The Disc-Comforter

The start of 2011 had me come finally, to the painful decision to dismantle the largest, heaviest and definitely most complex model that I had ever made. That was the model I called ‘The Storm Rider’ and exhibited last year.

During the dismantling I decided to save part of the tower structure of the model with the idea to modify and use it towards a new design. In actual fact many changes where carried out to that tower and the changes needed a supporting deck to firmly anchor the tower to stable foundations. Once this was achieved, I set about increasing the height of the tower reinforcing it with two very large supporting legs on each side and two more further back to keep the structure rigid. At the back one more leg was added and this eliminated the tower from any hint of movement or vibrations.

After adding the extra height to the tower I concentrated on building an area to fix the motor and gearing system to rotate a heavy duty axle where the wheel was to be supported. Measurements were carefully taken to construct a huge rotating wheel that would fit with no more than an inch clearance of the main deck once the passenger carriages had been added.

The huge wheel disc was designed to attach 8 double arms made with two no 7 angle girders and two no 8 and three  braced girders no 99. the large angled girders are at the back and the shorter at the front to allow the space for the carriages fitted with one sided axles to freely rotate.

In the central front a large flanged ring part No 167b concealed the fittings of all the 8 arms using two 5 holes perforated strips in angle, the only way possible to symmetrically achieve the right fixings of all together equally, I was facing a difficult choice as after trying numerous fittings with nothing coming to the exact size, I was not sure if I would find a successful solution.

Further alterations later, I finally produced the right configuration. A few back supports and fittings were made to keep the wheel to the right shape as the arms tended to move slightly outward. Eight identical carriages each with four passenger seats were made and supported at the end of the arms in axles fitted to the 8 large pulleys part no 19b. The carriages were supported with 5 holes double angled strips going through these axles, however to reduced extra weight I changed them for 3 holes ones and shorter axles which worked better.

Extra fittings were made and added to the deck and the main front canopy with the usual steps, ticket kiosk and decorative extras. Further adjustments were made to get the right balance and look, a central transformer light illuminates the central console and 3 more lights added inside the main top housing now light the main legs.