3D Printed Crane finished!

Sometimes you just have to take a moment and look in wonder! Yesterdays view was stunning, but no finding that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow even though it looked just a few hundred yards from my vantage point!

 

Maybe if I had a crane I could lift myself to the end! And talking of cranes, despite the continued mess in the reorganisation of the Man Cave, I did manage to finish the 3D printed crane! First off was to colour in the bricks of the plinth using my various coloured pencils.

Then the crane was treated to a wash of Citadel's Nulin oil which I had found during my reorganisation!

Once that was dry it was time for some rust and dust weathering powders to be applied with a soft brush to both the crane and plinth.

Once that was done the plinth and crane were treated to a coat of matt varnish. After that I just highlighted some of the edges of the crane with a dry brushing of gunmetal grey which just makes the detail stand out a bit more. I think it looks good!

Cabling up!

Getting back to some actual model making and picking up on the 3D printed crane, things have moved on. Having already made a hook I needed to attach that to the crane with a cable. Now you can use cotton or a thread of some kind as the cable but they tend to curl and not look very realistic. Not great seeing your supposed heavy hook being curled upwards by the cable! So , my plan involved real cable - electrical cable!

Some scrap cable was found and a suitable length cut off. The plastic sheathing was sliced off revealing the several strands of thin wire.

From the bundle of wires a single strand was extracted and putting against the crane looked right.

Carefully winding the strand of wire around the winding drum required patience as it needed threading through the cranes structure as well!

I was going to cover the whole drum width but after 40 minutes I had enough! There was sufficient cable on the drum and enough left to attach the hook to. I had also primed the plinth that I had previously made ready to be painted up.

With some spots of superglue to hold the cable in place the cable was taken over the pully at the end of the jib and the hook now hangs nice and vertical! It all needs weathering and griming up now but that is a job for another day!

 

That Doh momen!

Mrs. Woody thought she was in for some leisurely walking through nature when I suggested going to Stapleford Park near Melton Mowbray. It wasn't until we were close that I added that it was Stapleford Park Miniature Railway we were going to! It was a great trip out and I have to go through the many photos I took so will report on that tomorrow but here is a taster or three!

It wasn't just railways though....

Back in the World of 3D printed cranes I have made a hook! This will be attached to the crane by means of  either some thin wire or stretched plastic sprue. It is small so this close up picture makes it look some what awkward. However once attached and painted it will be almost un-noticed.

Looking through the pile of other 3D printed goodies I pulled out the 009 gauge engine shed. It comes complete with windows and doors but the roof is left up to the builder to create. Thats good with me. 

I thought that I would do a detailed truss construction to support the roof which could be admired by looking into the shed. I started cutting strips of plastic card to construct the trusses from when for no other reason then curiosity I opened the attached bag of bits to look at the windows and doors. I also found two highly detailed trusses! It was then that the Homer Simpson Doh moment came about! Doh! 

They fit great too!

Now what do I do with all those scale 12 inch by 3 inch roofing timers?

Swing motion!

With the 3D printed diesel loco complete I am back to the 3D print crane which had been primed with a grey undercoat when I last posted about it on the blog. That undercoat was then given a red top coat. There are details to paint but the main colour is red so the details can be brush painted later. In the meantime I needed to build a small plinth on which the crane can stand and also allowing it to have that swing motion. Some scrap Wills brick sheet was a handy source for the walls.

The walls were cut from the sheet and a base added from some handy scrap plastic sheet to the square they formed. The crane had some plkastic rod added to the hole on the underside which is a fit into the bigger plastic rod located under the middle of the base.

This photo of it temporarily posed on the layout probably explains the theory better than my words!

Still detailing to do but it looks the business and will be posable with that swing motion!

Time for a crane!

Cranes are always useful. You can use them to lift all manner of heavy items such as vehicles, crates or Mrs. Woody's latest internet shopping delivery! However WMD HQ does not have that many cranes and certainly not strong enough for the internet shopping lift but I do have one in stock for my 009 gauge layout Chalkdon. This is a 3D print that I picked up at the same time as the 3D printed diesel that I am building at the moment. That particular model has been matt varnished so whilst it dries I have started work on the crane.

This is what I got for £4 which is in my view excellent value.

Being a 3D print it needs some tiding up and that round and less than flat base needs to come off. My plan is to mount it on a small brick plinth and located it near the wharf on the layout reaching across the siding and over the water. That hole in the base should provide a pivot point for some rod so that the crane can be moved and posed.

3D prints can come in all sorts of plastic. This one is particularly hard so I used a saw to remove the bulk of the base and then sanded it smooth.

With some sanding to the other parts the crane is ready for an undercoat of paint - in this case Vallejo light grey as I think that the final top coat will be red or blue.

Some airbrushing saw the crane undercoated which needs to dry ready for top coat.

Now I better go and move Mrs. W's latest delivery into the house - wish I had a crane!