Quick guide to build your own cityscape viewing crane, follow step by step or take inspiration and build your own version!

Step 1: Build a Base

depending on how large you would like to build your crane, you will need to build a base that can secure your crane to the ground without it toppling over. We have used steel as our main material but you can use wood, copper or plastic etc etc

Step 2: Shaft/arm

we took two 3m steel rods 19mm in diameter and put them through a rolling machine to get our curve.

we then bolted them together at 4 equidistant points on the bend of the crane, these points will also be our wheel attachment points.

Step 3: Wheels

for the wheels we just cut two circles the same size out of 6mm ply and the one circle slightly smaller so when they're sandwiched together they would make a thin wheel shape with a groove large enough for a 4mm cable toast snuggly inside. with the wheels glued together we then varnished them for a nice finish.

our wheel dimensions in diameter were

wheel 1 (40cm)

wheel 2 (35cm)

wheel 3 (30cm)

wheel 4 (25cm)

you can follow these dimensions or you can decide your own

Step 4: Crank

to make the sphere on the end of the crane adjustable we built a lock in mechanism, we took two long and thin steel plates and cut down facing teeth into them so when the weight of the mirror ball on the end pulled on the cable,the handle attached to cable would lock in and sit comfortably

Step 5: Mirror Ball and Attachment

at first we struggled to find a mirror ball to buy online but what we found was that these things were actually garden ornaments and we found our one on amazon for 50 pounds and it is 40cm in diameter but you can get smaller cheaper ones.

for the fitting we drilled into our mirror ball (hollow and light) and attached to our cable using a loop, a clamp and then a wall fitting to push inside our ball, this acts like a barbed hook and springs out after inserted,

then its just a case of cutting the cable to the right size and feed the cable through the wheels in an S-bend.