This was probably the one that I was most excited about and the most disappointed when finished. It is not because of the how it works but the overall balance of the truck. The lift is too big for the size of the vehicle. I am currently redesigning to make it look more balanced. The main key take away from this project was how to make tight fitting parts without a mechanism to tighten the parts together like a bold or screw. I tried making small cuts in the wood to make it spring like. The problem was with a cut it creates a point for a crack to propagate. This is not good in wood. So I drilled a hole at the end of each cut. This seemed to work.
It holds the bucket but it is not all the time. It is a pretty heavy arm.
I thought I would do a band saw box for the bucket. While mine came out ok, I felt this was not with in the criteria I was designing for. While a band saw is a great tool, I do not expect a lot of people have them. The redesign will have a large diameter hole drilled into it rather than a cut out.
I tried to think so some special details for this vehicle and this was one of them. I pegged the boom lift mount to the truck. I thought it was a great idea but it can barely be seen.
The truck looks good and I am glad I did it. I understand a little bit more the advice of "make every project twice." This one will be made again, a little different and a little better.
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