1/25 6 Axle Lattice Crane

[SmallHaul]

Awesome work! You have tremendous talent and patience.

[9W Monighan]

Yea, I forgot about this build. I see you've graduated into boom building like me. On my boom I used a piece of all-thread to hold my center distance on the base.

[Jared]

Looks awesome! That jig is genius! When I get around to building another crane I'll definitely have to use your idea. My jig was a 2x4 with small nails sticking out 1/4" to hold things in place. It worked but I wasn't exactly thrilled with the results.

[SonoranWraith]

Awesome work to get that boom done. May have been tedious but the result is certainly worth it.

[Southgate]

Thank you, gent's!

Hey, Sonoran... Enjoying 70 degree weather? You did catch a goodly dose of that cold spell, didn't ya? Not that I'd wish it on anyone, but they had snow in SF!

[Stuff]

wow that thing is a monster!! very nice work! dunno how i missed this thread but im glad i found it!

[Southgate]

I've been quietly working away at this thing, here are some updates. Long story short, I rather rebuilt the motor mounting setup in the upper unit, and rearranged a number of other things in there. I added another drum, and electronic speed control, and cleaned up a lot of the cluttered look.

Teardown


The new motors and drum are behaving nicely. While in there, I relocated the main power switch that turns all the RC circuits and motor supply power on. Before doing this, I had to remove one or the other side panels to access the switch, that gets old. So I decided to hide the switch in plain sight, where it's real easy to get to. It's mounted high on the back of the unit.


Here's with the body cabinet in place. Note the turned aluminum thingy there...


And with a newly made air intake mounted to the switch, you simply slide the intake forward or aft to turn it on or off.


A month or so ago,I went to work on the cosmetics for a change of pace, here's how the carrier's cab is coming along.


This was another long story. I accidently stepped on this cab with an audible crunch. (and some other audible utterings we won't go into) But it was repairable. All the pieces were cut from .060 sheet styrene on the vertical mill. The window openings were channeled from the inside to make the "glass" closer to flush mounted. The partially assembled cab sitting there is for the upper unit. No new progress on it.


OK, I'll post this and continue in another reply to keep from over posting pictures.

[Southgate]

Continuing from the last post...

With the new "whipline" drum added to the upper unit, the other end of the boom needed some attention. Some lugs were added to the tip of the boom. These were turned from brass and fastened with silver bearing solder, which was also used as a filler arount the pieces, filed to shape to look like fabricated steel.


This boom tip extension, also refered to as a horse head (I didn't make that up, read it somewhere) was fabricated from brass sheet, barstock, and tubing, with aluminum sheaves. I did this just Friday, a cold day outdoors, and I have a cold. Nice way to spend a day and evening indoors.


In the back of a 1/25 F-350


Note how the 2 hooks are separated by a nice amount of space...


Another recent improvement was replacing the original plastic sheaves in the reeving with turned solid aluminum ones. The plastic ones were made from HO model train wheels thinned down and laminated together. It worked pretty well, but was a bit of a weak point.


That black one is an original, made before I acquired a lathe.


The live mast was changed to a more modern look, removing all the cross brace clutter and adding a simpler crossmember design. They are not soldered in, but are merely trapped in place loose. This allows the live mast to twist more freely, assisting in equalizing the pendants.

Old


New


I was hoping to have most of this work and some more done by this weekend, to take to a big model show in Portland Saturday, but I've been sick with a cold all week, just didn't have the energy to go anyway. But I'm happy to say things are progressing along on this project, both with new items being added, and other things being improved on. Dan

[Jared]

Looking good! What's this show in Portland? Not that I'll be able to go anyway, but still curious.

[kerst]

You have been bus! Looks really nice!

Kerst

[Southgate]

Originally Posted by Jared

Looking good! What's this show in Portland? Not that I'll be able to go anyway, but still curious.

It's an NNL function. Model cars and trucks, not usually a lot of trucks. I've been going about every other year or so.

[JensR]

That switch is ingenious!
The whole thing is a beauty - I did 1:24 scale display models (cars and trucks) - I can only marvel at your skills!
BTW, as you indicated that space is a premium (isn't it always?! #sigh#), your receiver looks quite big. You should be able to get a smaller one - unless I am fooled by the rather unfamiliar scale for me!

[dirtpusher9]

Great work, I'm ready to see this thing make a lift. I like the single part line.

[9W Monighan]

I would need more powerful glasses to see and do that work on the horse head. 1/25th has got to be hard to deal with. It's nice to have a lathe to make those tiny sheaves Eh? Very ingenious way of attaching the little wire guards on the sheaves too.

[Southgate]

It's been a while since I posted any new progress, since I usually give the indoor hobbies the summer off. But I did get in the mood to bonk on some steel, and made a front bumper from 3/8x1" steel bar.
Welded it thusly:



Then ground a contour in the lower edge of it. Then recesses were milled into it for mounting purposes, plus a step for the driver to get in the cab.


Then it was mounted.


Now attention could be given to the deck and such. Sheet styrene was used to fill in the rest of the deck. Since it has a big steel bumper, I decided magnets could be used to hold the deck down, and make for easy removal. Theyre the dark gray items


The grills were made from some venting holes on an old DVD player that was discarded. This engine hood has since been moved back some (still working on that). Note that there is a lifted section in the middle of the deck behind the engine. That is the counterweight lifting mechanism, in it's raised position. It lifts the counterweights so that the upper unit can swing in under them. Then the platform lowers, setting them on the upper.


The headlights are just drawn on with a pen for now, they'll be replaced with scale model ones.

Other progress not visible on camera includes getting a 6 channel transmitter on eBay for a song, and getting it dialed in, replacing the need for the 2 radios I was using to run the upper unit. Also, the boom attaching pins were corroding and making it very hard to move them, so I made all new ones fron stainless steel. A few other adjustments were done in the lifting platform, now everything is working smoothly. I'm exited to be moving forward on this again, and I'll be focusing on the cosmetic scale aspect of it, cabs, deck, etc. I'll be posting as new progress is made. Thanks for looking. Dan

[xilence]

Wow, that is an awesome built.
Unfortunately you don't see this much on the dutch forums.
Keep up the good work.

[Jared]

Whoa! A 16V71 in the carrier? That thing should be able to burn rubber! It's looking great; looking forward to more!

[rc_farmer]

Don't know how i missed this one!!!!, but I'm glad i found it fantastic job.....this is an amazing build!

[Espeefan]

Wow! I'm glad you are still going strong on this project! It's been a while since I first saw it, and you've made some incredible progress! The boom looks awesome, but so does everything else on this build. I'm amazed at what you've been able to accomplish. How do you like your Sherline mill? I bit the bullet and bought myself a Sieg SX2 clone and look forward to getting the bugs worked out of it soon, so I can start making some chips as well. I looked at Sherline mills but they just seemed a little on the small side. With the trouble I'm having getting my mill trammed properly, it makes me wish I would have seen the Sherline 2000, as tramming that would be a cake walk! Anyway, great work. Keep the updates coming.

[Southgate]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Jared, The 16v was the only engine I could find that looked proportional, except some super expensive resin models that I haven't seen in person. I thought the twin turbos would add a look of even more power. This carrier would probably weigh in at around 70 tons without the upper unit, around 140 with it, not including the counterweights. Truckin' that down the road is gonna take some serious power! Counterweights add up to 78 tons, always transported on tractor trailers over the road. (These figures based on 1/1 Link Belt crane transportation weight charts for a comperable sized crane)

The model, by the way, weighs in at around 32 lbs, when set up with all boom sections and counterweights.

Nathan, I bought my Sherline 2000 because of it's alleged versatility before I really knew anything about it. It has proven to be beyond my imagination for what it can do, especially as small as it is. Since it is a small machine you have to work steel slowly, just give it time to feed and cut shallow passes. But it will do the job. Aluminum and plastics are a snap. Being able to tilt the head makes it capable of cutting angles that would normally require a tilt table. The cool thing about the 2000 over other Sherlines is it has a far greater workpiece size capacity, since it has such a deep throat. And when the throat still isn't deep enough? Offset the head laterally so that the workpiece doesn't have to pass throuth the throat.

Another use for this feature is when I had to mill some off the baseplate but didn't want to dissassemble the whole unit. Note in the picture below, all the mechanism is on the baseplate, up side down.


If anyone's interested, here's a link to my photobucket with pictures of the crane's progress from the very beginning. Many of the ideas and components seen here have been omproved on and scrapped. That crude boom was only for test purposes. Most however, give an idea as to how the pieces were made and how the project evolved. The most recent are at the top, getting older as you go down.
http://s343.photobucket.com/albums/o...pix/?start=all

I still have a long way to go, but now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.