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Building An Operating Clamshell Bucket
Since I am still waiting on the delivery of some engraved gusset plates, I decided to focus on something not bolted to the bridge structure: the clamshell bucket.
One modeler who has already built an animated ore bridge model mentioned that his greatest challenge was to construct an operating clamshell bucket, so I wanted to finish this sub-task as soon as I could.
The concept seems simple enough. Two cables carry and control the bucket: One to close the bucket around a load and hoist it upward (I'll call this the "close/up" line), and the other to draw the two halves apart, release the load, and lower the open bucket back down for another load (the "open/down" line). The last time I checked, there were a few brass HO scale clamshell buckets commercially available; so I believe my friend's dilemma was developing a remotely-controlled, tram-mounted mechanism to control the two cables. Since I have committed to laying 99% of the track on my new layout before attempting to animate the ore bridge, I'll sweep that little problem under the rug for now. But I still need a bucket of the proper shape and size that will open and close reliably, so that is the focus of this 'blog chapter.
The prototype I chose to base my bucket model upon is on a bridge in Superior, Wisconsin; the photos are from a book titled "End Of An Era" by David Plowden, about the few remaining steam-powered lake freighters. [ Since the pictures are copyrighted, I cannot display them here. ]
I opted to build the bucket from scratch, using K&S® brass sheet and 1/16-inch square rod. The sections would swivel on 5 separate Ives® miniature brass hinges; the major components were to be soldered, then joined to each other via 1/8-inch size '2-56' bolts.
Since I was unsure of whether my planned approach would be successful, I did not shoot any photos until after the work was completed. If I ever write a how-to article, I'll redo the process and take extra pictures at that time. But, for what it's worth, here are the snapshots that I DO have, showing various stages of completion:
(Further detailing of the vertical frames will be added later.)
...and that's all for this first week of 2004!
-KJL
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