After scouring the net and receiving several awesome books on the German National Rail system that operated on the Eastern Front, I decided to add a Coaling Crane to my scene.

Trouble is that the only one available is a resin kit from CMK. It is large and fancy with a house and from the pics I have seen, lacks some fundamental details.

So I set out to create my own. Based on the experience I gained while working on several real life projects of old machinery, the design took shape. I went at this project as if a rail station contacted Shickel Corporation to fabricate a crane for them. So, in the mindset of an engineer in the early 1930's somewhere between Germany and Russia, I set out to design a hand operated, 2 Metric Ton Fixed Jib Hoist with a 360 degree traverse.

Here is the drawing:




I was going to wait until I got the rigging on before taking pics, but perhaps there are some pointers you guys can share before I go to the trouble of loading the drum.

Here is a run down of materials used:

Boxwood for the timbers
Brass shim stock, .005, .010, .015, and .020"
Brass rod, all sorts of diameters
Steel wire for the standing rigging
Nylon and Acetyl gears, machined to scale from SDP
Dental stone for the base.
Scale Hardware Simulated nuts and bolts and rivets.

Some notes on the build.

I added Railroad ballast to the dental stone to give the concrete some texture when I damage the base.

The Brass plates on the base had anchors soldered to them and were cast in place with the base (pretty cool I thought, it really is stuck in there!!)

The entire thing will work until I nail it down when the scene is finished. Right now, the gearing isn't tied down so that I can take it all apart for painting.

The Standing rigging on top is a bit loose, but when you load the boom, it tightens quite nicely.

I have made a RTV mold for the bearings for this and need to cast 17 of them for this, they will be added as I cast them.










Anyway, let me know what you think

I'll definately tell you what I think. One word. AWESOME!!!!!!! Real quality work.

Hi Ted,

Really excellent work. I've been looking at cranes for my dio and will probably end up going with the CMK one.

Don't have your skill to make my own.

Very nice indeed.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Al

It´ll take two words to tell you what I think ... Really awesome (sorry Charles!!!)
Joking aside .. the quality of your details are excellent. I have the MIG harbour/rail crane at home, and this is as good as. Great work Ted.

wow

Thanks for the kind words folks. High praise indeed.

Very nice engineering and metal work going there Ted, very nice.

Fantastic work Ted! What size do these cranes scale out to, I'm thinking of making my own.

Awesome work! I think you may end up with the exact same parts count as the full-size crane :-)

"Precision" immediately comes to mind when viewing these pics. My hat is off to Ted's skill in this build.

Steve