Wardell Bridge

Snowman

We come in peace, so shoot to kill!
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Gavin
This is coming to life......:thumb2:
 
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Peter
Thank you @Snowman and @Jens Andrée for your response.
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Discovered what the bridge swing gates looked like. They got replaced with boom gates in 1995.
here is the best photograph (zoomed in and cropped) showing the swing gates.

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Used Fencing wire for gate hinge axle, brass tubing, washers, solder, flat wire, and fly screen to make the gates.

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Discovered that electrical terminals contain couplings ideal for attaching levers to the axles, and stoppers for links.

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Showing what the gates will look like once they get closed across the road.

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Thank uou @spanner570 for your :thumb2:
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Designing and testing the servo controller circuit.
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Designing and making four controllers on a DIY printed circuit board.
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Making wooden brackets for the servos and gate axles. Assembling them under the display table.
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Over each set of two gate servos sits microswitches which will be enabled when the gates are fully opened and closed. These will trigger other circuits, including the red and green control panel lights for each gate.
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Playing around with motor controller circuits. Deicided to drop the voltage to the motors to slow down the revolutions and the speed of the span in motion. Using diodes in series to drop the volatges. The 'INCH' button, on the control panel, drops the voltage even more, so to gently dock the span back onto the road. The circuit opted for controlling motor direction (CW - CCW) is logic controlled.
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There is a rotational drift after power is cut to the motor. This needs to be considered in terms of locating sensors which switches the power off.
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Making the two motor controllers circuits on a single printed circuit board.
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Thank you @JoeC and @johnm93 for your responses.
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Painted several 1/72 scale, or OO gauge (1/74) scale, figurines. Cannot remember which ones I ordered. The tallest figure is 25 mm (1").
The second row are council workers (in high visibility work clothes). The fourth figure is the same as the third, but his left arm got amputated and repositioned. It turned out really good. It has opened a new door of possibilities for me.

DzNWhfE.jpg
 

Snowman

We come in peace, so shoot to kill!
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Those circuit boards took me back to my initial workshop training days (18yrs old - a long time ago!) - just like you, we designed and made our own. Cool!!

Impressive work, all round!
 
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Thank you @papa 695 and @Snowman for your comments.
Gavin, I guess bad habits die hard :smiling:
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Now for the boat that traverses under the bridge,
Because the boat does not turn around to come back, it reverses back instead. To avoid having a reversing boat, in appearance, it could be symmetrical and appear to have two bow sections. So I bought two wooden boat kits to build such a boat.

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I cut the keels, decks and cabin walls in half. Joined the bow sections together.
Used a tea-candle and a tin can to heat bend the planking to the shape of the hull.

tXmyZaE.jpg
 
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Thank you @Snowman for your response.
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Drew the waterline and planked it. Then planked in between gunwale and waterline.
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Then filleted the boat like a fish. Sanded the base flat and smooth.
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Mr Bowcat

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Just caught up with this thread, I am gobsmacked by the work you have done. Bloody good job. :smiling3:
 
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Thank you @Snowman , @papa 695 , and @Mr Bowcat for your encouraging and kind words.
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Since the boat has two wheelhouses, it will need two sets of red-green nav lights. They need hoods to restrict their field of illumination.
Coffee tin lids come in handy.
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The kit had winches without a drum or crank, so I supplied my own.
Painted a seated plastic figurine, and placed him on a wooden box.
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Stained the doors, and later the cabin roofs, with coloured ink. Then coated with clear satin enamel paint.
Glued bits of copper wire to appear as door hinges. Painted spare life-savers to look like rubber tyre bumpers.
Gave the seated figure a piece of string to make him appear to be splicing a rope.
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Used some wood putty on the hull. Sanded the hull smooth for painting.
used a paper clip to make some eyelets for rigging.
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Thanks @papa 695 and @johnm93 for your reaction. Much appreciated.
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I do not need to add lights, but I thought it would give extra education to the musuem visitors operating the bridge.
The boat requires a changeover in navigational lights each time it changes direction.
I used clear LEDs when they are OFF, so not to cause confusion over the red-green (port and starboard) lighting.

Made up the leads. marked one end with a black line so I would know which one is LED cathode (K)/(-).
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Mast light.
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Made a railing for the middle section.
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Added port and starboard nav lights to cabin roofs.
The front wall of each wheelhouse was too thin to block the internal lighting.
Had to make a reflector to block the light and reflect it back into the cabin space.
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Made stern nav light hoods and added all the hoods to the relevant nav light.
Made and added a radar antenna.
As you can see, along one side of the boat, depending on up or down-stream travel, the nav light changes.
qnZV8Xa.jpg


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Richard
amazing build, full of information and ideas keep it up
 
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Peter
Thank you @papa 695 for your :thumb2:, and @Richi72 for your compliment.
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Added air vents, winches, and two deckhands talking.
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I am calling the boat BINGAL, which was the aboriginal name for Wardell, where the actual bridge is.
As a bit of a pun, I decided to create a bingle. Besides the boat's collision of two bows, there is the bingle of a deckhand tripping over the rope.
DchdtXc.jpg
 
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A slight side-track to an unfinished portion of the project. I had to stop to wait for ordered parts.
So, the unfinished bit is the boat vane. It has to hold the boat slightly above the water and move up and down stream. The gap in the table is 3mm. The aluminium vane is 2 mm. There is a printed circuit board (pcb) built into the vane. The pcb is 1.5 mm, leaving a 0.5 mm gap between the vane surface and the pcb tracks. These tracks are the electrical connections between boat and electronics under the table.
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