Athearn Radio Controlled Crane

That's a .017" diameter drill. Remember the thread about drill chucks? Here' the reason to have an expansive chuck. It will hold the smallest drill made. For those that can't visualize .017". Your hair is approximately .003" in diameter. So this drill is 5 times bigger. BTW, I did break it when I wanted to re-drill the hole. I missed the hold coming down and it broke. Oh well.

Here's the complete setup. I made the spring part from a piece of brass angle, a 1/16" od brass tube and a piece of .015" spring wire.

Here's how I mounted the spring wire. I stuck the wire in the end of the tube. Set a 3/16" square lathe tool on top of the pipe. The whole works is sitting on top of a piece of tool steel and gave it a whack with the hammer.

Here's the end result of that whack. A pinched tube holding the spring wire. Now some are going to ask, "why not solder it in". Reason, the heat would take the temper out of the spring wire. Then it wouldn't have any spring to it anymore.

Here's the one for the inside power track of the ring. I had to cut a piece out of the floor to accommodate the 3/32" square tubing, plus add a solid piece bolted to the outside to position it. I also bent the wire 90 degrees to reach the sliding bar and inside power ring. I cut a "V" notch in the tubing to center the spring wire.

Next I looked for a way to bring the power down through the crane frame to the wheels. I figured that the copper scourer wire would work great for this since it's nice and flat. I cut a small portion of the copper out and figured I could solder the copper strand into the ring. Trouble was the solder just won't bridge to both sides of the copper ring. So now I have to make a new ring.

Here's a picture of the new power ring with the wires soldered on and filed down so the wipers can ride over them. I used a suggestion from a modeler friend by drilling a #72 hole and then using a counter sink made a slight counter sink in the board and soldered the wire on. Then I carefully filed the wire down. It's a bit hard to see because of the reflection.

On the bottom I just cut a larger hole to carry both the wires out the bottom. These will get attached to the trucks once I get them. They are on order.

I modified the outside wiper. If you recall from earlier post I drilled a hole through this pin pickup. I cut the tubing off and filed a V notch in it to hold the wire. No longer will the wire push the pickup tube sideways and cause friction. Works great now.

Here's a top view of all the motors and wires in place.

I started working on the boom. I needed to build a new snatch block. That's the rigging that moves the boom up and down. I was going to rebuild the whole boom making it out of brass so I'd have a nice counter weight to the motors in the back of the cab. I decided not to do it since I'd probably never get the crane done. This is the snatch block that comes with the crane, a white metal casting. I've had it so long that one of the pulleys froze on the shaft. So I needed make a new one. Using two pieces of brass .032" thick brass plate and using the original cover plate as a template.

And I made a "boo, boo". I drilled one to many holes. The two pieces were soldered together and the white metal plate was ACC'ed to the brass plate. The holes were drilled. And I added an extra hole that I didn't need. When I heated up the plates to separate them I melted the white metal part, darn. So I used the plate from another crane and made new plates.