made from.
Hi There;
Maurice; if you look close you’ll notice that nobody has left the bar. This is a tough part of town!![(-D]
Tom
Some depends on your era. Older hoser were a sort of light gray, cloth coated. Hand lines were usually 1 1/2", supply lines 2 1/2", both came in 50’ lengths. Some trucks, especially in cities had small hose reels with 1" red or black rubber hose rolled up on them. 6" diameter, 10’ long black rubber (stiff) hoses for drafting from a water source. Somewhere in the 60’s they started using synthetic coatings, I’ve used red, yellow and seen green hose, probably other colors too. 4" supply lines from water source to attack truck became common, ours was red, next town had yellow. Modern era could use 6" as newer trucks are capable of pumping greater volumes of water. Of course they are all subjected to getting dirty, so colors need a good wash to age them. If you are showing couplings every 50’, the old ones were brass or chrome, newer ones are a type of plastic, usually a dark gray.
For loaded hose, it is all flattened (except the stiff black stuff), could use construction paper folded in a long accordian fashion as you are only looking down on the side of it.
Yep.
Also modern LDH (4" and up) usually comes in 100 lengths. Hard suction also comes in clear now. (It makes it easy for the novice pump operators to know when the prime is complete and it’s light, just don’t use it on a pressured hydrant or the ends will slide out.)
I think it’s cool that so many model fire scenes on their layouts.
Karl
Thin solder also makes good down spouts with the “S” curve at the top and the bend at the bottom.
Lots of replies seem to be from people in the business, which is great. One thing I will point out is that there are exceptions to just about every rule. For instance, most departments have LDH in 100’ lengths with aluminum quarter turn couplings. Our 5" LDH has couplings are made by Snap-Tite, but there are other brands. I do know of departments that went with screw couplings on the LDH and also departments that went with 50’ lengths, because the 100’ lengths are pretty heavy to lift. Of course, they had to spend more oney since they had to buy twice the number of couplings. If you have the money, the manufacturers will do almost anything. I have seen fire apparatus in just about every color in the rainbow and even black. Usually aluminum couplings on LDH won’t be painted. In areas with multiple small departments, couplings on 3" diameter and smaller hose often was painted for 2 reasons. First to identify it’s owner and second, sometimes different screw threads were used. If a engine from a neighboring department brought you a line to hook into your pumper, you needed to know if an adapter was needed to get connect it. Thankfully, at least for LDH that is no longer a problem.
Tom-> regarding the patrons staying in the bar next door, I have seen it happen!
Having been a fire protection engineer for a paper company for over 30 years ( Retired) and a former member of NFPA 13 Automatic Sprinklers ( Discharge committee) and I have seen a lot of big fires during my career.
As a result, I have added a lot of fire protection scenes on my 1910 era logging RR. I have used mostly solder to represent fire hose but I have also used small diameter hookup wire. The time line for my sawmill has my mill burning down sometime in the future ( About 1930) as a result of any one of the many fire hazards I have designed into my Logging Co. These include:
Non standard fire walls.
Poorly maintained dry pipe sprinkler Valves.
Partially sprinklered flammable liquid sheds.
Atrocious house keeping. ( Which, like weathering, I love to model)
My fire water mains take suction from my wood chip infested log pond using steam fire pumps for suction.
I have based my sprinkler system designs and equipment on old drawings from the FM Global Insurance archives. These include hand wheel operated post indicator sprinkler sectional valves. I have a woods fire train with a steam fire pump on skids along with other fire fighting equipment such as wheeled soda acid extinguishers and hose carts.
I have really enjoyed creating these scenes which I find are seldom modeled.
Peter Smith, Memphis