So Billmon is back into blogging hibernation. No wonder I woke up at two in the morning, about when he posted. Something felt just wrong.
While Billmon was on a roll, I had scaled back from posting here (the last days I didn´t even read all comments – which was a first in more than two years).
The sum of the parts here is much too valuable to lose it. So while Billmon is mute, I’ll be back to a post per day, starting with this caffeine induced rambling.
While pausing here, I was happy to give in to the urging of a dear friend. Lukas had asked to build a crane – a BIG crane.
Here he is testing one of the first working iterations.
(The basic construction is a Liebherr LR 1750, scale about 1:50, self erecting, drives and swings under load, 10 lego motors, about 6’6” high (we are still aiming for 8’+) – bigger pic)
To assemble a big crane, a fleet of transporters is needed plus a smaller crane to move the various parts for the boom and the counterweights. This weekend we completed those designs.
(The yellow one is modeled after an unique original, nicknamed the Traumschiff – a custom combination of an extended MAN cassis and a Liebherr LTM 1070 upper carriage – bigger pic)
Building such stuff, big or small, is a form of meditation to me. Intuition and a peaceful mind are needed to succeed and are gained in the process. So while figuring out some gearing or design detail, I catch myself reciting mantras. Like sand mandalas these models get finished only to be destroyed – no addictions :-).
The building process is quite comparable to my original trade of building IT-organisations. It starts off modulizing the thing planed. Prototyping the functional elements is followed by fitting a decent design around them – which of course never works on the first try. So it is a back and forth between those two phases. Then, when both seem balanced and finished, the inevitable real test is done. The inherent overlooked flaws begin to show, the thing cracks and one inevitably returns to "Go" and constructs a hopefully better solution.
It is all about balance. The big crane negotiates the forces between the load on the hook and the suspended ballast at the rear in a big half-circle. The cables, the luffing fly jib, the boom, derrick and the various bracings look important, but they are only the support between the two sides of the scale and the ground.
If in balance, there is a pure vertical force on the central slewing and only if in balance, the crane, and life, will turn properly. In other restrains, there are only so many different parts both can be build from and each of the many modules is restricted to certain manageable dimensions.
Sometimes posting at the blog feels like a heavy load on the hook. The frame starts cracking and the bearing comes apart. Then again, writing is a welcome counterweight.
But to change the basic construction, to reconfigure the boom, to repair the crawlers or to add new features, the load and the counterweight need to be lowered to the ground.
Building those cranes was a much needed phase of reconfiguration to me. Now it’s back to enjoying your comments. To read, write and think through and beyond the foggy spin of wars, politics and greedy machinations.
Stay tuned …
