steam wreckers that tended to look a lot alike, this one was slightly lighter and got its propulsion from the overhead d.c. trolley wire through a classic trolley pole set-up. My client and pal and I rightly assumed that the Tichy Trains HO scale, 120-ton Bucyrus crane kit would serve well as a starting point, and I began to study the photo and for- mulate a plan of action. Right away it was obvious that I would have to almost completely build a new cab assembly and eliminate parts of the boom and rope drum’s en- gine assemblies. The kit’s version was designed around the Bucyrus-standard vertical boiler in the rear with a recip- rocating steam engine at the front. In the end, I made a decision to aim for “close enough” rather than go hog-wild by making an entirely new cab. In this light, my version is a tad long at the rear, but only because I chose to use the roof and side-tanks/walls as a sup- port structure to receive new sheet styrene panels. Since the cab of Pacific Electric’s No. 003 was fully enclosed and covered up the spots where Bucyrus would have otherwise put the steam engine, I could ignore adding the recycled trolley car traction motors that almost certainly powered this crane’s winding mechanism. Kitbashing this model was pretty straightforward with two key excep- tions: the revised cab required left and right side roof extensions (with hatch- es over the boom’s pulley fork assem- bly) and a newly built forward cab sec- tion. Most of the styrene used to make these parts came from scrap stock left- over from various projects. I followed Tichy’s assembly instructions right up to Step 6. In so doing, I failed to notice
that PE’s derrick lacked the center chassis-support channel, steel stabiliz- er assembly. This led to the elimination of other Tichy parts: No. B4, 6 13 and 14, and No. B5, 8, 9 and 11. From this point I had to improvise, since the kitbashing was going to re- quire some creative thinking and sub- assemblies. In the process I realized that PE 003 probably had longer boom forks projecting from the hoist engine, but I figured out a way to get along with the stock forks as-is by narrowing the width of the forward roof exten- sions; the stock forks with their pulleys would just clear the roof when they were elevated. Fine. As the prototype had no boiler or need for water and oil fuel tanks (normally contained behind the cab’s rear-end side walls) the cab aft of the winding engine only needed to house an air compressor and the requisite air reservoirs, so it could be shorter from the centerline to rear wall. I could not easily locate a rear end or right side views of this unusual derrick, which forced me to use some “modeler’s logic” to come up with a ra- tional-looking cab. I first filed-off the stock smokestack cowling atop the roof and plugged the holes with rough cut styrene pieces se- cured with Tenax 7R liquid cement. The prototype’s cab entry doors sat fur- ther forward than those on my model. I elected to use the existing cab entries and do some fool-the-eye modeling by making new cab side walls and swing- ing doors that would be standing open, as in the book’s photo. When the roof plug was fully dry, I began cutting new outer wall and roofing panels from .010″ sheet styrene. I decided to keep the stock rear end walls and wide ac-
cess door, removing only the steam manifold that sat at top center. Once again, I was winging the de- tails here, going for a look similar to that on a much lighter PE locomotive crane that I had modeled for my buddy a year earlier. Next up was fabricating the forward roof extensions, each four scale feet long. To best support these I used scrap lengths of Evergreen Scale Models quarter round and 4" x 8" stock cemented under that. This created a nice structure to adequately support the all-new forward cab walls. The forward cab evidently had two side windows. For the window frames, I used the four-pane sash inserts that come with Grandt Line’s (or Tichy’s very similar) outfit car and caboose window castings. I clipped out the pane dividers and carefully filed the remaining rectan- gles. Each side wall was a different length: 8′-0″×5′-9″ on the left and 9′- 0″×6′-0″ right. I cut out the new walls from .010″ flat styrene and eyeballed the window locations per the prototype’s photograph. A few careful cuts with a fresh hobby knife blade made the win- dows openings, after which I surface- glued the frames in place. Making the cab fronts was entirely guesswork; both were made to fit. The window frames were made much like the others except that I flush-cut one sash rail, narrowed the top and bottom stiles by a couple inches and glued the three-legged part on first. When those had dried, I glued the remaining verti- cal rail on. Next, I made a set of 4′-6″× 2′-6″ cab doors from scrap .010″ stock and applied another pair of altered window sash made like those in the cab walls. Since these would be glued onto the completed model in the fully
Armed with a photo from a book of what ap- peared to be a Bucyrus-Erie Pacific Electric crane, a Tichy Trains 120-ton Bucyrus crane was used as a starting point for this HO scale model. The PE was, of course, an elec- tric line, and the steam equipment was re- moved as part of this modeling project.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 59
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