Madill 071 Mobile Tower Yarder

[JED]

I'm sure the project will come good and sorry for your loss

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Almost to the finish line Beekster! Hold in there!

[Beekster]

Thanks, gentlemen! My father-in-law will be missed, but his numerous ailments and cognitive decline over the last couple of years mean this really is something of a blessing...he's not in pain any more. As for the model, I'll keep plugging away. Mind you, I've never attempted something with this much rigging before, not being a sailing ship modeler. In hindsight, my whole conception of how to rig this model was in error and I won't make that mistake in the future. Yes, the second yarder is going nowhere at the moment but there's another kit on the way that might provide some inspiration. But I won't try to rig that one, or a Madill 171 if references pan out, in the same way. Spool the lines on the drums after paint, tape them down, and don't run them through the sheaves and make terminations until the end. I've said before that a lot of you on here could tackle this kind of thing. I stand by that, especially if, as I said, you carefully take notes on what I've done here and avoid my mistakes.

As an aside, when we made our last visit to see him on the weekend of the 12th/13th, we drove through Santiam Canyon for the first time since the big fire last September. The damage was obvious, but also a bit surreal inasmuch as the understory brush was a luxuriant, bright green late spring grown beneath the brown snags and canopies of the burned conifers. Signs of reconstruction in the devastated towns was also obvious. And east of Idanha, where Madill 071s #70105 and #70141 have been occasionally seen since 2017, the property they were located at was unscathed. Yarder 70141, rebuilt on a modern excavator chassis, was missing; but #70105 on Sherman running gear was there and intact, and facing away from the road so clearly it had been moved since I last saw it in November of 2019. I'd like to think that #70141 is working on the salvage logging somewhere in the canyon. We sure saw plenty of log trucks headed west with scorched timber.

[reserve]

Drag about dad in law

Even so, I hear you and agree, it wasn't until I started working in medicine that I discovered it's possible to live too long.

Regards,
Mark

[Beekster]

Nothing to report but more disasters, I'm afraid. Tracks keep coming apart, fortunately without breaking pins...so far. Working out proper lengths for the fixed guylines has been maddening, since even with support there's enough movement to the erected spar to make tensioning a guess. I can't lock down the spar with the hydraulic cylinder, since the end at the front of the bedplate won't tolerate handling. And now on of the lugs on the spar just broke; the shackle pulled through the hole. So now I have to cut that lug off entirely, fabricate a new one with a hole location that has more material around the outside to take the strain, and somehow repaint...with lines attached. Actually what this means is that I'll have to un-spool all the lines that remain attached and add them back after I get the spar up and tensioned...at the rate I'm going, probably next year.

[JCON]

Sorry my friend!!!

[JED]

That's tuff luck Beekster

[Dukemaddog]

Man, I just found this. I never got the notification that you posted this update. I'm sorry to hear that this happened. I'm sure with your mad skills, you'll be this nailed down.

[Beekster]

Thanks, fellas...

So, I left things alone for a few days to cool down a bit. As usual, this was my fault. The hole for the shackle was drilled too close to the edge, and there wasn't enough plastic around it to take the strain. The other guyline standoffs were and are more structurally sound, though I will look more closely at all of them. This morning, I unspooled all the remaining lines and cut them so that the spar is once again totally disconnected. Having traveled this road with the big winch drums, I know now that I can hide the new glue joints by spooling line back on when the spar is up and secure. I've cut guyline attachment standoff away from the spar, thankfully with minimal paint damage.



The place where the shackle broke through is hard to see, but in the upper right corner of the close-up.

Now...several things to accomplish. The yarder will get the tracks put back on; easier to do now that it is free of the spar. The yarder would slip a bit on the bench when working with the fixed guylines, which caused some of the joints to work loose. I think the way forward is to get the tracks back on and the end connectors properly straightened, and then start my weathering washes with a nice dark brown on the tracks. I use watercolors mixed with a dollop of white glue to give the wash some teeth, and a side benefit of that (I hope) is that it will seep into the track joints and stiffen them up as the glue dries and the water evaporates. Even so, I have to figure out how to keep the model from moving too much as I get the spar and fixed guylines on. don't have an answer for that yet.

The spar will get a new attachment point to replace the broken one. I am thinking on that now, and will prototype a new approach. I made the original one true to the measurements I took, but there are differences in the shape and location of the guyline brackets. The next one will be stronger and a bit beefier. I will experiment with drilling a .093" hole in some strip stock, and gluing in a section of tubing that size to test-fit the shackle and guyline end. If that allows sufficient clearance for the shackle to move a bit, I will make the new bracket using that method. The theory is that the old one had only the thickness of the plastic around the hole to give it strength. The new design ought to transfer the load around the circumference of the tubing, which is glued into the bracket all the way around. If my thinking is correct, the resulting bracket will be far stronger when tension is applied to the guyline.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Just watched the Series, " Big Timber ", about a family owned business, up in Canada, which used one of these to haul lumber up, off a huge hill. It was interesting to see one of these in action and get a deeper appreciation of what one of these machines can do.

[Beekster]

Jul 16, 2021 7:45:34 GMT -6 dogfish7 (R.I.P.) said:

Just watched the Series, " Big Timber ", about a family owned business, up in Canada, which used one of these to haul lumber up, off a huge hill. It was interesting to see one of these in action and get a deeper appreciation of what one of these machines can do.

Impressive bests, aren't they?  I'm not familiar with that series, but I'll have to look it up.

[Beekster]

OK, so the busted guyline bracket is fixed now:





The old one was .040" strip with a hole drilled in it. The new one is a lamination of three pieces of strip, .055" thick. A much larger hole was drilled further inboard from the corner, and a piece of .093" tubing glued in and trimmed up when dry. The extra support is .040" x .125" strip. I devoutly hope that this solves the problem for good; between the overall thickness and the tubing it ought to be far stronger. The last image shows me pulling some tension on the line; plenty of room for the shackle to assume whatever angle it needs to.

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Nice work Beekster. Those guide points sure take a licken.

[Beekster]

Jul 19, 2021 10:01:06 GMT -6 dogfish7 (R.I.P.) said:

Nice work Beekster. Those guide points sure take a licken.

Yeah.  Having that spar cantilevered out in space at an angle causes some real problems.  Compared to the real thing, all these materials are much weaker than scaling down would indicate, structurally speaking.  I'm learning that the hard way.  Building one of these in travel/storage mode would be far easier, since the spar would be supported by the stiff-leg and hydraulic cylinder:





Of course, I'm not doing that with this one.  So I've set myself up for troubles.

It's a pity I don't have enough information to tackle a Madill 171.  That one has a sort of A-frame brace to support the spar in the upright yarding position, so the spar would have solid support that could be glued in place.

[BUCKY]

A lot of intricate details that can test your patience! The great thing is, you are able to overcome all of it.

[JCON]

Jul 25, 2021 10:05:42 GMT -6 BUCKY said:

A lot of intricate details that can test your patience! The great thing is, you are able to overcome all of it.

Well said Buckeroo!!!  

[Beekster]

I hope so. I've been mostly leaving it alone in recent days, thinking in the background. Tracks are back on, but that's nothing that hasn't been seen before.

[JCON]

One day at a time Beeks!!!

[Beekster]

Nothing much to report. Since breaking off the guyline lug on the spar, I've largely been letting this one rest.


Don't see much different, do you? The new lug has been painted and blended into the previous rust. The yarder itself has had multiple coats of watercolor & white glue wash applied to the tracks & wheels. The dirt effect is a bit more uniform now, but most importantly the tracks are more secure. The white glue component has worked it's way into the pins & end connectors as expected. Now it should hold together when I try to get the spar back on and the fixed guylines attached. That won't happen for a while. In a week and a half we're going on vacation for a couple of weeks, and I don't want to get going on a task as delicate as putting the spar on until I can give it total concentration. So it will wait until we are back. In the meantime, there's something else on the bench and another thread...

[JCON]

I have faith you'll get it there!!!