Скачать с ютуб Man attempts world's largest Meccano model в хорошем качестве

Man attempts world's largest Meccano model

(31 Jul 2014) LEADIN: If you're of a certain age, Meccano is your childhood toy of choice. A Meccano model builder in South Africa is attempting to break the record for the world's largest Meccano model. STORYLINE: Weighing 1.3 tonnes, it took retired lecturer, Graham Shepherd five years to make his coal extractor model. Measuring 12.5 metre long by 4.9 metre high (41 by 16 foot) Bagger 288 coal extractor is a labour of love. At 96 metres (314 feet) in height the original bucket-wheel extractor was said to be the world's largest land-based vehicle when it was first introduced in 1978, for use in Germany where it is still digging coal. "The bucket wheel excavators of this class, which is 240,000 cubic metres per day of coal - they are the largest, land-based fully mobile machines in the world, and so it excited me to attempt to build the world's largest Meccano model of the world's largest, moving, land-based machine," says Shepherd - a retired math lecturer from Grahamstown, South Africa. Shepherd hopes his working model will be recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest Meccano set ever built. There is currently no record for Meccano models. Meccano engineering kits have been around for more than 100 years. From being very popular with youngsters in the first half of the twentieth century, Meccano is today more of a niche adult hobby as Meccano historian Tatchell Venn explains: "It started to decline in the 1960s with the arrival of lego. And particularly overseas with the arrival of television, colour television. And then further decline took place with the arrival of the computer, and computer games for youngsters, where they could achieve instant gratification. As opposed to spending hours trying to solve problems and achieving results from that - a workable result from that. One finds that many members of the clubs from those days went into engineering fields, or they were very capable of solving problems even though they weren't engineers such as working on motor cars." 57 motors drive the Bagger replica, from the bucket-wheel excavator through to the conveyer belt which transports the coal directly to a power station. Most of the motors used on the model are vehicle windscreen wiper motors. Shepherd used ingenuity during his design phase. "To build the model, basically, what I had to do was get a lot of pictures off the internet like these that you see in front of you here, and by making measurements on the pictures, on the photographs, with a ruler to calculate the ratios of the various parts of the machine. That's because I did not have the actual plans of the machine." he says. Given the weight of the model, the parts had to be stronger than original Meccano parts. Shepherd hand-made about 40,000 parts himself, including plates, strips and girders. The plates were laser cut by an engineering firm, while Shepherd drilled the holes. Shepherd says that part alone took 18 months: "I calculate that I've drilled about a million holes into all these plates. If you stack that one on top of each other that's about a kilometre of drilling - a kilometre of deep hole drilled into mild steel which is quite a thing to ask your little domestic drill press over there to do." Anthony Els, who is Chairperson of the Meccano Club of South Africa, says it is acceptable to use replica parts. Shepherd is now putting his Meccano model up for sale. He is asking US $150,000 and can pack it into seven parts for transport. The Meccano company has recently been bought by Canadian firm, Spinmaster who have plans to revitalise the brand. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...