Acknowledgements

I am indebted to a number of people and organisations for help in manufacturing parts and for information about the bucket wheel excavator.

The steel plate and girders and strip blanks were cut with great precision by Steelcut Services (Pty) Ltd. of Port Elizabeth, using their CNC laser cutting machine, and the girders received a bend (90, 135 or 110 degrees as required). A big thank you to Roger, Sally and Werner at Steelcut for their patience.

All fixers (screws, nuts, blots, threaded rod) were supplied by Mr. Screw of Port Elizabeth.  Thank you to Roxy for her knowledge and efficiency.

Information on the machine was obtained initially from the Web but when the going got difficult I was given great encouragement, technical information  and some wonderful pictures by Thyssen Krupp Materials Handling of Johannesburg.  Thank you to Managing Director Klaus-Peter Mueller for his warm reception and encouragement.

Thanks are also due to Derek of K.V. Precision Engineering of Uitenhage, Eastern Cape, for making some high precision drilling jigs which enabled me to drill the equivalent of 1 kilometer through mild steel (equivalent to 1,000,000 holes in 1mm gauge steel!).

I am also grateful to all the 'bucket wheel excavator friends' who have watched progress enthusiastically over the last years, and trust they will hang in there till the end! Finally I thank my wife, Eileen, for her extreme forbearance and tolerance in agreeing that the model be assembled in the lounge of our home!