Best Of Scratchbuilding a Container crane, Finished incl. night shot

[engineshop]

The biggest part of my layout will be a harbor scene. I reserved the front part of the layout for two container cranes (plus a container ship) and started to gather information to scratchbuild the cranes. Searching the web I found hundreds of pictures and finally stitched together an overall drawing. the scale will be 1:200 which looks massive enough (see drawing of a container as a reference).
The design is based on the newest Kalmar crane already in use in Antwerp, Holland.

It will be build with Plastruct pieces, mostly made of ABS since it is more durable than Styrene. It will not be a working crane, but all the pieces like boom, trolley and spreader will be movable by hand, or at least that is my plan.

I still have to work out some problems, like what type of yarn or similar to use for the cables to make them look like steel cables, or find really small rollers for the trolley.

So far I have identified almost 90 individual pieces and did some successful mock up assembly on the pillar - boom connection to see if I can make them swingable but there is still more work to do before I can start cutting the pieces.

[James Costello]

Wow....can't wait to see the end result!

Looks like it'll be a good challenge! Good Luck!

[John]

Bernie Kempinski had some drawings of cranes in Baltimore .. I believe they were in N Scale a few years ago

[wm3798]

It's easy to draw the ones in Baltimore... they never do anything but stand there... sort of like a nude model. ;D

Lee

[engineshop]

I build a test crane (not to scale) to check my idea of how to glue the pieces together and if I can make a small hinge for the boom.
I am still trying other solutions for the hinge but it works.





I ordered all the plastic pieces from Plastruct while still trying to find nice, fine mesh for the walkways.

It looks like I have to fill pillars with lead to keep the whole crane from tipping over.

[nscalesteve]

while still trying to find nice, fine mesh for the walkways.

is this maybe something you could use... ?

http://www.ndetail.de/bausatz-riffelblech-wellblech.html

[engineshop]

Thanks Steve

Great products but "Vorauskasse" which is a nightmare here in the US. When will Europe, incl. Switzerland discover online shopping carts or at least PayPal.

[ndetail]

Hi
I found this discussion in our server logs and jump in, if you dot mind...
We are the Ndetail manufacturer and we actually do accept Paypal right now. We offer our products via Ebay as well. We served several customers in the US and in almost every European country. I take this discussion as a hint to place the Paypal Logo prominently onto the pages.

We prepare a completely translated page, but this takes a while, you may use the automatic translation (bottom of the page) in the meantime. The only backdraft are the shipping costs of 10 Euros ($13) which will be zero of you order for at least 100 Euro ($130)

We exist for only one year now, and we are looking for business in the US, so if you could recommend any retailers we could talk to, we would really apprechiate that and try to find a more convenient way to ship to US customers.

As this discussion is about a Container Crane, you may find this interesting:
http://www.ndetail.de/bausatz-container-20-fuss.html  and this preview on a model that we offer later this year:
http://www.ndetail.de/bausatz-reachstacker.html
It will be available as plain kit, as a version prepared for lighting and as a version ready to roll o the Faller Car System, including motor, steering, everything.

A friend is curretly working on a very similar project:
http://www.kazmedia.de/bahn/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=gleisbau;action=display;num=1163715897
And we are looking to develop more models around this theme.
Best regards from Germany, Stefan

[Zox]

You might try spray-painted chiffon for the walkways. It worked pretty well as chain-link fence for me:



The paint coating renders it stiff enough to act "rigid" for short spans (under an inch), though not stiff enough to be structural. Then again, real mesh floors aren't structural either--the painted chiffon is at least as rigid "in scale" as the real thing. If you have prototypically accurate support for the walkway, it should be more than enough for the chiffon.

[engineshop]

I got the package from Plastruct and started the cutting process. I have 21 legal size drawing sheets with measurement like this one.



I only cut 4 columns (1.) and 8 beams (2.) and already had to realize that my measurements were off. I am just a 2D guy trying to figure out a 3D object.

A related topic I want to mention is the responds I got from Ndetail.

Hallo Roland

We recognized that many US modelers like the model, I have read the forum messages in the railwire forum forum .

We try to find a easy way to send our models across the ocean, but it takes a while to get in contact with the dealers, so we really appreciate it when you give them a hint.

The price for the reachstacker will not be $80, as we will have various versions:
    - Stainless steel kit, same as all the other kits that we have. This model will be the cheapest, but no mobile parts.
    - Advanced kit with some ready built pivots, so that you can at least adjust the grabber.
    - Kit ready for lighting
    - Kit including parts for car system, so that it can actually drive on all car systems.

The dummy models will be the first ones available.

You may have realized that a write "we" as we are a team of two N-enthusiasts.

As we are alway looking for interesting things to create models and kits of, perhaps you have some suggestions

    Best regards, Stefan

[engineshop]

I found nice brass mesch on e-bay that works great for my plattforms. This is just a quick test piece to test my design idea.

[engineshop]

I made some minor (slow) progress. I had to scrap the idea of making the boom movable (folding). I would have needed thicker pieces which I did not want since the overall picture should look very fragile.

Most of the time I measure hundred times before I cut the pieces which takes a lot of time.
Those are the pieces that make up the pillar. I don't glue them together yet, since I still have pull the wires for the lights and red blinkers.



I use round tubing to connect the pieces, which gives me the possibility to put the crane together without gluing it right away.





It looks not only wobbly it actually is, but to check the measurements it is stable enough.

[engineshop]

After a few weeks of figuring out how to install light, I have been working a little bit more on my crane. This is the inside of the pillar with mini LEDs that would illuminate the work area where containers are loaded and unloaded from the Ottawa trucks.



The front boom is now almost finished except for railings on the outside perimeter. I found really nice looking photo etched railing, but they are very thin and bend easily. I used a lot of glue to keep them in place and hope paint will cover most of that. The wire connects to the red flashing light in the front of the boom but I am still figuring out to add more lights to light up the gangway. Luckily the LEDs don't need much Wattage and I can use a 9V battery stowed in the machine room on top of the crane for all the lights. No wires go to the layout which lets me move the crane around without hiding the wires.

[SirTainly]

Roland, that is looking amazing...and the working lights too..wow! 

[engineshop]

A few days off and I made some progress on my crane.
I started to assemble the back boom. This is a little bit more difficult than the front since all the wires for the lights and blinkers go through the pieces into the machine house to the 9V battery.