Chris's Ohio Crane model complete

[crueby]

Hi all,
This model has been underway since last October, and its now complete! It is of an Ohio Locomotive Crane Company 20 ton crane, intended for use in factory settings. It is a self-propelled rail crane, with a single two-cylinder double-acting steam engine driving all the crane functions: travel, slew, boom tilt, and hoist cable. The engine runs in just one direction at all times, and they got forward/reverse movement on each output shaft through the use of two cone clutches on each shaft either side of a bevel gear- engaging one moved it in one direction, engaging the other moved it in the other direction. Here is a page from the company catalog, which also shows an optional steam shovel boom. Other options included clamshell buckets, drag line buckets, and a second winding drum.

Here are some pictures of the model:








Here you can see some of the clutches. On the slew gear shaft at the front of the turntable, there is a cone clutch either side of the horizontal bevel gear, each clutch drum has a smaller bevel gear attached to it.  The gears on the right in the photo bring power from the engine to the horizontal shafts, and depending which clutch is engaged, the vertical output shaft gets turned in one direction or the other. The hoist drum shaft up above just has one clutch, with a brake band on the drum for lowering.

Here is the operator station, with four hand levers and one brake pedal. These levers control the travel, slew, hoist, and derrick (boom tilt) functions. Forward on the lever engages one clutch, back on the lever engages the other clutch on the same shaft. In the middle, both clutches are disengaged. Each lever has a latching handgrip that locks the lever in position against a quadrant at its base.

Another view of the operator station, plus the engine. There is one cylinder on each side, driving a common crankshaft.



There is a full build thread over in the Your Own Design subforum. Thanks for looking in!

[Michael S.]

A really well-made model of a railway crane.
On to a new project...

Michael

[Vixen]

Hello Chris,

That's another magnificent feat of model engineering; and once again built in record time.   

Mike

[steam guy willy]

A really lovely looking engine and very inspiring to see what can be achieved within the home workshop. Thanks for sharing this project with us and looking forwards to your next build. 

Willy

[wagnmkr]

Yet another excellant job Chris. Pretty soon you will need to make your house bigger for all these wonderful models.  Oh wait! ...  You just did that!  Maybe you could rent them out!

 

Tom

[Admiral_dk]

Another Magnificent build and Log - thank you Very much for sharing the Journey with us (I learned something new - again) 

Best wishes

Per         

[Zephyrin]

magnificent model that works very well, and built so rapidly, amazing ! 
great too to see most of the gears.
you just have to measure the seconds spend to elevate a weight for a given height to known the power done by the winch !

[crueby]

Thanks very much everyone! It was a really fun project! The clutches really added a fun new skill/technique, always nice to have something new in each project.

Zephyrin, interesting idea - so far the heaviest weight was about 3 pounds, at about two inches per second. What would the math be to figure out the milli-horsepower, or elf-power, whatever the units are?   

[tvoght]

It's fantastic Chris. I wish I could say I had savored every post, but the fact is I just can't keep up (and I'm a pretty fast reader). I'm looking forward to what comes next.


3 pounds is 1.36 kg, so with the acceleration of gravity beings 9.8 m/sec^2, about 13.3 newtons are being exerted.
2 inches is about .05 meters, so we are talking about .66 joules work.
That work being done in 2 seconds comes out to about .33 watts.
At 746 watts per horsepower, that's about .0004 horsepower.
Please check my work,
--Tim

[EricB]

Way Cool!

 

[Don1966]

Chris as usual your projects are learnable and magnificent at the same time. Truly work of art.


 
Don

[crueby]

It's fantastic Chris. I wish I could say I had savored every post, but the fact is I just can't keep up (and I'm a pretty fast reader). I'm looking forward to what comes next.


3 pounds is 1.36 kg, so with the acceleration of gravity beings 9.8 m/sec^2, about 13.3 newtons are being exerted.
2 inches is about .05 meters, so we are talking about .66 joules work.
That work being done in 2 seconds comes out to about .33 watts.
At 746 watts per horsepower, that's about .0004 horsepower.
Please check my work,
--Tim

So 4 millihorsepower?  Tiny horse!     i haven't  tried it yet with more weight, am sure it will lift a lot more but don't want to  break anything!

[crueby]

Thanks  guys!!

[mklotz]

...
3 pounds is 1.36 kg, so with the acceleration of gravity beings 9.8 m/sec^2, about 13.3 newtons are being exerted.
2 inches is about .05 meters, so we are talking about .66 joules work.
That work being done in 2 seconds comes out to about .33 watts.
At 746 watts per horsepower, that's about .0004 horsepower.
Please check my work,
--Tim

Looks good to me and thanks for doing the work in metric, that HP nod to inferial units notwithstanding.

[redhouseluv]

Yay! What a truly massive achievement - amazing, the work which has gone into this is incredible 

[bent]

Beautiful.  Congrats on the build, Chris, it's been a pleasure to watch this come together!

[Kim]

As everyone has said, awesome work, Chris!  Beautifully done!    

Take the rest of the afternoon off and play with your new toy. Then let us know what the next project is tomorrow. We'll all be waiting!

Kim

[crueby]

Thanks  everyone!  Been outside much of the afternoon,  great weather (they predicted nasty storms, so its warm and sunny!)  I'll  reveal the next build, and a few others on the build list, tomorrow...

[ozzie46]

Well blow mw down, here I was all primed for more installments!!

Absolutely astounding achievement.  Very well done sir Hats off to you sir

(Where is the hats off emoji when you need it)

Ron

[crueby]

Well blow mw down, here I was all primed for more installments!!

Absolutely astounding achievement.  Very well done sir Hats off to you sir

(Where is the hats off emoji when you need it)

Ron

Many thanks Ron!   

[propforward]

Add me to the list of stunned onlookers. Honestly I’ve run out of ways to give kudos Chris. It’s breathtaking really. You must be well happy with the outcome. I’m happy if I make a bushing that fits.

[RReid]

Another unique and interesting model extremely well executed. Congratulations Chris! Looking forward to what comes next.

[PaulR]

That looks fantastic Chris, proper craftsmanship.

[Jasonb]

Very nicely done. I've been quietly dipping into the build thread but did I miss whether you are going to paint this or leave it as is which I think shows off the amount of work a lot better?

[Charles Lamont]

Another amazing piece of model making.

[Roger B]

Splendid as ever     

The metallic clutches seem to work well   

[gbritnell]

Hi Chris, I can only echo what everyone else has said. I have always been amazed by your work but more so with the machines you use. Congratulations on another outstanding build!

[ShopShoe]

Wonderful!

I like the way this turned out and I enjoyed every post put up during the build.

Just another word.....  I enjoy your projects that take on lots of examples from our industrial past.

And I enjoy them more when I see what you can do with the Sherline equipment.

Thank You for sharing everything.

ShopShoe

[crueby]

Thanks very much everyone! It was a really fun project, and am continuing having fun playing with it. Jason, this one will be left unpainted, I like the look as it is.

As for the next project, been giving that a lot of thought. The shop elves have been back in their lab seeing what they can invent:

I'm not sure what that one is (they are not sure either!) so I went back to my list of possible builds. The top six on the current list are:

One each of the different design slew/crowd engines I have design for, from these brand steam shovels: Thew, Erie, Marion, and Bucyrus. They are all similar, but have different arrangements for the valving and crankshafts:


Another option is the Worthington Brewery Pump, a duplex pump variation that they made for breweries to pump beer between vats/kettles during the brewing process. The shop elves wanted to insist on this one, but I distracted them with a box of shiny bearings and they missed the final vote!   

An engine that I drew up quite a while back was drawn from original Navy plans I found at the US National Archives, for the steering engine from the battleship Kearsarge. It would be a large engine, especially with all the other linkages/wheels, but they would not have to be there in the model. The gear train on this one is quite complex.

Recently I drew up this engine, a 7 cylinder steam radial with double acting cylinders. I have two versions of it, one with normal D valves that would run in one direction, the other has the 4-port/double layer slide valves like those in the slew/crowd steam shovel engines, which can be run in either direction with a second set of pipes and a control valve. This one would be quite fun!

Another one on the list was inspired by my cruise on the Liberty Ship in Baltimore not long ago, they had a flock of steam deck winches that look interesting. I found this design in an old patent from American Hoist And Derrick, and drew it up in CAD:

Finally there is this one, my own version of a steam steering engine. A couple years ago I built one based on the real one that Michael has, salvaged from a paddle steamer in Germany, that he very kindly supplied many pictures, measurements, drawings, and videos of. That one had the option for manual backup steering, and was a fairly complex design. This one that I have drawn recently is a more simplified design, based on ones used in Navy torpedo boats. It does not have a manual steering backup or a rudder position indicator (those were seperate items on those boats), and I've drawn it to use the 4-port slew/crowd engine valves so it also does not have piston valves. Its a nice compact model, the base is 6 inches on a side, with 1"x1" bore/stroke cylinders.

And the winner is.... The steering engine! Steering engines have intrigued me since I first saw one at the antique engine show at Mystic Seaport Museum, then built the one from Michaels original engine. There are many styles and sizes of them, and the feedback mechanism in them reminds me a lot of the radio-control servos, but are all mechanical rather than electronic. So, this build will start in a new thread today or tomorrow!   
Thanks all for your comments/suggestions/jokes along the way on the crane build!   

[Jo]

Its fantastic Chris 

Jo

[Kim]

Excellent choice, Chris! 

Of course, any of them would have been an excellent choice!

But I'm curious, which steering engine?  You listed two engines - the one from the Kearsarge, and the smaller one you designed based on the Navy torpedo boats.  Either will make a marvelous model.

Looking forward to your new build, whichever it is!

Kim

[crueby]

Excellent choice, Chris! 

Of course, any of them would have been an excellent choice!

But I'm curious, which steering engine?  You listed two engines - the one from the Kearsarge, and the smaller one you designed based on the Navy torpedo boats.  Either will make a marvelous model.

Looking forward to your new build, whichever it is!

Kim

Ah - you are right!  I will build the smaller torpedo boat style this time.   

[Kim]