Toy Excavator

[garylmast]

I made this for my grandson, but my brother wants it to display in his office. He just added a real one to his construction equipment inventory.

[ChrisInEstes]

Wow... Beautiful! That's a ton of work! That should go in the next Vectric newsletter.

Thanks for posting that,
Chris

[rsetina]

I agree. How many hours of work went into the making of it?

[ohiococonut]

That's really neat. I like it!

[armbrusterco]

Love it. Did you design it yourself?

[garylmast]

This was a fun project. I designed and drew up all the vectors in Aspire which turned out to be 2-D project, using 4/4 alder. I saved the vectors in an adobe illustrator file that I attached if anybody is interested. Open in up in a 48" x 48" sheet. Everything is to scale, but you can use the Set Size tool or Measure tool if you need to double check the dimension of the part. It should be fairly simple to figure which part goes where.

[galerdude]

That is really well done, like it a lot!
And the excellent file you graciously shared is appreciated! Thank You!

[bill_w]

hi Gary,
I work for a large Corp. that makes mining equipment and I
have to tell you your machine looks very good.
Well done.

[garylmast]

Hi Bill,
I used to own a large equipment rental company that specialized in contractor and DIY homeowners before I sold out years ago. I had the biggest tool box in Utah. Now I have to settle for a bunch of wood toys I build using the valuable software Vectric offers. Thanks for the compliment. Gary

[zeeway]

I want one...

Angie

[dhellew2]

Great Job!
How did you do the track? Is it all one piece or does it move?
Dale

[garylmast]

How did you do the track? Is it all one piece or does it move?
Dale

Dale, the track is one piece. On a crane I did a couple of years ago, I started making individual track pads, drilling and pinning them together using brads. Ugly doesn't describe what it looked like and it didn't rotate very good. In fact, trying to rotate it, broke loose the pad through the nail holes, so I went to the one piece design. How it is designed, once the track rail is put together, it will slide into the track and can be glued at each end wheel and the bottom roller wheels.
Gary

[bill_w]

hi Gary,
This crane looks great the lattice boom looks
fantastic excellent work I like it.

Bill

[dhellew2]

Gary, thanks for the reply. Below you will find photos of track cleats I made a long time ago and have not used yet.

I would make a few changes next time.
By edge gluing pieces of wood together I could rout a bead along both end-grain edges instead of sanding them later.
Another would be to cut the cross grain cuts first on the cleat and track guides so they don't split off at the corners.
I cut one side then flipped the part over, using guide pins for alignment.

In the following photo the shim to the left positions the first part, the one in the center spaces the two parts, and the right one keeps the part parallel to the metal block.

The sections are pinned together with a paperclip held in place with one drop of super glue on one end. The holes are drilled with a 1/16" bit which leaves ample clearance for the paperclip.

Dale

[garylmast]

Dale, those pads turned out a lot better than the ones I tried. I went back to see how thick I made them and by looking at your picture, it appears you used a thicker material. I used 5/32 and it looks like you used closer to 1/4". I think I will try your approach on my next "tracked" vehicle. Thanks for the suggestion.