Ok I have done all the little assembly stuff, but I am wondering if there are any suggestions on final assembly. There are a lot of pieces that all have to fit together and get screwed into place, almost like I am going to need like 10 hands or something. So I am looking for veteran builders with any tricks for this build.
Thanks
Mike
Here’s a few tips. rebuild the cab section. with styrene and window clear plastic. the athearn cab isn’t really prototype for an Ohio crane.
Always fit the pieces together and see how they fit snuggly before glueing it together. (I like to use MEK methyl ethyl ketone.) It comes in a quart metal can from lowes or home depot and will last ten years. I apply it with a needle bottle from micro mark. Try not to get a lot of it on you because it’s known to cause cancer if you use it alot.
If you need extra hands, a lot of us will use aligator clips on sliding arms like the ones that come with the magnifying glass from micro mark. Clothes pins can also be used if you invert the wood pieces so that the flat sides are together to form a clamp. another great trick is to hold parts with double sided tape stuck to a wood block. i use that method the most. Double sided tape holds parts really well for that extra hand.
Also, if there are grab irons and parts that fit to the model with dowels into holes, always take a pin vice and drill them out to the next biggest size. It will save you a lot of aggrevation when the part breaks from forcing it into a hole that isn’t big enough to accept the part.
here’s pictures of a crane i kitbashed that i got for $2.00 at a garage sale. The cab and rigging are all scratch built from styrene.
Thanks chuck. I am not building any ohio prototype so a general crane will do. To be honest I am a little scared of scratch building. See I like what other people have built but I tend to over think things. For instance, I have the short nose and cab of an rs unit. I thought it would be cool to do a little critter thing. Well I ordered a set of c-630 3 axel trucks the other day because the 2 axel I had looked too small. I also thought of making it a center cab thing but the other end I chopped was not right and I have no idea where to start to make rounded corners like that. + how do you get rid of seams. So anyway thats where I stand with scratchbuilding. If I ever get decent I still am going to build an rs snowplow conversion.
Mike
I built the Athearn 200 ton crane car back a few years ago. I was putting together a wreck train. Other than rigging the boom with black thread, I don’t remember anything especially tricky about it, compared to any other Athearn blue box kit. As far as the rigging, if you keep the thread until just a bit of tension, it won’t pop off the sheaves. It is possible to do it with only two hands and ten fingers, but it may take you a while to master the feel of the job.
You can improve the finished model’s appearance substantially by glazing the windows. I used bits of clear plastic cut from a super marker muffin carton for the last set of windows I glazed. You can also pick out the safety appliances (grabs & ladders) and the big hook with bright safety yellow .
Rounding corners is a slow process but it can be done. Take some block styrene (balsa and bass wood work ok too.) and whittle a rough curve into it. Then sand the dickens out of it with a 150 grit then an 800 grit sand paper until it’s the curved shape you want. Keep checking the progress of the curves by matching it to the surface you’re going to glue it to. Once it’s the way you want it, glue it in place and that’s where squadon putty comes in.
For seams, gaps, and voided areas use squadron putty. (most hobby shops carry squadron putty.) Squeeze some onto the tip of a hobby knife and fill the gap. Sand it smooth once the putty dries.
The cranes are fairly easy to build. As was noted the rigging can by a bit tricky but do-able.I have done several of them over the years and the only things that stand out is the roof hatch sometimes needs to be trimmed and the cab assembly does not like to turn very freely on the base unless some minor weaking is done.
As far as scratch building goes…you have to start somewhere. Start with something easy and experiment. don’t try to build the whole project in one sitting. Break the project down into sub assemblies. The best advise I can give for doing shaping work came from an old custom car guy I once knew. He had a car with a realy cool looking custom aluminum rear view mirror. When i asked him how he built it, he replied: Start with a hunk of material and sand away everything that does not look like a rear view mirror.
Rounded corners are easy. In the following picture I rounded these corners with roughly a 3/16" radius.
If you were to look inside the shell you would see the side panels attached to the roof there is a square of styrene to back it up. The following illustration might show it better. The dotted line circle is the area that was sanded away to make the rounded edge. You can see how the material removed makes its way into the square.
Thanks for the advice guys. I finished the crane today, well the assembly is done. All I have to do now is detail paint things and weather it so it does not look like it just rolled off the factory assembly line. I am going to take a break from it for a couple days as my eyes are crossed trying to do the darn rigging. It was a pain in the north side of a donkey going south.
The rigging is not too bad,
a couple of tips;
coat the first inch of the thread with a light touch of super glue, it will stiffen the thread to a needle like tool for easy threading thru.
a couple of self closing tweasers are a very helpful as weights to maintain tension on thread as you feed it thru the various blocks.
Now this was a rigging job I did in N scale.
