Hey y'all!!!

Just figure I'd pop in and remind you to watch your plastic pins in your crane models!!! With the longer your models sit out in your A/C and other environments those pins could become brittle, then the next thing you know you'll have a crane accident and open yourself to lawsuits and a visit by an Occupational Safety Bureau to investigate and levy fines!!! But seriously you can have a crane boom failure that could be bad for your model crane.

I found that replacing the plastic pins with brass bolts and nuts is a life saver as well as a model saver!! I even use brass rod threaded for nuts as the rod makes for a tighter fit!! The rod route is a bit more expensive because it requires a threading die for the proper size nut. In Conrad's models the rod size can be a 0 or the bolt would be a 0-80, NZG models generally use a 00 size rod or a bolt size of 00-90. Any bolt/rod would use the appropriate nut too. I haven't seen much bigger of a 0-80 but I wouldn't be surprised if the bigger cranes like the 1750s and similar might take a 1-72 size bolt/nut or a 1 size rod threaded for the 1-72 nut.

Hope this helps as it's been a long time that this was mentioned!! Also some of us older modelers used to use Musky Master 18# or 20# test line for restringing our cranes but as most know Courtland fishing line company no longer makes the Musky Master line any more!!! I don't know what is the line of choice now but maybe another modeler can offer up what they use now!!

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Dain

I'm a kid at heart, so I will play with any model construction vehicle from 1:87 scale to 1:1 scale!!!!

Age is a state of time NOT a state of mind!!