Wood model excavator

[Colin Giersberg]

This is a 1/12th scale model that a fellow I know did in 2006 and 2007.
The model is all wood, consisting of cherry, walnut, and maple. He spent over 2000 hours building it.

[Gary Herrmann]

Wow. Did he use a laser to cut out the parts?

[Jason Roehl]

That is pretty cool, but are you sure that's 1/12 scale? That would mean that one inch on the model is the equivalent of one foot on the real thing. That appears to be based on a much larger excavator than that...more on the order of a 1/24 scale. Just curious (pics with a ruler and a reference to which real-world excavator it is would be cool...).

[Michael Gibbons]

It looks about right. In the second pic, there is a guy standing on it and figure he's 6" tall, that would make it a earth mover sized machine. I'm sure he placed well in a juried fair.

[Bill Braga Sr.]

Great workmanship. Thanks for sharing.

[Dennis Peacock]

Beautiful wood and an outstanding piece of woodworking!!!! :cool:

[James Rambo]

That looks like the RH400 its a 1000 ton unit with a 85 ton bucket (45m3 bucket) capacity. The worlds largest hydraulic excavator

[Colin Giersberg]

The model is 1/12th scale. The excavator in question is a 350 ton machine that was made by Caterpillar. They no longer make it, but the model was built with some information provided by CAT, and drawings done by myself, based on their brochure. Since brochures are never fully truthful on dimensions, etc., I drew it up as best I could, but his model is above and beyond my drawings, so I know he had reference material that I did not have. I have several other pictures that I would like to post, but their file size is too big. There are other models that he did, and I have pictures of, that I will post shortly.
The tracks consist of over 2300 parts,just to give you an idea of the complexity of the model. It is approximately 54" long fully extended, 18" wide, and about the same in height. He lathe turned over 50 actual feet of 3/32" dowel-stock, just for the railings. The curved portion of the railings is made by miter cutting short sections of dowel, then gluing the pieces together to form the curve. I believe he also sanded the joints, as well. The only laser cut pieces are the open grid walkways, and the various grills. He had a method for making "diamond treadplate" using a tablesaw.
On a sad note, he passed away early last year of lung cancer, so we will never be able to see more of his fantastic work.

If anyone knows of a photo resizer program, I will attempt to post the larger pictures, so you can truly see that he had a gift with wood. His name was Charles (Chuck) Fisher, and he lived in Bloomingdale, Michigan, if anyone is curious about him. In my first conversation with him, I asked him how he got his start. He told me that he used to build church pews. One day, he heard of a contest for wooden models, and since he had already built a much simpler bulldozer design, he entered the contest and won first place. After that, he just built models in 1/12th scale, because he found out that he was good at it. I think that is a mis-statement if there ever was one. He was great at it.

Anyway, I am going to try to post several more photos of his work. I think you will still be amazed.

Regards, Colin

[Colin Giersberg]

I hope they show up.

[Colin Giersberg]

Some more.

[Colin Giersberg]

More again.

[Gary Herrmann]

The planet is a lesser place for his passing.

His work is amazing. It belongs in a museum.

[Colin Giersberg]

His work is in private collections. Typically, the amount of work spent on his models was around 600 to 700 hours. The excavator took over 2600 hours. Bear in mind that the typical work year is only 2040 hours, so he spent over a year on this. The enclosed photos are of the excavator, as well as a Mack DM800 tractor, lowboy trailer, Caterpillar D11 dozer, and an off road Caterpillar 777 hauler towing a heavy haul trailer manufactured by Towhaul of Minnesota, I believe

Because of the amount of time spent on these, the cost to buy one was not cheap. His Mack DM800, lowboy and Caterpillar D11 dozer sold for $63000. While that sounds like a lot of money (OK, it is a lot of money), when you consider the hours per model, he averaged around $26.00 an hour. While that is not bad pay, it seems low for his efforts.

As payment for the drawings, he sent me a dozer model that I will post a photo of. He charged $600 for it when he sold them to individuals. WhenI received it by USPS, it had been damaged. While no parts were broke beyond repair (two track sections were split in two), the roof and roof supports, and a hydraulic cylinder on the blade were knocked loose, in addition to the previously mentioned damage. I have repaired all but the cab supports and roof, but holding the 1/4' square supoorts with a shallow compound miter cut on each end in place long enough for the glue to set just hasn't tickled my fancy yet. Maybe one of these days, I will get that finished.

The first picture is like the dozer that I received from him, the next three are from the excavator, and the last is of the Caterpillar D11 dozer. If you look carefully at the railing bends, you can see the miter joints he used to create the bends. Also, look at the ends of the mufflers. They are drilled out. Just more attention to detail.

Regards, Colin

[Curt Fuller]

That's some amazing work. Thanks for taking the time to show that to us.

[Mike Cutler]

Colin

I've only seen work that rivals those projects by two people. Nicolai Medvedev, and Susan Allen. (Gem Carvers)
If he sold those for the prices you stated, those people made a very wise investment.

That is truly, truly, amazing work. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[Bryan Berguson]

That is pretty cool, but are you sure that's 1/12 scale? That would mean that one inch on the model is the equivalent of one foot on the real thing. That appears to be based on a much larger excavator than that...more on the order of a 1/24 scale. Just curious (pics with a ruler and a reference to which real-world excavator it is would be cool...).

Jason,

There's a really cool video out called Mega-Excavators Machines that Reshape the world. We bought if for my son but, well, I like it too!;) It's hard to imagine the size and power of these excavators.

Bryan

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Absolutely fantastic! Thanks for posting. Great modelling skills and woodworking skills.

This should be re-posted in the General Woodworking section to make sure more of our members see this fine craftmanship.
-Jeff :)

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I'm still looking at these pics...simply amazing. The detail is unbelievable. Check out the coffee mug inside the cab. Everthing is so crisp with no sand or machine marks. The grating is something that I couldn't believe be done with wood.

Perhaps you shoud get permission to submit these pics to Fine Woodworking magazine. This is back cover material.

Again...thanks for sharing,
-Jeff :)

[Tony Williams]

I work in west virginia at a large surface mine we have A large excavator, ours is probably 2 times the size as the model its a komats'u 5500 42 yard bucket,,, huge machines,,,,, wow also I would like to say I love this forum, I just purchased a VL 200 30 watt laser its my second day trying to do some engraving, I love it,,,,, I'm learning, I went to Home Depot and bought some ceremic tile black, blue, brown, I sent it through the laser the results scared me,,,,, it came out great,,,, my first, also engraved some wood,,,,, it did great, wish me luck,,, thanks to all you great folks at sawmill creek,,,,,,,,,,,, Tony




VL 200 30 watt West Virginia Coal Miner......

[Colin Giersberg]

These are much bigger machines, but similar to what the model was based on.

[Colin Giersberg]

Thanks, Dennis, for moving this thread here.

Regards, Colin

ps. I look forward to meeting you when you come this way.

[Ben Martin]

Wow, those are truly beautiful models! It makes me proud to see when someone outside of the mining/quarrying business takes interests in the machines. I work for Caterpillar designing wheel loaders and we have a wood model that someone did of our machines, a nice example, but nowhere in the same category as these specimens. When I worked for bulldozers, we also had a wood model there too. Maybe I might just have to start working on a model like these, getting the information wouldn't be a problem...

[Roger Warford]

...Perhaps you shoud get permission to submit these pics to Fine Woodworking magazine... :)

I agree. Simply amazing. These deserve more exposure. Thank you for sharing them with us.

[Colin Giersberg]

I have e-mailed Fine Woodworking about the model, so hopefully, they will let me know how to proceed.

Regards, Colin

[gary Zimmel]

Truly unbelievable. After looking again and again at the pictures they really should be on the back of a magazine.

Thank you for sharing.

[Bill Huber]

I just can not come up with the words to say on how great this work is.
It would have been a delight to just set and watch him work.

What a loss of a wonderfully skill person.

[Mike Spanbauer]

wow, that's an impressive model for sure.

mike

[Tim Thomas]

Thanks so much for sharing Colin. I have never seen anything like these models before. The details are just incredible. Seeing unique craftsmanship like this opens your mind up to new possibilities in working with wood. My mind is already ticking over, wondering just how in the world he made those tank treads...

(By the way, a nice program that I use a lot to manipulate photo files is IrfanView. It is free and you can download it from www.irfanview.com.
It has some nice options for resizing files and changing their formats. It also makes it easy to do things like color correction, cropping, etc. One of the more useful features is that you can resize an entire folder of photos at once. It isn't as full featured as Adobe Photoshop, but I find that to be helpful when doing simple tasks because you don't get lost in the menus.)

[Chris Padilla]

I'm not sure I can add to anything that has been said...just "thanks for sharing!"

[Colin Giersberg]

Upon thinking about the model, and not having reviewed the plans in two years, I think the scale is actually 1/16th, not 1/12th. That means that the small parts that were already small, are now actually even smaller.
I will look at the photo of the track parts, and see if the file size is small enough. If so, I will post that photo. The photo of the jig is the one he used for the tracks, if I am not mistaken.
I am going to look at the plans, and make sure of the proper scale.

[Joseph N. Myers]

Another picture resizer is PICresizer, free, do a Google, will do either single pictures or a whole file. Great pictures and even better work.

Regards, Joe

[Colin Giersberg]

Well, I have looked at the plans, and guess what, the model is 1/16th scale, not 1/12th as I had stated in my original post.
Below is the picture of the track parts, before assembly, and some others of the tracks and track frames.

Regards, Colin

[Colin Giersberg]

Some more. Take notice of the bolt heads in the fourth photo.

[Colin Giersberg]

Some more, again.

[Colin Giersberg]

More again.

[Chris Padilla]

Amazing stuff...just simply amazing!

[Colin Giersberg]

How about some more.

[Mike Spanbauer]

patience and a surgeons hands to accomplish that level of detail... woof.

Thanks again. A talent that the world is surely going to miss.

mike

[Colin Giersberg]

Some re-sized photos.