Nice to see RMWeb up and running in its new home - thanks to Andy and the team

I spent some more time last week working on my crane, there's still a lot to do but progress is being made. I built new hydraulic cylinders for the boom to support the geometry I wanted - the kit cylinders and rams are all plastic, so they aren't too robust, and the LAV-R crane is stowed horizontally on the roof so the geometry is a bit funny. The new ones have styrene tube with paper clip or music wire for the ram, pivoted on more paper clip pieces spanning the boom sides. They're functional enough, although repeated play suggests they need a little something to hold a pose more firmly - perhaps a blob of glue on the end of the ram would do it.

You can see I've also started on the slewing mechanism (rack and pinion) and pedestal. I found a picture of this type of crane arm on quite a tall tubular pedestal mounted on what looks like a ship deck, so I'm not worried that the tube looks thin - it's fairly legit according to the image.

More fun was working on the hydraulic power unit, which is kit bashed/scratch built from a surplus TOW launcher sprue from the Tamiya M151A kit. I don't know much about engines or hydraulics, so this is to give an impression rather than to place rivets accurately, but there's a small engine, shaft-driven hydraulic pump, fuel tank, radiator, fan and coolant lines in there.

I want to put a bit more panelling on it, for strength and realism, but not so much that you can't see the details. I've been bitten by this before, after building a fiddly engine for my Senussi loco and then ensuring that it was more-or-less invisible in the finished article!

Once bitten, twice shy. Hopefully...