Miniature Power Shovel Looks Like The Real Thing

Miniature Power Shovel Looks Like The Real Thing FARM HOME Toys/Games 26-1-24 Like a lot of people his age, Bill Briden read "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" when he was in elementary school. "I never forgot that story and later in life I got a chance to buy a real 30-ton steam shovel," says Briden, Crookston, Minnesota. "Years later, my son, Jim, restored it." Briden recently decided to also build a miniature steam shovel patterned after the big one. He says it was one of the most sophisticated shop projects he ever undertook. When it was finished, he named it Mary Ann, after Mike Mulligan's steam shovel. It looks like it's full sized counterpart, from the top of the boom right down to the tracks. But appearances are about all the two have in common. The big Marion shovel weighs 30 tons, while Mary Ann weighs in at a mere 2.5 tons. "Mary Ann runs on two-speed reversible electric motors from power drills," he says. "I got a good deal on some old Milwaukee electric drills. They were designed to drill 6 in. holes between 16-in. rafters for plumbing." One drill runs each of Mary Ann's tracks. Another raises and lowers the boom and a fourth one controls the cable that raises and lowers the bucket arm. Above the tracks is a turntable that Briden made from a flywheel off an 830 John Deere tractor mounted on ball bearings. It's powered by a variable speed electric motor from a junked DeWalt drill. Mary Ann's tracks came off a machine Briden found in a junkyard The sprocket wheels he had cut from steel plate by a company in Fargo, N. Dak. The front idlers are the races from a couple of huge Timken bearings. The track rollers came from the scrap heap at a sugar beet processing plant. The stack, which makes it look like Mary Ann is steam powered, is the boiler from an old coal-fired water heater. Briden made the boom from steel plate and angle iron and the bucket from plate steel that he formed by rolling and hammering into shape. While there are levers inside the shovel's cabin, they, like the mannequin he usually keeps inside it, are dummies. "It plugs into a regular 110-volt outlet and runs on a 20-amp fuse. I operate the shovel from about 30 ft. away using push button controls on a tether," he says. To make the tether, he bought a 3/4 in. garden hose and pulled the wires through it to his control box. When he operates his "big toy" out of reach of an electrical outlet, Briden provides power with a diesel generator."When I set it up at equipment shows, people don't usually notice me at first. It looks like a dummy is at the controls," he says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, William Briden, Box 265, Rt. 2, Crookston, Minn. 56716 (ph 218 281-2829).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.