I plan to include a scene of the Diversion Channel construction on my ever growing Zalma Branch layout. The Frisco provided a lot of support for the project and while searching through many photos online I came across a very cool looking dredger that was photographed near the Cato Slough which is right along the old right of way. What caught my eye about this particular machine was the double set of tracks used for propulsion (most others had wheels and rolled along temporary rails). I just happened to have two Jordan Miniatures steam crane and steam shovel kits and this project became feasable. Here are photos of the progress so far.
Thanks. I still have a lot to do but this has been a very fun project. I have to thank Sirfoldalot for one of the Jordan kits. Today I'll make the crane boom and fashion a drag bucket and begin to add the little details. I also have a lot of cypress stumps to make.
Tonight I added the boom and reluctantly had to scratchbuild the dragline bucket. Talk about a time consuming pain in the butt! After looking at photos of the early style buckets I made one using thin sheet styrene. It's not perfect but it sure looks the part. Tomorrow I'll rig up all the lines which may prove to be the toughest part of all. Thanks for checking it out.
Nice Work!!! Looks great. That drag line bucket looks so realistic! I love the rusty-look and it actually looks like the pieces were welded together great work!!!
Wow, great looking dragline bucket! I remember an industry meeting we had years ago in the "Bone Valley" phosphate fields east of Tampa. We had about 50 people there - took a group photo of all of us standing in one of the phosphate dragline buckets! And there was room for more folks. That dragline was huge! It was too big for tracked treads - the thing had multiple foot pads. They moved it by walking it. Ken
Just for some grins Google: "GEM of Egypt" and "Silver Spade." Those were the two huge strip mining shovels in Ohio. Talk about monsters... Tom
Jim, Your weathering and scratch building skills are inspiring. Great views as well on the shovel!! It is interesting to see how many guys it took, to keep that thing running. Just great modeling skills. Thanks for sharing your work with us. Tom Holley
Tom - Those are power shovels, impressive! Huge as they are, the big draglines used in phosphate ore mining have much bigger buckets, and are bigger machines. Do a search on "phosphate dragline" where several pictures are posted, including a few showing groups of people standing in a bucket. These things are monsters, yet the ones I saw in action were operated by two men - one in the cab, the other working in, on and around the machinery to make sure all is well. Ken
Wow! Awe inspiring! Top notch detail. Great work. Jim, what do you use to weather the rust. That looks so realistic it isn't even funny. Keeping an eye on this build. I have a picture of a freight car that does the same thing and I'm going to model that. Thanks for sharing. Wow! What a way to wake up in the morning with a good hot cup of inspiration!
Jim, that is a great looking drag bucket. I have seen a couple and had a chance to work one a couple of minutes. The DLS-06 or maybe the 02 had one of those on it. In Springfield they used to have a Lime Pond and we cleaned it out sometimes. The DL-920 had one also, but while I was assigned to it, I never had an occasion to use it. I do know that some time in the late 70's a car of Lead turned over on the Lead line, and they cleaned it up with the drag bucket. Great likeness. William Jackson
Thanks gentlemen! Tom, those mining shovels are truely epic. Bill, I watched some YouTube videos on dragline bucket action and it looks like a guy has to have a knack for it. I have a hard enough time running a backhoe.
It was respectfully brought to my attention that my first attempt at modeling a dragline bucket proved to be anatomically incorrect. Haste makes waste. So tonight I built a more correct version. Here's some photos for comparison. I'll use the first version as a background detail someday. Once again this forum has proved to be a valuable modeling tool. Thanks.
Whew! I got the bucket rigged but it was a royal pain in the......bucket. I added the top masts (toothpicks) and the gear/drum/wheel thing that pulls the drag line. This little jewel of a project is turning out better than I expected and a heck of a lot of fun. Still more details to add but I like to share photos of the progress. I wonder how the Frisco hauled these behemoths out to the swamps? Super duper flatcars? Must have been a nightmare hauling that weight along the crummy roadbed of the ancient Hoxie Sub!
Jim, they would have done just as is today for very large pieces of equipment; they would have shipped it in pieces and then assembled on-site.
More - when I was down at the industry meeting in the "Bone Valley" area east of Tampa, W R Grace was moving one of their huge phosphate draglines from one mine site to another a few miles away. As I noted before, these things are too huge to be supported on tracked treads, instead they sit on a number of mechanical foot pads. They move it by walking it - the pads lift, move forward, then drop back to the ground, and then the machine moves forward a few feet. We didn't get up close enough to see exactly how that works mechanically, but the thing does move forward! When they come to a road and cross it, they have to repave the road. It takes several weeks to go a few miles. I bought an Ambroid ACL phosphate hopper car kit down there, but have never built it. Ken Here's how the walking dragline works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NhAR_qJVZk
I saw a show on TV one time about the "GEM of Egypt" shovel. When it had to cross a highway, it made a pad of dirt on the pavement for itself a couple of feet thick for a cushion, then drove across it. Then the machine and some other equipment removed the dirt from the highway. It wasn't shown what they did with the highway traffic while the operation was going on. Tom G.
