I don’t need a gantry crane for my layout, but I needed a break from working on my layout. I wanted to do some modeling, so I decided to build a gantry crane, the obvious choice, isn’t it? . A while ago I saw this pic of an old gantry crane http://www.gingerb.com/CNJ%20Wilkes-Barr...201968.jpg and ever since I wanted to build something like that. For first attempt I wanted to use styrene to build the crane. I started with doing a drawing for the legs of the crane.



Next I glued a printout to a .020" sheet of styrene, cut the sides of the leg out and assembled the leg. It looked like that.



To tell the truth, I did not really enjoy doing this leg and it did not look good enough. And besides, after working a lot with styrene for the structures of my layout, this was not the new challenge I was after. So I decided to try to build the crane from brass. I have only done some detail parts from brass so far, not a whole structure. So this would be a completely new experience.

I did some some shopping and got these brass wires and profiles.



From the left to the right: .020" and .035" wires, .040" u-shaped profile, .060" and .080" T profiles, .200" x .120" and .400" x .160" I profiles.

For cutting and grinding I use a dremel with a thin fibre cutting disc.

I started with cutting two pieces of the .200" x .120" I-shaped profile and glued them to my drawing to fix the in the right position. Now I could solder all the braces to the two big girders. After some cutting, grinding, soldering and filing, it looked like this.



Compared to the plastic leg, I though the score was 1:0 for brass.

After the first leg went alright, I wanted to see if I could do the railing of the walkway on top of the crane using .020" and .035" wires. Again I did a little drawing and fixed the wires to the the paper for soldering.



I still had some etched n-scale bridge railings from when I was into modeling N, and I thought it might be a good walkway.



Started to look like a gantry crane.



To make it easy to fix the walkway to cross girder, I drilled holes for the supports of the walkway.

Kurt,
Your modeling skills and abilities continue to amaze me . Curious as to where you would place this on the Miami layout?

Bruce

Now it was time to build the second leg. Went much quicker than the first one. Still has to be cut to length, filed and sanded.



For the rails on top of the beams I used my .040 U profile. This pic also shows that I changed the walkway. I made it a little narrower. The first version looked too wide when attached to the beam.

Thank you, Bruce. The crane will not be placed my Miami layout. As I said in my first post, it is a kind of distraction I needed from building my layout.

Now it was time to solder the legs and the cross girders together. I thought a while about how to align and fix the legs in a perfectly parallel and upright position for soldering. I came up with this jig that I made from .120" cardboard. This should do the trick. Now I only had to put some cardboard strips between the girders to press them to the legs.



I was quite nervous about soldering the legs and the girders together. If I’d fail to do it right, the whole project would go down the drain.

HOLY SMOKES Kurt!! That is absolutely freaking awesome work!!! Man you do some amazing beautiful work Kurt, i look forward to seeing some more!

Fortunately, it did not get close to the drain!





While the soldering iron was still hot, I added the braces from the legs to the cross girders.



Now it took some filing and grinding to remove excessive solder.

Josh, my friend, thank you for your kind comment.

To give the LPBs access to the walkway, there has to be a ladder. The pic shows how I fixed the .020" and .035" wires for soldering.



After sooooome filing the ladder was ready to be attached to the crane.

Here is the last pic for now. The bridge of the crane is almost finished.

Great work Kurt

Since you are not going to use it, you could always send it to me

Absolutely spectacular! I love watching you build things, you give such good step-by-step pictures that is as fun to see it being built as to see the finished product! Can't wait to see more of your wonderful progress!

Man....I envy you guys that work in brass.
Makes me wish I was that talented.

Bravo!

Smile,
Stein

Fan-freaking-tastic!!