Seat reupolstered by Iron Paddock

The seat was destroyed. Years and years of neglect and exposure had ate away and left it in tatters.

I (John) have a close friend that went to school for upholstery and came back to Ukiah and opened up his own shop called Iron Paddock. So I took the tattered seat to him and asked his opinion on what to do. Drew said that he would be happy to repair the seat, but it wouldn't look exactly like the original. There was too much damage to do an exact replica. Since we were going to be changing the look a bit anyway we decided to add red stitching and the Eagle Fire Co logo to it.

A few weeks went by and Drew kept me up to date with how the seat was coming along. Everytime I saw the progress I was blown away at how great it looked and the attention to detail that he was putting into the project. Drew has been interested in the entire project and was excited to hear that we were attempting to get the engine started and down for the local car show. Since he knew that we were aiming to unveil the project at the car show he made our seat a priority to be finished to be on the engine at the show.

The new seat got delivered just in time for the car show.

I have to say that the seat exceeded all of our expectations. It is a beautiful piece and something that everyone in the department is proud to have on top of the engine. It has also given us a glimpse at what we can turn this project into if we put the time and effort into restoring it.

Drew Wallace and the seat on 1R.

Upon delivery Drew broke the news to us that he was donating the seat to the project. This was a great gift to us as we were expecting to pay for the work that he put into it and our budget is extremely limited after getting the radiator repaired.

We are hoping that others will be as interested (and hopefully as generous) as Drew was with 1R. It's going to take lots of resources, hands and luck to get this ol' gal back in shape to dance again.


(Iron Paddock is located at 116 Orr Springs Rd. and Drew Wallace can be contacted at (707) 489-3868.) 

Going a little out of order

So I have more to catch everyone up on, but I thought that this was important enough to put out of chronological order.

We got a little publicity today. The local paper, The Ukiah Daily Journal, did a story on how we are attempting to bring 1R back to life. You can find the story at 1R Story.

My son and I at the Ukiah Car Show...more to come on that later.

As soon as I get a little time we will start filling in some of the blanks as far as our story. With a little luck we will also be able to put some of the history of 1R up if those that know are willing to share it.

Getting started

The Ukiah Fire Department has a 1923 American LaFrance fire engine that has been non-operational for about the last 20 or so years. No body really seems to know. That will be a theme here, tracking down some of the history while we try to bring her back to life.

Mike and Bruce as we got 1R backed into the station.

The engine has sat in the corner of our station for most of the almost ten years that I've been working here. About a year ago an engineer that I work with, Mike Stewart, started to talk about putting some time and effort into turning our old 1923 LaFrance. The department has always, at least that I can remember, called this piece 1R. Nothing really happened for a while, other than we started talking about it more and more. Then Mike found a place that might be able to rebuild the radiator. Rumor had it that all the engine needed was for the radiator repaired in order for it to be running again. That got the ball rolling and Mike requested that our department association pay for the radiator repair out of our restoration fund. Hopefully this will motivate all of us to put some elbow grease and time into this piece and bring this piece of history back to the Eagle Fire Company.