03-28-2009, 04:43 PM
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.
![[Image: crane_leg.jpg]](http://www.cnw.mattheydesign.de/crane_leg.jpg)
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.
![[Image: crane1.jpg]](http://www.cnw.mattheydesign.de/crane1.jpg)
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.
. 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.
Kurt