After reading reviews and some consideration, I decided to buy a 22B Bucyrus Erie crane. When I got the package, I was surprised at how small the crane really is! The overall quality is very good. The paint and graphics are very good. I like the semi-gloss look of the paint. There are some issues with it that I decided to correct. First was the size of the boom pendants and the finalities. The supplied pendants are too small while the finalities are too large. I used 20lb. braided line for the pendants and YCC finalities. I made my own eyelets to mate with the finalities. I also made one additional set of pendants for the short boom section. Here's what I did:
Here is the setup for making the pendants
I had to disassemble the upper boom point to get at the pendants so I used it as the pattern to make the pendants
Here you can see the difference in size of the finalities.
If you enlarge this photo, you will see that I counter bored the hole to accept the knot in the pendant so it will not interfere with the eyelet.
Here are various finalities and eyelets. The TWH and the EMD finalities are almost the same except that the EMD are METAL!!! I wish I could find their supplier so I could get some for my Manitowoc models!!
The tools supplied are of very good quality. They are much better than the Kobelco 2750 tools.
Here are the completed finality sets. I also used brass 00-90 bolts and nuts instead of the supplied parts.
Here's my little guy that sits on all my new models!!
It's hard to believe that these two cranes are the same scale!!
A dwarf among the giants!!!
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Tom
It's pretty sad when the only modeling tool you own is a box cutter.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you start to see every problem as a nail. Abraham Maslow