Gametraders Blacktown Ugears Rail Manipulator Hobby Central

Developing its new fascinating series, Mechanical Town, Ugears presents another addition to the collection: the Rail Manipulator.

Set up in the dock of Mechanical Town not far from the Robot Factory, the Manipulator is a purely utilitarian model, which by no means makes it less entertaining than the other models in the range. Like the rest of the Ugears models, the Manipulator is designed to make sure the fun goes on after the assembly is completed. With a number of extras that come in the box, the model guarantees hours of an exciting new pastime.

Speaking of extras, with the Manipulator itself, you also receive two sections of rails, the shed under construction, two shipping crates with doors, crane, freight carriage, and five characters.

Design & engineering

The Manipulator is a mechanical claw with three levers that sits on a platform on the rails. The rails can be connected in parallel or in one line. The settings are completed with a pseudo-metal shed under construction made of giant trusses which arrived straight out of the Industrial age with one of the characters, a roofer with a hammer, sitting on a beam of the shed. The Worker holding signal flags assists the Manipulator operator to control the process, while the Worker with a shovel and the Worker with a wrench are minding their own business in the docks.

The model also includes one of the docks’ most important pieces of equipment, the Crane. It can be disassembled and put back together almost by a wave of the hand. With the supplementary mechanisms the rotation and angle of the crane can be locked even with a load.

And an important addition to the setting is the Freight carriage with drop sides. Load and unload your freight crates along with the disassembled crane easily and move them to a new destination.

All the parts of the set are made of a high-quality plywood and needs no extra materials or tools to assemble.

How does it work?

The claw itself sits on a platform that can rotate manually or by a valve. The operator’s cab, equipped with a protection lid and adjustable headlight, is found in the front part of the model. The counter-clockwise rotation of the cabin switches the Manipulator’s modes:

• initial position (driving mode) – the claw’s rotation platform locked, the model moves along the track;
• 90 degree turn (free mode) – the rotation platform is unlocked;
• 180 degree turn (loading mode) – the wheels of the models are locked along with the gear in the front axle that connects to the ledge on the rails.

The rear of the model carries the lever that controls lifting, lowering, and holding of four foot supports providing extra-steadiness while operating the claw.

With its articulated claw, the Ugears Manipulator can load and move the freight crates in the Carriage with an extraordinary – up to 1 cm – preciseness. Based on the original prototypes, the Manipulator will teach you about the operational and constructional peculiarities of the real-life machines, such as cranes, excavators, robotic arms, etc; their mechanics and functionality.

All in all, the Manipulator has a great capacity both as an assembly model that is exciting to put together and as a great play time companion due to its diverse functionality. Not to forget about its educational value provided by the great mechanics based on the real-life designs. And if you feel like you need to get even more fun from the model, you can always hook your Manipulator up with the other Ugears models from your collection with the coupling hitch holes.

Age 14+