CCM Behind the Scenes: The Model Survey

When a customer holds one of CCM’s models in their hand or admires it on their shelf, it’s easy to appreciate the pains we take to assure only the highest level of quality and detail make it to the final product. However, few realize the amount of work that goes into creating very small scale versions of giant machines. The process of bringing one of our models from its start as an idea to a finished collectible piece can sometimes span up to two or three years.  Here we would like to take you behind the scenes for just one aspect of this involved process.

For many of our models of modern machines we are able to acquire the 3-D computer plans of the actual equipment directly from the manufacturer, such as Caterpillar, and heavily modify it for production as a die-cast or brass scale-model. Yet there are many times when computer models of the machine do not exist – such as for our vintage pieces – and that means we have to build our CAD (computer aided design) model from scratch.

In addition to using any reference materials we can get our hands on, such as brochures, photos and plans, we will often go directly to the real machine to conduct what we call the model survey.

For our Cat 5230 front shovel model we traveled to a site in Hibbing, Minnesota to survey this giant, which is rather hard to find in the United States. This machine was having work done to it in the field and provided us with a great opportunity to don our hardhats and grab our measuring tapes to document every detail.

Reference photos will only take you so far in designing a scale model with the detail we demand. Therefore, each major component has to be measured and photographed to assure we have our dimensions just right.

 

Crawling under, inside and on top of a machine like the 5230, there are many intricate features that might have been overlooked if we were only using photos or flat plans.

It’s easy to forget just how massive some of this equipment is. When we reduce it down to a size like 1/87th scale we attempt to portray every detail possible. One of our great challenges is not deciding how much detail we will put into a model, but what we must leave out because of manufacturing concerns, complexity, or because it would just be too small to see.

After we are done rolling around in the mud, we head back home to sort out the information we gathered and start the next step of translating it into a 3-D computer model!