TEEMING LADLE Part 1

I think I might have spelled teeming, teaming, before, but then again I'm sure I misspelled a lot on here.  I posted a picture of this fine resin casting that I purchased from Brandon Wehe.  He manufactures this ladle, a charging ladle, a scrap bucket (which I also purchased) and scrap boxes.  I intend to eventually purchase a number of the charging and teeming ladles as well as a few scrap buckets.   The ladle is very well detailed and Brandon adds the trunnions and other fittings.  The only additional detailing that needs to be done to this is mechanism for opening and closing the plug in the bottom of the ladle.  Brandon includes a drawing of this and some suggestions.  I used the drawing and created this detail using a combination of plastic tubing, strip styrene, and brass 0-sized hex head bolts.  Oh, and a few Grandt Line NBW.   Looking at the picture I need to clean it up a bit and also add a piece of rod on each side of the lower pivot.  I am not 100% happy with the upper pivot bracket, but I'll improve this by using a smaller piece of tubing the next time.  

 If you are wondering how this works, basically, the operator, standing on a teeming platform, pivots the lever which in turn raises the arm on the outside of the ladle and also the inner arm that it is connected to.  This inner arm clears the hole in the bottom of the ladle, allowing the molten steel to pour into the ingot cars.   The one picture shows a real teeming ladle on display at Roebling Steel.  It is the ladle on the left, the other one is a scrap charging bucket.   You can clearly make out the mechanism, which is only slightly different than the one I built.  

By the way, I wish I knew exactly what sized pieces of plastic I used for this, but I was pulling stuff that looked about right from the bin of loose pieces.  If you really need to know email me and I'll measure and make a list.   Also, if you are looking to buy these ladles, Brandon Wehe's order form can be found on both the Yahoo Steel Group and the Steel Discussion Board I believe.  If you can't find it, email me or just post something on one of those boards as I believe he is on there on occasion.    This will be a short topic probably - Part 2 showing it painted.