This model was built in June of 1993, just after I graduated from high school. I roughly modelled this after large cranes I observed at the petrochemical refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas.

This crane may appear similar to my latest creation, the Crawler Crane , but it is extremely primative in comparison.

At the time of construction of Crane '93, I had no idea how a TRUSS functioned. As you can see, the boom is a simple frame made from Technic beams.

Total Boom Length: Approximately 7 feet (2.1 m) (includes jib)

Largest Load Lifted: 15 pounds

Motors: Two 4.5 volt motors driving main line, and boom hold-back line

Other Notes:

- Other lines to jib, lines to superlift, and the turntable were all hand-power.

- Counterweights were boxes made of Lego bricks with pennies inside.

Sorry, it's been so long that I can't remember many other details, except what's obvious from the pictures.

These structures were a simple frame made from Technic beams. They were relatively strong in compression, but had poor lateral strength. If you notice in the picture of the lift, there is a small hold back line attached to the box being lifted.

When the crane took the load of the box, the boom swayed laterally and proceeded to collapse. The only alternative was to prevent the load from moving sideways.

Of course now I know I could have greatly strengthened the boom with plates or cables (as used in the boom of the Crawler Crane ). Those ideas just hadn't developed yet. Also, I guess I had considered the model as finished and didn't want to modify it anymore. I just took a lot of pictures and then disassembled it.

I would have liked the "crawler" base made with Technic tread links, but I had enough for only one side of the "crawler". I decided to proceed with the project, using the small Model Team tires instead. In each side of the base, there are many rows of doubled tires. These tires rolled smoothly and were of hard rubber- an excellent substitution for tracks.

The tires are obscured from view by the frame of the base. This was done to "sandwich" the doubled tires with support for the axle on either side of the tires.

The turntable used a large Technic 56-toothed turntable. I also built up extra support around the turntable with 2x2 smooth plates. I ran my only 10L threaded axle through the center of the turntable for extra-extra support (so it wouldn't break apart under heavy load). This resulted in warping my only poor threaded axle. Now, after wising up, I use threaded steel rod instead.

The Technic turntable might have held up by itself, but I wasn't about to test it. I was afraid of a catastrophic failure resulting in the damaging of pieces.

The body of the crane houses the winches for all the lifting and hold-back lines. It is also a central frame that connects it all together (base, boom, superlift, counterweight).

The unsightly mess of blue and yellow pieces of the body wasn't well thought-out, I admit. I just built the different parts as I thought of them and didn't plan very well. You could say that it was "thrown together".

The additional counterweight (the blue and white "box" with extra wheels) was detachable. Each set of wheels was mounted to the counterweight with a 4x4 turntable. This additional counterweight, and the main counterweight (that was part of the body) were filled with pennies.

Although I was happy and satisfied with this model at the time, every time I look back at the pictures, I think of something else that could be improved. Now it is dissatisfying to me and I'm almost ashamed to show it. I guess a large reason why I've built a new crane is to make up for this one and do it right.

Nevertheless, Crane '93 was a step forward for me in the "large model department". I realized that I could build huge structures that were reasonably strong and quite impressive to see.

I feel that I did achieve my goal to create the largest and strongest crane I could, for the time. Given my educational and financial constraints, I did my best. I was about to enter college and study engineering, and there were many better models yet to come...