September - Building the pulleys
The crane and the two sheaves will need at least 40 pulleys. The pulleys are made with black sheet styrene from Evergreen Scale Models. Hole saws are used to cut out the disks. After the disks are cut out, I chuck them between washers on a bolt, and put them in the drill press. They are then sanded, while spinning in the drill press. Then two of the larger disks and one smaller one are glued together. Again, a bolt with two nuts are washers are used as a clamp, until the glue dries.
Cutting the disks
Clamping the pulleys
August - Starting the crane
The innitial inspiration for the crane that will be located at
the Carolina Inland Port, is the one that was originally built by
Combustion Engineering at Chattanooga. The crane is now used by
Alstom to load turbine rotors onto barges on the Tennessee River.
The first view of the crane show a feature of Google maps, that is
no longer available. It shows a measurement on the map, of a
little over 50 feet between the two trusses.
I was not happy with what I had built. It would be very hard to
hide the wires and motors that are needed for animation..
Overhead crane at Chattanooga
Overhead crane at Chattanooga
Initial crane build
Before I started builing the crane, I created a set of drawing in November and December of 2011, to get a better understand the scale.
Original drawing of the crane
