Thursday 8 November 2012

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

31 comments:

  1. That is sweet. I love scratched built stuff. I build a wheel in 28mm scale before and it's not easy to make all the planks line up. May try your technique if I ever come to this again.:)

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  2. Excellent very realistic achievement of this catapult Paul .
    Cheers

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  3. Nice Paul - Aero-modellers 'dope' can sometimes help pull the strings 'tight'.

    Hugh

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    1. Thanks Hugh
      The "ropes" go tight when there´s a weight attached. The probelm is the weight in the pics is a copper washer and quite heavy which, when it was raised up pulled the crane up at the back. I´m going to build another (now I know some of the ways around making different bits) and fix it down to a base and have a permanent weight attached to the lifting arm...and use softer thread for the ropes.

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  4. Looks great Paul, keep up the good work!

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  5. Great model, love the fact it really works. I might have go at the 28mm version version after seeing this one.

    Regards,
    Matt

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  6. Wonderful and unusual!
    Phil.

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  7. As always you amaze with a great engine. Weldone

    Ian

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  8. That's some awesome bit of scratch work!

    Christopher

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  9. You're being too hard on yourself Paul, this turned out very well. Brilliant idea with the foam.

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  10. Well done paul, the fact that it works is an awsome little feature. now you can pick up the annoying bods and leave them there as pinyatas

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  11. You did that on your own?? I look it in awe... :)

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    1. Thanks
      Yep, all my own effort..unless you count the gnomes that live in the garden. Mind you, at this time of year they tend to be unreliable..especially with winter coming on, something to do with them being busy collecting moss to line thier burrows. :-D

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  12. That's nifty - love that it's a working model.

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  13. Nifty work, Paul. As Gowan notes, the fact that it works is pretty ace!

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  14. Great stuff, you can't tell it's scratch-built.

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  15. wow very impressive work paul.

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  16. Awesome crane Paul!
    Your scratch-builds are epic as always.
    I think Orion do a 1/72 medieval crane (I may be wrong) In their siege engines set (Part 2)

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    1. Thanks :-D
      The thing in the set looks like a crane but it´s a tonnelon..(little barrel) and is used for heaving troops up on the wall like this;
      http://paulsbods.blogspot.com/2012/07/tonnelon-scratchbuilt.html
      Cheers
      paul

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  17. Excellent work Paul! Another fine piece for your medieval army!

    Greetings
    Peter
    http://peterscave.blogspot.be/

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