Jump to content
HOLIDAY DONATION DRIVE - SUPPORT MSW - DO YOUR PART TO KEEP THIS GREAT FORUM GOING! ×
2025 NRG PHOTOGRAPHIC SHIP MODEL CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED ×
Ship Modeler's Handbook - Back in Stock ×

Javelin

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    620

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Javelin

  1. Javelin
    Roel: Do you have a build log of this barge? Kurt To my own surprise it seems not. I thought it was one of my first shared builds, but it appears I've only put her in the gallery here: https://modelshipworld.com/gallery/album/2675-split-barge-bengel-1400/
  2. Javelin
    Hi Keith, This is the inside of my split barge Bengel. Might give you some inspiration. The rougher side dredge material is a mixture of acrylic gel with beach sand, the glossy wet look is caused by the glossy acrylic gel. You can add more or less sand for a rougher or smoother result. The watery inside is that same acrylic gel mixed with brown acrylic paint. You could add streaks anthracite paint in it as well.
  3. Javelin
    Late to the party, but definately enjoying it. Great job so far. Love the shade (and the result in general) of your deck. That close-up picture really looks realistic.
  4. Javelin
    I think Keith's on to something here.... Other than that, glad you decided to put a penguin on your build, so where will you place it? 😁
  5. Javelin
    I'm in love with that room of yours. Love the arc near/around the windows and the colours you used. Very relaxing atmosphere. Apart from that, it's a brilliant looking model you're building. Looking forward for progress!
  6. Javelin
    I'm using something similar too, however I don't use a pin vise. I use the directly with my fingers. Works great, most breakages is when I push them too hard into the plastic I'm drilling. I'm scared to put them into any machinery. Plastic rapidly melts and makes a mess of any drill bit when high drilling speeds are used. Don't know why you'd try dropping them from an inch high though? You have to rotate these things to make it work...
  7. Javelin
    The more I look at it, the more I'm thinking we're actually looking at 2 things, with the darker object looking like a davit/ handrail or pipe and simply a white looking object behind it... By the angle of the picture their edges seem to coincide, but perhaps they aren't just object. The forward pipe? seems glossy, it seems to have a lighter spot on the forward upper edge, which seems like a reflection... Just saying...🧐
  8. Javelin
    Now THAT is what I was talking about! Those pics (and explanation of bamboo) of the channel making process are gold! I assume you are using CA glue for this and not PVA? Thanks!
  9. Javelin
    Well there, I was just about to say that all great things (or mazes) have small beginnings (or pipes), and that you made a good start of one, till Kurt mentioned that brace. That's how insanity starts... Before you know it, you're adding more pipes and supports... and there you go: a maze! What I was really going to say is that those details and pipes are what makes your build so excellent and realistic. Leave those pipes off and it may become bland and in some cases toy-like (although that still wouldn't be the case for your build). 👍
  10. Javelin
    Hi Bill, I guess it depends largely on diameter. I also always go for full rods, not hollow tubes, since those will flatten in the bend. Full rods prevent bending. Second thing is radius of the turn in relation to rod diameter. I don't heat anything, since that indeed often goes wrong. In general I use drill bits to bend around and for small diameter rod, I do still use larger diameter bits. For example, a 1.5mm rod, I'd use a 4mm drill bit. This radius avoids extreme build up of matrial on one side and excessive stretch (and breakage) on the other side. I also always bend (for 90° bends) in several phases. I'll bend it first 50 or 60° and leave it for a few seconds (to settle, as the styrene is plastically deforming). I'll then continue further. It's a bit of feeling, how far you can go in that first bend. After that I'd typically bend it beyond 90°, perhaps up to 110° or so. It will return (remaining elastic deformation) to eventually settle around 90°. Once it has flowed this far, it is also easy to bend a bit back if that's required. Larger diameters are harder. For 3mm, I have a tube bender, but in Chaconia I also use white insulated electrical wire, where I use the copper core to insert into styrene tubing. I do this if large tubing has a lot of bends, where the lengths in between need to be accurate. In large rods bending such shapes with accurate distances in between is nearly impossible. I hope this is of any help. I believe there are a few pictures of the electrical wire trick in this topic, not sure about the tube bender...
  11. Javelin
    That's a great job on that piping Keith. At such short distances, bending is indeed difficult. From time to time I use a piece of styrene with a hole of the same diameter as the wire near its edge instead of pliers. I then put the wire through the hole and bend by twisting the styrene piece or bend the wire while holding the styrene piece, depending on what I need. If the distance between bends is too small, you can still cut the styrene to remove the wire. It takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it... In any case, astonishing results so far. As to protections etc. they may have used portable fenders made of pieces of wood, hung overboard with a rope or even fenders made of old mooring ropes. Even today these methods are used on small workboats, apart from of course more professionally made inflated fenders or car/truck tyres.
  12. Javelin
    That fork piece is a brilliant idea. Never thought about that! Please do make a lot of pictures of the build process,as I'm likely to check this log (and all your other logs) in detail for my next SIB.
  13. Javelin
    Found some old pictures of my cotton wool thing. I did use larger pads of cotton wool, they were less dense. This was of course a smoke effect, I guess you will need to play a lot with the colouring to make it look like dense fire. Love the colours you've already applied, very strong pigment, and that's what you'll need I guess.
  14. Javelin
    Thanks Paul, I must admit these overviews force me to take pictures from bigger distances due to her large size. A lot of her imperfections are therefore not visible on these pictures. I'd even go as far as saying I'm probably one of worst builders in this scratchbuilding part of this forum. I never quite succeed in getting things straight, always use too much glue and painting is mediocre at best. I have improved over the years, but I can not undo what I did 14 or more years ago. On her portside bow and foremast you also see damage from a collision with a bridge. Paint missing, mast severely damaged. I decided to treat that repair as a seperate project and first finish the ship. I wanted to mention that because for once it wasn't a construction or painting error by me. 😄 (it was a manoeuvring error by me though 😆) One advice for anybody building a ship this size is use of a movable table or at least a set-up that allows you to move around the model. You can't see it in the last picture, but the table feet are from Ikea and end in swiveling wheels (with brake). This allows me to turn and shift the model anyway I want and allows me to bring certain parts of the vessel closer to better lighting or powertools when required.
  15. Javelin
    Incredible piece of work Keith. That dollar bill is really showing how brilliant this build is. Not only the building, but also the painting of such tiny pieces with such a sense of realism is simply outstanding!
  16. Javelin
    Thanks, happy to hear someone might have a use for my posts. The jig was built 10+ years ago, I guess I was clever back then. The jig for the railing is however the 2nd version. The first one ended up being cut up and used in pieces in another build. I didn't really think of continuing this build I guess. In any case, the forward PS part of the ship is also finished. The ladders aren't glued though. In this top view you can see the railing on main deck that connects the catwalk stair with the stair to the foc'sle. I did have some time remaining, so I also built the 2 small stairs and 1 long one on the SB side of the catwalk (without railing or paint for now). And an overview:
  17. Javelin
    Late to the party as ever. I've contemplated drilling holes in bottles for past projects, but always considered it cheating, just short of heresy. That said, and for the great purpose you have in mind, I fully approve of this hole and I'm glad you tested this because I was certainly curious whether it could be done without wasting a bottle. I love this project. Perhaps you could use cotton wool (perhaps coloured) around the leds to simulate fire? Should not be too difficult to get into the bottle as well. I have a cotton wool smoke trail of a missile that hasn't lost its shape in nearly 20 years and I didn't treat the wool with anything. Not really sure how it will spread or "contain" the light though...
  18. Javelin
    First I finished that forecastle by adding the bosun store hatch and associated davit. For the davit handling rope I used normal orange sewing thread to replicate the commonly used orange polypropyle rope. The experience of actually finishing an area was quite addictive, so I decided to move just aft of the forecastle and finish that area first. Truly finishing it, also means creating the stairs, a task I'm not looking forward to. There is really a huge amount of stairs on this vessel and all are different. I was planning to leave them for last, but I believe this may have resulted in me not making them at all or ending up with a builder's block. So now on to the forward part of the deck, where I just installed the catwalk. First stair steps. I made a new jig for the steps. I already produced a lot of steps for the future as well. Then they go in the jig. And once we have a stair, I produce the handrails, also with a jig. This jig has both sides of the rails, but the length is not fixed. So I make the sharp end (upper)first, the check the required length with the stair. Then I mark it and form the blunt (lower) end of the rail. There are 4 long and 2 short stairs on the part in front of the deck house. Here is the forward most stair. You can also see part of the railing on deck level that goes from that stair to the forecastle stair. This is another part of the "safe acces to tanker bows" as required by regulations. And here is one of my secret weapons: I use a lot of these free paper measuring tapes from Ikea and other shops. Their flexibility comes in handy, from time to time I also cut them in smaller pieces for easier use.
  19. Javelin
    She definately looks good. And what a pace of construction, from January start till finishing now! It takes some sacrifices to a model's quality to make it RC if you're not willing to continuously repair it. However on your model there are few visible compromises! What I don't like too much about such ships is the single prop/rudder configuration that limits the amount of manoeuvering one can do and increases the minimum required pond size to comfortably sail around.
  20. Javelin
    I'm really short of time nowadays, so not much progress. Also wanted to add pics of the real ship, but having some hardware issues, so I'll just show some progress pics. Started by painting (and currently mounting) the forward catwalk. During the painting process I decided to finally continue that forecastle. First was the Chafing Chain. It's part of the obligatory Emergency Towing System of tankers. Small tankers only have one forward, larger ones also have a system aft. The forward system consists of a Smit Bracket (yellow thing in the pictures), with a chain connected. In an emergency, the chain is led overboard through the Panama fairlead by either the tanker's winches or the assisting tug's winch and then connected to the tug for emergency towing. Due to a chain's strength it survives the chafing of towing in heavy swell etc. Steel wires aren't so good for that and wires deteriorate much faster than chains. The heavy chain was connected to the bracket and stowed in a small coaming. On most ships it's also covered with canvas, but invariably it ends up as a pile of rust... I also still had the chain stoppers to do. They transfer the forces of the anchor and chain to the vessel structure rather than keeping it on the winch brake and/or gearbox. I've seen about as many versions as I've seen windlasses, so no real standard there. Generally it's a big block that's hinged between two shackles of the anchor chain with a counterweight to aid in removing it when the anchor is hoisted again. Once it's in place, the chain is lowered so that the next shackle rests on the stopper block (transfer of forces, windlass loses tension). I also finished the stairs to the forecastle, first stairs to be finished in over 5 years!
  21. Javelin
    I may have missed something, but in the pictures, I only see black smoke being emitted from the main funnel. That would be the exhaust of coal being burned in the boiler. I do not see any white steam being emitted except from that small pipe in some pictures. That said, with such small space, placing a condenser etc. wouldn't be very practical. On the other side it would require a lot of fresh water stored in tanks... All in all, a very fine build! Love that subtle weathering, a difficult task at such scale.
  22. Javelin
    Seem to have missed this. Glad to have been of any help on this build. She truly came out gorgeous! Despite your issues with the sails, I'm happy you went through and added them. The outcome has a great array of colours and contrasts. Although today they are generally engine powered, from time to time you still encounter some under sail in the Gulf.
  23. Javelin
    Hi Brad, how much does she weigh at the moment? And I noticed decals on your air det, aren't you scared they'll come off in her wet environment? Or do you varnish the whole plane when they're finished? Overpowering a model is easy, but it's also necessary. Wind nor water scale down and nobody's going to make any mooring manoeuvers in an 11Bft gale... That said, seems like a fun boat to run. Not too large nor heavy.
  24. Javelin
    Great job and I'm happy you decided to install that rigging, it really adds to the stunning result!
  25. Javelin
    They sure loved round holes.... Beautiful job on one of these handsome ships. Loving every post of your build log!

About us

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

SSL Secured

Your security is important for us so this Website is SSL-Secured

NRG Mailing Address

Nautical Research Guild
237 South Lincoln Street
Westmont IL, 60559-1917

Model Ship World ® and the MSW logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,929,264 & No. 6,929,274, registered Dec. 20, 2022)

Helpful Links

About the NRG

If you enjoy building ship models that are historically accurate as well as beautiful, then The Nautical Research Guild (NRG) is just right for you.

The Guild is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to “Advance Ship Modeling Through Research”. We provide support to our members in their efforts to raise the quality of their model ships.

The Nautical Research Guild has published our world-renowned quarterly magazine, The Nautical Research Journal, since 1955. The pages of the Journal are full of articles by accomplished ship modelers who show you how they create those exquisite details on their models, and by maritime historians who show you the correct details to build. The Journal is available in both print and digital editions. Go to the NRG web site (www.thenrg.org) to download a complimentary digital copy of the Journal. The NRG also publishes plan sets, books and compilations of back issues of the Journal and the former Ships in Scale and Model Ship Builder magazines.

Our Emblem ®

Modelshipworld - Advancing Ship Modeling through Research

Nautical Research Guild ® and the NRG logo are Registered Trademarks, and belong to the Nautical Research Guild (United States Patent and Trademark Office: No. 6,999,236 & No. 6,999,237, registered March 14, 2023)

×
×
  • Create New...