Fantastic pieces of work you’ve got there, really nicely finished and superbly presented. You’ve certainly got a lot of plastic to get through on that railway build! Best of luck with it.
Welcome to the crew. Very nice work indeed. My hat is off to you
Might have to buy some glue by the case haha
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Yep semi-hibernation’s definitely conducive (I come from the UK) but not so much where I live now, the current burning issue’s how to photograph in daylight without the models melting into a Dali-esque diorama landscape. See how the sun’s got to me, when I said “well into my 3rd year” I meant well into my 4th year. So….kits or base first? 
Thanks for the greetings
My geographical latitude is north 59.40, east 17.94
just as far south as Klukwan.
The winter darkness is approaching here as well but the Gulf stream
keeps us warm and cosy
I think my plan will be knock of few small kits out without paint and get a idea on how big the diorama base will need to be then get the wood and foam out and get a rough base done… then I like to start jumping around. I like to spend some time building in-between paint drying on other models. I can only do one thing for so long before I need a break so I find if I build for a few days then I can work on a base for a few days then jump into some paint then I will be ready to go back to building again. It my seem crazy to some builders but I like to have all stages started so I can always have something that I feel like working on ready to be worked. That keeps me from getting burned out. Or some days if something not going the way I like I can just drop it and pick something else up and keep moving forward. If I can always see progress I keep moving forward for the most part.
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Nice work Captain!
I started my 1st rail car today and opened a new tread for it here if you guys feel like following .
Thanks
I am thinking about my new diorama. My plan is to build a rail road on a water front dock. I ran across this picture that I liked and looking for any more information or pics of these old dock cranes? Any help would be great.
They look fairly easy to scratch build for the most part but I would love to find a better picture of them to scale off the picture. I order this 3 ton crane that looks like it might work to go inside the dock crane I hope. ! I am trying to figure out if they have a operator seat and a door or if they were operated from the ground somehow. Anyone have have any ideas?
Most or maybe all of the mechanical stuff seems to be hidden inside that “turret”
so a stick for the boom and some wires would be enough. Save the 3-ton crane for another project.
The tricky part is to build the turret, the pedestal, the wheeled undercarriage and the tracks
I found this little steam powered railroad crane.
The “stick”: My guess is that it is a latticework boom covered with sheet metal to keep the rain and salt away from the structural parts. Should be easy to manufacture.
The turret: Some internal structure, maybe some cog-wheels and two drums of wire (boom lift and wire to the hook) semi-visible through the small windows. Sheet styrene to cover it. Operators position with a seat (maybe) and some maneouvre sticks, one for boom up/down, one for hook up/down and one for turret swing. If there is a seat the swing could be controlled by pedals
Some inspiration:
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It looks like this 3 Ton crane is about haft the size of the crane in the top photo I am looking at. I might just end up using the kit to measure and scale it up to the size in the picture then the base and cart it sits on will be easy to scratch build.
Thanks thats a pretty good idea Robin thanks for the info. I know why there’s probably not many pics of those cranes is they couldn’t have worked very good without tipping over haha. Or they were very low lifting capacity. I hate to say it but this is not going to be to much of a historical crane build as the crane will probably not be a huge point of interest in the diorama.
Well this has my attention for sure. I am a sucker for a good scratch built diorama please make sure to tag me in any post you do about this because I really want to follow it thank you so much
I started it’s own topic so you can follow my build here. Thanks
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