Around this time last year, I was wandering through a huge used bookstore in Spokane, Washington (state, not D.C.), when I came upon a souvenir book from the opening of the Panama Canal. It’s one of the most interesting finds I’ve ever made, and has served me well whenever I want to know about how to combat yellow fever and the like. It’s exceptionally well illustrated, and one of the pictures that caught my eye was of the these things known as “Chamber Cranes.” These where placed inside what would become Mira-Flores Locks and would lift the large concrete blocks to build them. I found these things to be quite interesting, and very Meccano-esk. 
 

Since I was about seven, I have amassed a very large collection of Meccano sets and a few Dinky Toys. I’d made a few big things before, notably a large howitzer. But these didn’t really do much. I wanted to do something with moving parts, and remembered the Chamber Cranes in my book. 
 

So in September I began construction on my Chamber Crane. It’s not a 100 percent accurate model, but is sizable. It’s about 3 1/2 ft tall and nearly 4 ft long. So two months later it was finished. It then sat languishing around the house until February, when I found an excuse to use it for a school project. So it went to school, and was promptly impounded for two months because of quarantine. The school refused to let me retrieve it, even though others were allowed to retrieve that which they had left inside, I was most annoyed, but I have it back now. (I’m a student, not a teacher)
 

I always had ambitions to motorise it, and even tried a few times, but I found that the modernish Meccano electric motors that I had where underpowered, so for the time I gave up. Then I was then sent a private offer on eBay for a Stuart Models S.T. Oscillating Engine, essentially a single cylinder live steam engine, only two and a half inches tall. These were first made in about 1924, I think, and where sold by both Stuart Models and Bassett-Lowke. They were almost always advertised as either marine engines, or for powering Meccano Models.

So I went ahead and bought it, yesterday, actually. I then got the idea for using live steam on the crane, and began building a base for the engine and boiler. Boiler is off a Wilesco d6, and the engine seen there is an MSM Avon twin oscillating engine. I’ll describe my plans for it the next entry, as this one is quite long already.  
 

Stay healthy,

Douglas

*I called it this after the “Titan” cranes at multiple British shipyards.