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Meccano enthusiast builds follow-up to his world’s most massive model

Meccano enthusiast Graham Shepherd

The Marion 6360 stripping shovel was constructed in under three years

The Krupp 288 bucket wheel excavator was constructed in five years

10th November 2017

By: Creamer Media Reporter

     

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In 2014, after an almost five-year build, retired university mathematics lecturer Graham Shepherd claimed to have built the world’s largest model, by mass, out of Meccano or any similar metal-based system. This was the 1 335 kg model of the Krupp 288, a bucket wheel excavator which is at work in an opencast coal mine in Germany. Details of his construction were reported in the May 2–8, 2014, issue of Engineering News. The real-world prototype is capable of mining 240 000 m3 of coal a day and is the largest fully mobile land-based machine on earth, weighing in at a staggering 13 500 metric tons.

At the time of Shepherd’s build of the Krupp 288, the cost of the project, using factory-made parts, would have been over R2-million, which was out of the question. However, determined to build the giant excavator on a scale of 1:18 the Grahamstown resident decided to manufacture all the parts himself. Using Port Elizabeth-based laser cutting facility Steelcut Services, all the blanks of plates, strips, girders and gears were cut. Shepherd then drilled the million or so holes himself on a DIY-class Ryobi drill press. Looking at the finished product, which had to be assembled in his double-volume lounge/dining room, one could say it is a bit of a house-eating monster!

Penance for this serious house invasion came in the form of a six-month stint of carpentry, during which the somewhat dated kitchen of the family home was renewed, but, with this out of the way, the urge to solve Meccano-type problems once more overrode sanity.

Prior to the Krupp 288 machine’s capturing the record for the largest fully mobile land-based machine, the said record had been held by the Marion Excavator Company, of Ohio, with its mighty 12 700 metric-ton stripping shovel, known as the Marion 6360. It was to this monster that Shepherd next turned his attention.

The principle of the shovel was to use a single giant bucket which swung on the end of a massive shaft called the dipper handle, which, in turn, hung from a hinge point with two other elements – one a pivoting arm with a fixed lower end, called the stiff leg, and the other an arm which was driven back and forth by motors through a rack and pinion mechanism. It goes without saying that these were all huge. The bucket in the case of the Marion 6360 took a 250-metric-ton bite with each cycle. This rack and pinion motion was called ‘crowd’. In conjunction with ‘crowd’, the digging controller also had a hoist action whereby the bucket was lifted up by cables going onto winding drums in the cathedral-sized machinery hall, these being driven by eight 1 000 hp electric motors. The final movement of the digging apparatus was the ability of the whole upper part of the machine to swing through 360º on a huge roller race.

The staff complement on the 6360 was three. A digging controller sat in an air-conditioned cabin on a cantilevered arm at the front, the ground control person steered the machine by remote control – he also had a large bulldozer on hand to move rocks out of the way, which he could drive through the alleyway between the massive crawlers of the 6360 – and an ‘oiler’ moved constantly around the machine, checking lubrication and friction pads for wear.

All the motions described above are replicated on Shepherd’s model. The path of the hoist cables over three sets of pulleys is easily discernible on the model and also visible are the eight crawler mechanisms on which the lower main frame rides. The whole model is brought to life by 35 automotive window winder motors running on a safe 12 V power supply.

There are also a number of ‘models within a model’ in the form of five serving cranes – one at the very top of the central tower or gantry and four inside the machinery hall in the ceiling space – and a small three-man elevator which passes up through a hollow swing kingpin, taking staff from the lower frame to the roof, with a stop on the hall floor. All these auxiliary actions are powered by Meccano 6 V motors. The viewer-friendly nature of the model is enhanced by ten Perspex sheets installed to allow the inside of the machinery hall to be viewed when the contents are in motion.

Blogs detailing the building of both machines have been widely viewed globally. Shepherd believes that both models should be available to a much wider audience than the occasional visitor to his home in a small country town, so he has offered to donate both models to anyone who has the space to display them where there is sufficient public interest in them. He does not ask any payment to himself but would like the recipient to make a suitable donation to Gift of the Givers – a South African nongovernment organisation that donates medical and other material aid to victims of disasters and conflict worldwide, often at great personal risk. In the 25 years of its existence, the group has given over R2-billion in aid to people in need.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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