Apart from a Kibri Liebherr crane cab and Albedo wheels and tyres, this model of a Belgian-built Lefort 500-tonne scrap metal press is totally scratchbuilt working from photographs on company websites as no drawings were available. The real machine compresses light and medium scrap into a shape approximately 20 feet long by 24" by 18" with the hydraulic "wings" shown in yellow and then the large horizontal ram at the front pushes this to the back for the short heavy duty vertical ram fitted with a blade to chop it into small dense chunks of furnace fodder - the real thing can be seen at www.lefort-usa.com/500tmobile.html for comparison.

Posted October 18, 2004