BJ George - Built-Rite Fire Department

For Fire Engine and Emergency Vehicle Friday we have this nice paper fire station from B.J. George. This model was designed using my photos of the Built-Rite No.56-5 Fire Station and is about half the size of the original. You'll notice as you look through the photos that I'm not the world's greatest modeler and rushing through these projects didn't help much either, but I've been wanting to post these for years now and just haven't gotten around to it so when I did start it was a rush to get things finished. At the last moment I decided to put a floor in this structure and open up the doors so that fire engines could go inside, but it also needs a ramp for the trucks to drive up onto. That'll be a project for another day - or year :-)  Hope you - Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

You can see the cardboard floor attached to the inside of the building

The portion of the upper roof that juts down to meet the flat roof must be trimmed to fit

Here it's shown with a Kellogg's Corn Flakes Fire Engine premium from 1957

Train Time - Lionel #258 Steam Locomotive

Here's a nice Pre-war steam engine from Lionel. I always loved the looks of these toy locomotives. Nothing says 'toy' quite like those big glass bulb sticking out of the front of the boiler. These photos were taken years ago before adopting the 'take a photo from every angle possible' routine so there's not that many views to choose from. Still, I hope you like this set of pics.  Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina 

Marx De Havilland DH 106 Comet 1 - Olive Drab HP

Marx liked to make toys based on the latest technology of the day, whether it be concept cars or developmental aircraft, or simply the most updated tech. The De Havilland DH 106 Comet fit the bill nicely. It was the first production jet airliner in the world making its debut in 1952 and Marx introduced their version in 1953 in their #3832 Airport Set. You'll notice in the photos that the plane has rather squared-off windows. Those windows would give the Comet grief in the mid-'50s with a series of highly publicized crashes. It was determined the squared-off corners were causing metal fatigue allowing cracks to appear on the fuselage skin causing the plane to break up in mid-flight. De Havilland's Comet sales never fully recovered from the disasters but the redesigned Comet 2 and 3 versions ended up serving more than 30 years.

BOAC Comet 1 at Entebbe Airport, Uganda in 1952

Courtesy Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet

One unusual feature is the ring at the tail of the plane. Marx put these rings on a number of toy airplanes. Some speculate they were to be use as Christmas tree ornaments??? Personally I don't buy that theory. I think it was just a means for a youngster to hang his collection of toy airplanes from the ceiling  or wherever. 

Another unusual feature of the toy is the Air Force Star-&-Bar insignia on the wings. The Comet never entered into United States military service! Were there perhaps rumblings in the aeronautics industry back in the day leading the people at Marx to believe the Comet's would be purchased for Air Force use? We may never know. The plane measures 4 7/8" (12.38cm) L x 6" (15.24cm) wingspan x 1 3/8" (3.49cm) H

Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

BJ George - Built-Rite Downtown Grocery Building-

I've managed to carve out some time to work on long awaited projects so here's another nice paper building from BJ George. Based on the Built-Rite Business Block, he' taken one wall of that structure and turned it into its own free-standing building. BJ includes bases on many of his buildings but being kind of set in my ways, I prefer to cut the bases off and brace all the interiors with stripwood. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Here it's shown with a small Kellogg's cereal premium fire engine for comparison, and...

 ...with another project to be featured at a later date