Here is a shovel that I've been compiling information on for about 15yrs now. The Marion model 5561. This model was the first to use the; "Knee Action Crowd" eliminating the stress on the boom as stripping shovels evolved to larger CY capacity. There were a total of 17 of this model built in the 1940's-50's The capacity of the bucket ranges from 35cy to 45cy. Hanna Coal Co. now Consol Energy owned 4 of these machines: The Tiger, The Green Hornet, The Groundhog,& The Wasp. These were the predecessors to the giant super strippers that followed in the late 50's to the mid 60's Hanna Coal owned; The Mountaineer,Gem Of Egypt,And the last operating super stripper in the world,The Silver Spade. All of these type of machines are all gone now. The Spade was cut up about 3yrs ago.
I've been contemplating trying to figure out how to build a working scale model of this early giant. I have several photos a parts book and operators manual that I've been studying and still not sure what scale to built to. According to my calculations if I went with 1/16th like my 9W Dragline, the overall height to the boom point will be approximately 90'' tall
Looking over the drawings the biggest hurdle looks to be the 8 crawler units it rides on. I count 64 gears alone in the driveline from the center pin. I may resort to having some castings made on the crawler units since it may take hundreds of hours to just machine the crawler links. This build may never materialize but I'm going to pursue my design work till I'm sure I can pull this one off.
The machine I'll be focusing towards is the one with the solid boom. This was their first; the "A" shovel named ; "The Tiger"
