Madill 071 Mobile Tower Yarder

[Beekster]

Before the Dremel battery gave out, I got a little over half the track shoe sprues distressed so I will finish that up tomorrow. In the meantime, I've been thinking...

I rarely do bases for my models, because they can be shoehorned closer in the display cabinet if they are all by themselves. This thing, however, might require a base for safety's sake. I rummaged around in the attic behind the War Room closet and found a couple of bases and my stash of diorama supplies. With the Achilles standing in for the yarder, this is a rough concept for the yarder on a landing:




The twigs are about the right size for logs, I think. These wouldn't represent a turn just dropped (those would be parallel to the spar), but rather a brow that the end of a turn could be landed on to have easier access to unhook the chokers from the drop carriage and for a buncher to pick the logs up and stack them neatly nearby.

And yeah, that mocked-up spar is for the second yarder project.

[JCON]

Cool!!! I like it!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Such hard work needs a special display.

[JED]

Would certainly be a shame not to have a base

[Beekster]

In the immortal words of farm boy Westley; "As you wish...":

Base has been started with a couple of irregularly-shaped layers of foam core board, slathered with wood glue, now dry and ready for the first layer of Celluclay sometime next week. All the track shoes have been distressed on their sprues, and both track shoes and end connectors sprayed with base color. Next week, those too can be cut out, cleaned up, and touched up to make them ready to assemble. The gentle poke test on the model has revealed that the gloss orange touch-up is pretty well dry now, so I can proceed with stippling on some rust next week, too. Not much likely to happen this weekend; perhaps only some occasional stolen moments to cut out track shoes. Lots of yard projects on the schedule this weekend to consume hours and energy. For various reasons we're a couple of months late getting the yard into shape this year, but we're making progress.

[JCON]

Buttercup will love it farm boy!!!

[Beekster]

Some slow progress this week. The base has the first layer of Celluclay on, which will be left alone to dry now.


The distressed T48 tracks are assembled and painted, and set aside to dry for a few days before a spray of Dullcote and more drying time before weathering.



And structural restoration and repainting is done on the yarder itself. Rusty spots will also dry for a few days before more Dullcote.




After the Dullcote has cured I will go back to re-do the dust spray, at the same time I do the tracks before installing them. At that time I will rectify another error. I ought to have had the housing over the front clutches & brakes in place when I did that, since the dust ought to be carried up the front and side of that piece.

[Beekster]

I've completed most of the painting on the cab. The rusty weathering will dry over the weekend while we're out of town, and the cab will be part of a major Dullcote session early next week.




Once the clearcoat has sealed all this I can proceed to install the window guards, the transparent panes, and the instrument panel & seat base. That will finish this subassembly.

[JCON]

Looks good sir!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Can't wait to see it nestled on the Yarder.

[JED]

Looking forward to seeing it all together

[Beekster]

I am calling the cab finished:








The last round of Dullcote has had a while to cure now, so tomorrow I will carefully move the model back to the airbrush bench to shoot a little more dust in places where I had to repaint following the line spooling debacle. Airbrushing at this stage is delicate since the spar has to go along for the ride. Tracks will get some dust too, and then they can be installed. I'll try hard not to break anything else when I do that.

[JED]

Yet more great work Beekster

[Beekster]

Jun 17, 2021 12:13:31 GMT -6 JED said:

Yet more great work Beekster

Thank you, sir!  The guards are beefier than the really ought to be, but I chose to go for the simplest construction method rather than the most perfectly scaled one.  Quite a bit of variation in those things anyway, so I'm not too far off.

[JCON]

Looks realistic to me!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

The panel gauges have awesome details as well.

[Beekster]

More setbacks and progress. These show a mock-up this morning. The new tracks are on, I hope to stay. Once again the Skyline rope tangled itself, and this time I simply cut it off the spool at the last glue join and fished it out. When the spar is on and up, I will run it back down and glue it again, then spool the drum so the joint is hidden. I was going to have to do this for the Haulback drum on the right side anyway. A flash of white on the air bottles show where the assembly shifted as I manipulated things to clear the rope tangle; fortunately it pushed back into place with no trouble. The structural member across the top of the winch bay has lost paint again; I will have to restore that after the spar is up. The powered guyline ropes are a bit of a mess at the drums, but clearing those is easy because access is good. Once again, when the spar is up and secure I will unspool some line so that the finished ends are hung on those J-hooks on the left side, then tighten them up some. The front housing, cab, and exhaust pipe are mocked up for these pictures.





I'm going to leave it be for a few days, I think. It's been a busy time for us; my father-in-law passed away on Sunday, a week after our last visit with him. This was expected and really a relief to all of us; he had been in declining health for many years. So we're helping my mother-in-law with all the things that have to be taken care of, which means repeated trips from Portland to Bend. But we could use a little relaxation, and this project hasn't been relaxing lately. Plus, it's going to be beastly hot for about a week and even with A/C the war room gets uncomfortable any time after late morning.

So what's next? Getting the spar up for good. That will be a most delicate process, because it has to be supported. I need to think about how to secure it temporarily in the raised position while I measure, cut and finish the fixed guyline ropes and attach them to the spar and the hull. There are four or five of them (always four, sometimes one more) that attach to the four sides of the yarder and to different places on the spar. The length on each of them is different, so I will have to do them one by one. I have brass shackles to use on the spar, and made those turnbuckles for the hull. Shackles and turnbuckles will allow the lines to move a bit, and the turnbuckles will apply some tension to hold things securely. Once the spar is secure, I can thread the Skyline and Haulback lines through and back to their drums, and finally thread the front utility line through the spar and the hole in the top of the front housing and onto that drum. Then, I suppose, add back the cab and exhaust and touch up paint and continue weathering with watercolor washes and some more greasy goo in the winch bay.

[JCON]

Amazing work!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Wow, I am overwhelmed. That looks too scary for me to attempt in that scale, much less my own!

[Beekster]

Jun 25, 2021 14:08:09 GMT -6 Dukemaddog said:

Wow, I am overwhelmed. That looks too scary for me to attempt in that scale, much less my own!

Taking it piece by piece helps.  Also carefully noting what I've done wrong on this project and avoiding those errors on yours!