It’s Valentines Day here at The Lego Car Blog, and what better way to celebrate it than with a post about an epic dumping! This TLCB writer is totally fine about it though, and he’s not even thinking about you Laura.

Anyway, this is a Bucyrus RH400 mining shovel, one of the largest mining excavators in the world, and it’s capable of dumping 45m³ of rock, up to 75 tons, in a single bucket.

Built by previous bloggee Sheo this 1:48 Model Team recreation of the Bucyrus RH400 is an near perfect miniaturisation of the 900 ton excavator, right down to the way it operates.

LEGO’s Power Functions motors drive everything including the two-stage boom and tipping bucket, the tracked propulsion, superstructure rotation, folding service ladder, rotating cooling fans, and a gearbox to switch between these remotely operated functions.

There’s a whole lot more to see of Sheo’s Bucyrus excavator at Eurobricks and Flickr – click the links and join this writer in completely forgetting about Laura.