Fire Engines

My friends were impressed by the notion that our train’s carriages could be hooked together and towed around. It failed, however, in that each woodworker could only take home a single carriage; they had nothing to tow. At the end of the train project, and experiencing a flush of overconfidence, I asked staff for inspiration. They requested a fire engine.

Here is a fire engine that tows a hose reel on a trailer.

These things begin in my head, then grow in an interaction between drawings, capabilities of tools and available scraps. Inspiration for the ladder is my friends’ love of banging bits of dowel into holes. I wanted to include a bell because tinkle is nice noise. The face arose from a long internalised joke that wooden buttons covering holes in wood give the wood eyes to look back at makers. Combining these notions into a four wheeled vehicle led to a body of complicated shape. It defied efficient batch production. Oh well.

Eventual assembly of the pieces was enormously rewarding. The face with button eyes and biscuit mouth had been in my imagination for years. This volunteer work with my friends is a magical chance to give ideas the status of existence.