Hi, I like to publish some pictures of one of my current projects, an Akerman H14b (~30 tons) excavator in scale 1:Tamiya. I am a bit nostalgic concerning the look of the 70's & 80's machines, which I find more interesting than the current 'wind tunnel optimized' machines of to day
I mainly use aluminium and steel, and put it together useing screws and Loctite 330 'heavy duty' glue. The hydraulics will be from Premacon, but cylinders will be of own production. Will run at 20-22 bar pressure. The shape of the Akerman boom/dipper and under carrige is a bit 'tricky' to re-produce, but I like to make it pretty scale true on the exterior, so I just will put in the extra hours concerning both production and planning. I use a 2D/3D CAD software to create the drawings. Did create the 'machine house' during August 2012, and now has continued work on the machine in the start of 2014.
The Akerman company of Sweden produced excavators from the late 30's to the late 90's when the current owner, VME group (Volvo) from 1991, shut down the production. The VME group purchased the Samsung excavator factory in South Korea instead, at a good price after the financial crises in Asia in the late 90's, and started development of the current Volvo EC series.
Akerman had a large marked share in Northern Europe and the machines where rather advanced for their time periode. They were mainly constructed to have a high capasity regarding moving rocks/heavy material, at low cost/ton, with their rather robuste construction and 'oversized' Volvo Penta Industrial engines. The hydraulic system was said not to be perfectly intended for 'fine leveling' concerning the earlier models. In 1981 Akerman purchased the Hein-Werner excavator plant in Wisconsin US, and several hundred machines were produced there until Volvo took over, and shut down the production.
The last 2-3 years Volvo put their logo on the machines, and the H14 was during the 90's renamed EC300. Many of the newer models from the 90's are still in daily operation, and the older models are popular among farmers. A local company have both a 16 ton and a 40 ton machine from the 80's in operation, both close to 30.000 hours)