Ever since I acquired my first RC excavator 3 years ago (a Stahl 922) I've been wanting to build a wheeled excavator. At that time I had a small shop in my garage I used for building and *repairing* model airplanes. I had no metalworking experience, whatsoever, and I had no experience with RC hydraulics. I decided to completely rebuild the Stahl, and in doing so I gained the experience needed to complete this project. I purchased a band saw, a lathe and a mill, and in the process of building this model I taught myself (via mostly Youtube) how to work with metal.
I must credit Ari (Hemi1966) with giving me the motivation and design insight to build this excavator. He was kind enough to share with me his entire photo library of his own M322d build. I copied his design if most regards, with some minor modifications. Thanks Ari !! I also read thru numerous build threads of some brilliant builders on this forum and have learned so much in the process.
I'm going to do a sort of "reverse" build thread, and show the final product before going into the details of construction. I started working on this project in September 2014. (I never said I was fast.)
Paul
