Schaufelradbagger under construction

How it all began 

The Lego model 

The real one 

The big wheel 

All the parts cleaned and drying 

The first parts put together. It is quite a challenge to get the fences in place. No holes and you have to bend it to make it fit! 

Added some more railings and steps 

One of the additional buildings, meant to house one of the conveyor belts. 

Added the conveyor belt and did some weathering. Only the sand is missing! 

Finished the first three stages of the BWE. I painted it light grey, but oversprayed it with light brown. The real thing also looks very dusty and sandy! 

The conveyor belt in place, together with the connection to the main conveyor belt. 

I managed to find some 1/200 accessories: a coach, a lorry and some people 

All the parts I finished so far. In the middle a lorry to show the size of the machine! 

The winch house which moves the large wheel up and down with a lot of cables and pulleys 

On an excursion to the BWE, we were taking into the quarry by a coach on a lorry frame. I wanted to try to build this and found a coach and a lorry in the right scale. I cut the coach in pieces, opened up the windows and added seats. Look at the driver 

The instructiosn for this kit are somewhat mysterious. If you look at the instructions, near the instructions how to make stretched sprue.  

The fences and the line tell you how to make stairs with a bannister!  

I hadn't noticed that the eight struts in the third picture were not the same, but all slightly different. It was impossible to see which one should go where. So I enlarged the instructions to make it the real size and so found out which was which! 

A secret recipe for paint: mix three colours in various ratios and instructions that are absolutely incomprehensible, even for me with my 50 years of modelling experience! But look at the result, that's what counts! I love this beast! 

All the parts I've got so far. Can you spot the lorry? It's ever so small compared to the BWE. I've weathered the mainstructure, to see how I could obtain the best result. The other parts are either primer or painted grey. 

The heart of the machine: the big wheel 

The wheel in place. There are three engines to drive the wheel, although the boxart shows four engines. I added some struts to the main shield. 

The driver cabins are movable so I decided to add them at different heights. 

The other side of the arm. 

This is how the model is more or less going to look. 

All the assembled parts so far. 

Two more conveyor belts 

The main conveyor belt from the BWE to the transport conveyor 

What do you get when you have Dan Brown write the instructions for a modelkit? The instructions for the BWE! Many mysteries to solve, but it is fascinating to see it grow. 

The main conveyorbelt, temporarily connected to the mainstructure 

The first time I used a material I had never used before: sand! What else could be use to show the use of the BWE 

I used sand on the caterpillar tracks, much better than weathering with paint 

The part of the BWE where it is connected to the grid of conveyorbelts. The cables used to raise and lower the conveyor belt, still have to be attached 

The large drum with the electricity cable to power the machine 

The rear end of the conveyor belt. At first I covered the whole conveyor belt with sand, until I discovered that the sand is not dumped at the end of the belt 

Again painting lots of railings, still two frames with railings left. 

How do you get sand on the big wheel in a realistic way: let it turn in a box of sand (after applying glue, of course!) 

The result! The wheel and the conveyor belt with real sand. 

I also added some walkways with railings 

The other conveyorbelt, again with sand and additional walkway 

The main structure test fitted on is caterpillars 

This is how it's going to look in the end 

All the big parts, still unassembled 

The main tracks covered with sand, for the realistic effect 

The mainstructure on its tracks 

Stil some work to do on the piece, like adding some railings and stairs 

All parts testfitted. my workbench is almost too small! 

Look at the lorry in the same scale (1/200) 

Added a walkway on top of the cabledrums 

More stairs and walkways added 

Added the supportcables and the blocks for the big cables 

Because there is of course a lot of dust and sand, many BWEs were fitted with some kind of protection of the engines. Sometimes a large piece of plastic or something similar to that and often with metal plates, as I did 

Adding the wires to control the digger arm. It isn't easy, since the instructions are not very clear and even contradict each other. Still managed to get them in place and couldn't resist to take a picture of the complete assembly. 

The visitors are wondering about the size of the machine! 

The cables! And here it all started to go wrong. I used plasticized metal wire. It looked very realistically, but it ws impossible to get it taught. I almost gave up. 

Then I discovered basting elastic. Very flexible and strong enough to hold the weight of the big arm. And easy to paint with metal and black 

The new cables look fine 

The access stairs added 

Even from above they look nicely! It really surprised me that all the cables were so strong 

Because I thought the transport arm quite bare, I decided to add the wires and cables. I had two problems: not enough good pictures and the transport arm had to be detachable. I scratchbuilt a support, which can be removed. 

The size of the BWE compared with a DC-10 and an F-16. All in scale 1/200! 

There was a kind of support on the arm, which I added 

The signs with the serial and constructor's name in place 

A mini dio: the coach/truck with the visitors 

The cables on the transport arm, all the attachment points scratchbuilt 

A view of the whole machine. I used bluetac to fix the cables to the mainconstruction. Just a lot of weathering and the beast is finished 

After more than a year, the beast is finished! (Well almost, on the pics I saw I missed some parts while weathering with brown dirt).The main structure with a lorry-coach, bringing visititors to the quarry 

The transport arm. It contains a conveyor belt, which brings the lignite to the structure on the right. At the extreme right is the place where everything is dumped on a large network of conveyor belts. 

The big wheel, driven by three electric engines. Because they were often damaged by all the sand, they were protected by plating. These were scratchbuilt. 

The connection from the conveyorbelt to the mainstructure. There were lots of cables, bringing power to the engines. Because I wanted to make the whole a bit transportable, I used bluetac to connect the cables, so everything can be taken apart 

On the left the machines and winches that raise and lower the diggingwheel through lots and lots of cables. 

The scratchbult coach/lorry and some visitors, all in 1/200. I was so fortunate to stand in the same place and then the machine is enormous. The tracks are heigher than a man. 

Close-up of the lorry and visitors. Here you see I missed some parts, when added a brown mist to the model. 

The winches and an auxiliairy crane 

The bucketwheel with conveyor belt. I uesd real sand, used in modelrailway lay-outs! The controlcabins could move up and down in reality. And they were suspended in a way that they were always kept level. So I made this possible. 

The BWE in all its glory 

The end of all: the LEGO BWE, compared with the Revell BWE. Both beauties in their own! 

The end of the project: place of honour, in my study! 

When building this big machine, I didn't like the thread Revell provided. I found a nice plastic coated metal wire, which looked very realistically. But it was impossible to get it nice and taut. After a lot of searching, I found basting elastic and this looked the best solution! Until now. I realized that the was beginning to sink more and more and eventually the wheel rested on the ground and even the superstructure began to lean backwards. The elastic wasn't strong enough to carry the weight! 

The first thing I did to solve the problem, was fixing the arm with glue. This was quite an enterprise, because the weight of the arm is a lot and with the long arm, there is a lot of momentum. But after several efforts, the arm stayed more or less at the height I wanted. Next I replaced the top wires by the plastic coated metal wire, so if the glue wasn't strong enough, this would carry the weight. Fortunately I had used the same wire on the winches, so there was no difference to see. 

Next I needed to do something with the basting elastic. I thought I had to cut loose everything, but I found out that I hadn't glued the wire, so it was only held in place bij the paint which I put on the wires. So it was easy to shorten this: I removed more than 50 cms. But now it no longer carries the weight, it is alright to use. 

The final result: the centre of the wheel is now about 8 cms above the ground and the model looks great again!