Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Smittie's Overhead Hoist

One of the things I felt Smittie should have in his salvage yard was an overhead hoist so that he could move large/heavy items to/from rail cars and other vehicles.  As usual, I turned to my large stash of magazines for pictures of idea and inspiration.  I found these:





These were enough to get me going.  Other than general dimensions I really had no idea what the hoist would look like when completed.  I had no solid plan - I was just going to start building and see where I land.  One goal I had for this project was to use what I already had on hand.  I wanted to see if I could force my creative juices by NOT buying any specific supplies for this project.


I started by grabbing an older boxcar's base.




I then cut out the center section.






And then glued the 2 ends together.







I then gave it a spray of brown paint and glued the trucks on.  I glued the trucks because they would not need the ability to turn and it saved me from figuring out how to screw them together.








Next I grabbed some of the left-over timbers from Smittie's Engine Shed project, cut to length, and glued to form a platform.






You may have noticed the hole in the platform.  There is a corresponding hole in the base between the trucks.  This hole is for the pass through of the hoist's lift cable (more on this later).  

Note:  For my gluing purposes I generally use 1 of 2: super glue or wallpaper seam adhesive   I will use the superglue for metal items and the seam adhesive for wood.  I like the seam adhesive because it works like regular white glue, dries very quickly, and is water resistant once dry.  


In order to actually lift things I needed some type of motor.  I dug around my parts bin and found these items.  Two belong to a HO scale saw mill and the other from a clock.




A little superglue and paint results in this:






So far, so good.  Now time to start the structure.  First I needed to build the hoist/car platform.










  

Time to put some rails on.








Let's set it up for a test run and see how things are looking.







So far, so good.  We need to keep it from rolling off the end.  I glued a section of rail to either end.




Add some corner bracing to keep it from crashing down.




The rolling platform will be moved back-and-forth via chains and a motor on either end.




















To aid in moving the hoist platform back-and-forth I glued a chain to either end of the platform and let the ends hang over the sides.







Needing some way to pull the chains to move the platform I glued a 'motor' onto either end and will let the chain hang over that and attach via a sprocket which is too small to see.



I grabbed some kind of scrap metal stuff - engine pipes I guess - and made an electrical conduit to drive the motors.  I gave it some paint before gluing it in place.








I decided to build some walking platforms.

















Back to the lift mechanism itself.  The chain hanging down from the hoist chain will need a hook of some kind.  I found this item in the parts I had left over from my crane build.  For size reference I added a picture of it with an item of known size - a paper clip.




I had to drill a small hole in the top end of the hook which to glue the chain into.









Add a little paint...



I then glued the chain to the hoist assembly and then glued the hoist assembly to the platform.






And a few pictures of it in place. Well, temporarily in place.  I will get it a permanent place later.







For fun I added a few more items to the scene and took these pictures.