Machine-moving machine
Rawcliffe & Sons is a British heavy haulage firm, one of whose specialisations is machine transport. My latest model represents one of the vehicles used for this: a Volvo FH. While most of my minifigure-scale trucks are tractors with semi-trailers, this one is a bit different. The truck itself has four axles, with steering on the front and rear. It has a flatbed with a rear-mounted knuckleboom crane, for (un)loading cargo, and pulls a three-axle drawbar trailer.
On quite a few of my recent truck builds, the cargo is more of an attraction than the truck. I am thinking of my combine or my bulldozer transport, for instance. For this build, I wanted the truck itself to be the starring attraction. Hence, the cargo is a fairly simple set of crates, for machine parts, and a little forklift. The truck is recognisably British, with its green and red colour scheme and the drop shadow lettering.
I based the design of the Volvo’s cab on that of my existing wind turbine transport, but I obviously modified it to match the Rawcliffe colour scheme.
For coupling the trailer, I used a 2×2 plate with a tow ball socket, which fortunately exists in red. The trailer drawbar is attached to it using a red Homemaker Figure / Maxifigure Hand. Amazingly, I have had a single one of those in my collection for about forty years, ever since my sister donated her LEGO collection to me when we were both children. The hand was part of the Homemaker Hospital.
The model has some functionality, such as the steering axles. The crane can unfold, but is quite flimsy. The outriggers on the model do not work: instead of extending or retracting them, I have to add or remove parts. However, they look the business. My aim was for it to look good rather than playability.
Rawcliffe seems to have several Hyster forklifts, and among other tasks, uses them for installing machinery, taking them to their job sites. Lego has made numerous parts that are great for building forklifts, such as a rollcage, the mast and forks, and I do have those parts in my collection. However, they are too big for this forklift at this scale, unfortunately (and have the wrong colours). So, I had to get creative and build my own.
A Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Clip on Bottom attaches the forks to a vertical bar. It is not super sturdy and allows the forks to rotate side-to-side, but I can move them up and down. That is enough for display purposes. I am not at all sure the forklift would be used to move them in the real world anyway. The truck has a crane, after all.
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