Thanks Bilgerat. The hot plate is interesting. This seems to tally with the crane drivers' mode of working throughout the yard, i.e. once you were up in your crane you stayed up. I think I have posted before on the tea room at the end of overhead travellers on 7 slip, again allowing the men to stay in their place of work.
I expect there is a brake system of some sort on the output shaft from the slew motor. The luffing motor (also underneath the cab) clearly has a hand-brake system using a pair of brake shoes on the shaft to the luffing gears in the winch-room. The crane is clamped to the rails to stop it moving and that appears to be something built in rather than added when the crane was decommissioned. The jib is permanently secured by a pair of arms bolted to the pulley tower above the cab which are clamped to the jib. They're painted bright yellow so will be clearly visible when the upper part of the scaffold is struck, probably next week.
I'll try to get some pics of it when I get time.
By way of an aside, the first set of pictures I put up show a hot-plate in the cab by the door above the fire-extinguisher. I suppose this would also have provided some heating for the cab in the winter.
The whole project, including taking the scaffold down must be completed by the end of the first week in September, when I'm told, the Antiques Roadshow will be filming in the Yard.
Great photos Bilgerat. Thats a very interesting modification to the slew-ring. My initial thought was why not just disconnect the slew ring motor feed, but on thinking about it further the bolts on the involute gear prevent the crane from slewing under wind-load - either against a load or the body of the crane. This raises the question in my mind as to wheher there is a slew ring brake or not, I suspect they may have but are possibly worn out.
A quick update with some more pictures.
Work on the jib is now complete, as are the metal repairs to the cab/winch-house. As of today, the scaffold around the jib has been struck, leaving the main body of the crane still encased. The cab/winch-house is resplendent in it's pink under-coat. The focus of the steel-work repairs was two-fold. Firstly, to protect from further decay by cutting out and replacing rotten steel and preventing birds getting into the cab, where they've been roosting for years.
We've now started work painting around the slew ring underneath the cab and at the top of the base. This is going to be a barrel of fun, especially in this weather, in amongst all the pigeon poo and dried grease.
The right-hand lever controls the jib and the left one controls slewing left and right.
Winch control (left) and winch brake (right). I'm told that the two foot pedals just visible to the left of the winch control are the travel brakes.
A couple of views of the slew-ring at the top of the base under the cab.
The slew pinion. The yellow device bolted to the pinion locks it in place, preventing the crane from slewing. The slew pinion is driven by a motor under the floor of the cab.
The smell in the winch-house is indescribable but is beginning to fade away now it's drying out.
The plan is to replace the broken glass in the windows, which along with the repaired steel-work will prevent pigeons getting into the cab/winch-house once and for all (fingers crossed) and to put netting across the void underneath. This should stop birds roosting under the cab and in the slew-ring. The upper framework will be fitted with bird-spikes, to prevent the roof becoming encrusted in pigeon poo again.
The scaffolders began work on this today. The scaffold should be completed by the middle of next week at which point work will begin on cleaning it up and repainting it. When finished in about 6 - 8 weeks time (weather permitting), it will look like new (well, almost anyway).
Rumour control has it that the scaffolders will start on this next week. Once the scaffold is up, work can begin on cleaning and repainting the crane, repairing as necessary as we go.
This crane was one the few which didn't have an on-board generator. If you look at the other cranes around the docks in the Historic Dockyard, you'll see what looks like a shed. This contained a generator set.
When working on YSM as an apprentice, I was told that these cranes were originally built as "kits" to be shipped to France after "D"Day and they were self contained so that there was no need for mains electricity. Whether these cranes ever made it to France and were repatriated I don't know. I cannot recall the yard cranes running on their generators, but they were certainly periodically overhauled & tested.
Can anybody verify, or indeed repudiate, this story?
Sentinel - you're probably right. What I do know about this crane is that at some point in the next couple of months its going to be encased in a scaffold and be given a good clean and re-paint. All the cranes in the Historic Dockyard are looking a bit derelict and sorry for themselves these days but as this one is at the head of a dock, it's first on the list.
Sorry but I thought that the Loco Cranes were the rail bourne sheds with jibs. They were cranes first, all steam I think, and could move trucks if required hence the name. I thought that these were 'normal' dockside electric freight cranes..... S4.
This crane was one the few which didn't have an on-board generator. If you look at the other cranes around the docks in the Historic Dockyard, you'll see what looks like a shed. This contained a generator set. The crane on the other side of Cavalier and the one by the stern of Gannet both have these.
There is a working example of these cranes, on the wall between basins 3 and 2.