Hi all. Thanks a lot to everyone for the friendly comments.
I also find it very interesting that there are so many grader builds at the moment. When I started, I couldn´t find any reference whatsoever to RC graders on the web, and now there are plenty of them. The first one I noticed was a 1:8 O&K F 206 which has been running on the German fairs for the last 5 years. There was even an incredibly detailed, fully functioning O&K F 206 in 1:24
featured in a magazin last year.
@ mpe + JensR
Why stainless?: Well, I could hardly have said it better than Jens did.
Why 1:8?: I want to be able to build working details to scale and in the Volvo graders you have in particular this steam engine-like circle turn mechanism with a control valve which even in 1:8 will probably be on the limit of what´s feasible - it has to fit in a dia. 8 mm cylindrical housing just 15 mm high. Another reason is that I dream of doing some semi-serious playing like levelling the gravel in the yard and clearing the snow (it doesn´t snow that much here).
I use the TurboCAD Pro v.11 software. Quite happy with that, except for the rendering functions. You can tweak on almost every aspect of that program, and that´s probably why I haven´t found out yet how to make really good renderings. The default light doesn´t seem that useful to me. Maybe that has been improved now, they being already at v.18.
The +30 functions include a couple of individually controlled lights, sound and additional implements like a side snow wing. I just consulted my old list of functions and saw that 2 float valves are included, but I think they where intended for the snow wing, but, of course, I would like that for the main lift as well. By the way, yesterday I met one of the guys involved in the design and testing of the Veroma valves, and he claimed you can get them with an integrated float position intended for tractors with a plow. I´m not sure I understood him correctly, because, as far as I understand it, if float is integrated as one position of the valve it has to be either near the closed position or at one (or both) end(s) and I didn´t ask which is the case. In any case you could have some unwanted behaviour when operating the valve, so I´m not sure this valve would be useful in the grader. Moreover, I couldn´t find any reference to such a valve in the Veroma shop.
@ Madda
I´ll build the cylinders and said circle turn control valve myself. Soon (in my standards
) to start that.
This is the original circle turn control valve. Behind the hose coupling is the 100 mm ruler. (As Jens once was the first to notice, I used magnetic strips for reference. Very convinient. But I really miss that I didn´t include sub-divisions on the rulers
).
These are pictures of the lasered parts
Stefan