Medieval Crane (Scratchbuilt)

As far as I know there aren´t any medieval cranes of this type in 1/7nd scale. There´s a small crane (and a lovely model it is too)  from Fredericus-rex but no big ones with the "Mousewheel" on the back.
So...if you want one and you can´t find it...make it :-D

The lifting arm I made a bit smaller than designs I´ve seen on the web. Wether this would effect the balance I´m not sure, but it seemed more logical to have the arm almost directly opposite the longer arm which winds the rope up.

No more heavy lifting for this bod. The ropes (left and right) from the supports to the lifting arm are to stop the arm falling forawrds.

It works :-D The wheel at the top of the arm is made from two small washers and a piece of biro tube (the bit with the ink)

The bolts are made using the heads from pins.

The most complicated bit of construction was the "mousewheel" The outer rims are made from 3 layers of card (Cereal box) and the runners from coffee stirrers. The problem was glueing each runner to both (or even one) of the outer rims, getting it square and in place at the same time.
I tried several methods...luck being one of them until I came up with this;

A piece of insulating foam with parallel  slots cut at the right distance,  Easy eh?
I´m not 100% pleased with the outcome of this crane. The result is a bit more "live and learn" and there´s a couple of bits I would now do differently ..for example, it´s missing a brake for the "mousewheel"  but it will do until I´ve got time to build another.

Hello to Maverick Jones from Kiron Games blog