Javelin

Congratulations on this excellent piece of work/art. Hard to believe you made this from a kit!

Spectacular is the correct word for this! I must admit I hadn't expected this to turn out so well, but it truly is extremely close to your reference picture! But now the ships...

I've been thinking about this one for a looooong time. The planking looks brilliant and at first I was a big fan of leaving it unpainted. You have no errors to hide. That said, I changed my mind. In an unpainted state, she is not a true model of Cangarda, but rather a different ship. Paint would also hide the contrast with the brass insert for the propeller. If you would leave it unpainted, I guess a mahogany insert in that place would probably look better. Since it would in that case become a "fictional ship", you could put a white line on the waterline to give some contrast. All in all I can still live with leaving it unpainted since that wood looks very handsome, but painted to stick to the original has my preference Not much help in deciding, I know....

I would indeed say the Maastricht carriage isn't original, considering the trunnion size compared to the capsquare size. The others, I don't know.

I'd say they're square with the bracket rather than the centerline. At first I thought not, since the use would be for mounting those blocks and you'd want a flat face to touch the flat block face. Then I thought it wouldn't have been necessary when using a quoin? (wedge), but this picture seems to suggest both a block and quoin. (this one is in Rotterdam Maritime Museum). But then I also had these guns: This one is in Maastricht, here you can see the block, but if you look closely at the step below the block and the angles, they aren't straight compared to each other. Looking at the direction of the angle, I'd say the step is square to the bracket, while the block would be square to the centerline. The contact surface on the forward face of the block would also indicate a similar angle, but less visible. And then I have this one, close to my home: It also seems to indicate square to the bracket. I do admit the last ones are not from that age and shore guns rather than maritime ones, but I hope it gives you an indication.

Thanks guys. The Dell's ok, but I don't need to use it so much, so I'm not bothered anyway. Small update again. Somehow, because the road was clear, I kept postponing the "hooks" for hanging her in the bottle. Since I'm reaching the end of what I can do, I decided to make them (but without gluing for now). So here they are in place: And here they are already partly covered the way I envisioned it from the outset. I did decide on a single one forward, since the smaller accommodation block didn't leave much space to cover a 4th one. In any case, anything you suspend or hoist is always only supported by 3 legs, so 4th one would be redundant. Once they are glued, I'll make a hanging test with the dredge pipe connected to see how it goes. Additionally I had to drill the stern thruster in the aft skeg between the propellors and also made the shaft/propellor skegs as well. The props are protected by tunnels (don't have the proper diameter rod with me to make those) and of course there are rudders behind them, which would be too fragile to put on for now.

Hi @Keith Black, I'm keeping this one below the radar, most of them don't know. There is a long-standing feud between the TSHD guys and CSD (Cutter Suction Dredger) guys. It originates from the days when CSD's were generally stationary dredgers, only moved from one spot to another with the help of small support craft (much like Lula). In those days the TSHD guys were the civilised people from Maritime Academy, while the CSD guys were short-tempered construction workers. TSHD guys always regarded CSD people as crude retards, while CSD people regarded TSHD people as softies (I'm expressing myself light here)... Nowadays however, with self propelled CSD's, the crew on these CSD's are also recruited from Maritime Academy and/or are industrial/civil engineers that took a maritime education on top of that. That said, there are still some old school people around to keep the feud alive, but the younger people amongst us consider it ridiculous. It does still mean I have to be careful not to be called a traitor on my CSD. So, finally time for the dredge pipe. I was lucky to have the correct diameter or brass rod with me for this one. I've also in the meantime completed some containers and both crane jibs. That means I'm basically finished as far as I can get for now. The dredge pipe will also be detailed a little further with the smaller diameter jet pipe etc. The part in the middle is a swivel part where the lower part of the pipe can bend in and out. Also near the ship's hull there is a piece of flexible pipe to allow the dredge pipe to move transversely. This happens when the suction head reaches a harder piece of soil, where it will automatically slide around by the resistance of the tougher ground or when the dredger makes a turn while dredging. In those cases the dredge pipe will move. They will of course always try to avoid having it going underneath the ship or too far away from the ship. As you can see I made a small hook at the upper end of the dredge pipe, this fits inside the whole I made behind the shell plate (which you can see in one of my previous posts). Once hooked behind the shell, the pipe can move up and down, but stays in place.

I guess the smiley doesn't suffice for this build! What a great build. Love the shape, colours and your additional decorations.

What a splendid model. I'm with Valeriy on this one, the brass, unpainted parts are a nice touch. Congratulations!

Still plugging away. I believe I might just be about finished with what I can by the time I go back and home and continue this build in earnest. First my actual way of checking whether things will pass or not. As far as I noticed, I will probably need to remove the portside platform from the highest deck, since it makes the deck too wide to pass. However I will only remove once I have checked with the actual bottle. The bottle has a rather short neck, which might allow me to wiggle the complete deck through. The aft superstructure can clearly pass. The numbers on the right are boxes I've drawn in the bottle opening and then measured for easy reference. It makes planning a bit easier. She has now received her bulwark, forward structure for the discharge pipe and the first gantry for the suction pipe. (the second one you can see on the foreground). The forward structure will not be mounted on the deck, since then it won't pass the bottleneck, so it will be attached to the discharge pipe (along with more supports), which in turn will be connected to the main deck and lower part of the superstructure. The bridgewings, bridge and mast will then be a separate part that is placed on top of that. I'll definitely take pictures of the separate parts when I get further in the build. I can only begin to assemble those when I'm painting. If I'm not mistaken I'll end up with 5 main pieces to assemble in the bottle (7 if you count the cranes as well).

Would it be an option to raise the masts opposite? Fix the ship with the masts flipped forward, and use a line to the stern raise the masts?

That's because I didn't use it on my models yet. Pretty sure I'll smash something if I use that railroad track. Funny thing is, it was in the garage when I bought the house. It appeared familiar to me, but couldn't quite identify it until I first saw your piece of railroad track in one of your early logs! As for the orientation, leaving them loose while raising the masts will probably make some damage... On the other side, with your planned orientation, one of the ships will sail away from the bottleneck, so the regular way for raising masts, using the bowsprit will not be possible considering the angle?

Glad you're not giving up on that one. Not sure how that caulk is behaving, but is it an option to brush it smooth rather than adding it in blobs and spreading it? Or coating the surface of the whirlpool with acrylic gel? I'm pretty sure that would leave a very thin, but waterproof layer over it. I'm pretty sure you'll succeed, so I'm already curious how you'll add the ships to it and in which direction?! I love how you build those ships, an inspiration for a future project of mine. Luckily I also have a piece of railroad track!

Awesome work Gary, I'm especially amazed by that celophane tape trick. Never seen that before, but the result is astonishing. Love the port holes as well, very sharp execution!

Before this gets derailed and the dredger has to tow a pod of whales in the bottle, here are some pics of the draghead. Since this is not the type of dredger I work on, I don't have that many reference pictures on this ship. Perhaps that is a blessing rather than a curse, considering the complexity of this ship. As you can see the upstanding parts on both sides could act well to hold the bottle, however the pipe in the centre would leave the forward part of the bottle unsupported, with greater risk of it rolling off. In this shot you can see the row of teeth at the top of the entry. So basically it's a vacuum cleaner nozzle. They adjust the visor, which is the openin/jaw where the teeth are located to create a bigger or smaller opening and it also has these jet nozzles. This type of dredger catches a lot of bombs (depending on the area they are dredging in of course), which then get stuck in the visor. Always a surprise when that head comes back up, occasionally the bombs just fall out once the head is back onboard, but as far as I know, most of the time they are stuck inside. In any case, they have to stop dredging and contact the navy to come and get it out. You'll also be surprised to find out these are generally operated by a single person, the dredging part, putting the pipe overboard etc. is very automated, so he mostly concentrates on navigation once dredging is started. Of course there is a crew onboard for the machinery part as well as the maintenance part of the dredge equipment etc. In some areas with very dense traffic they are obliged to have 2 people on the bridge, one for dredging and one for navigation.