January 2021 Virtual Zoom Meeting

Capital Marine Modellers' Guild will have a virtual Zoom meeting on Tuesday, January 5, 2021 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Please contact club management by email for information on how to participate. cmmgottawa@gmail.com

DAHLGREN NAVAL GUN (Verlinden)

It took about six years, but I finally started and finished this Verlinden model #1422 in 1:35 scale of a U.S. Navy Dahlgren 11-Inch Naval Gun this past week. Verlinden of Belgium went out of business in 2016, and the price of their kits has skyrocketed. I paid about $30 for this kit some six years ago. Now it is on ebay for $300. Insanity!

The kit is all resin, so working with it is dangerous in terms of toxic particles. Always wear a particle filter mask. All paints are Vallejo and Tamiya and ModelMaster/Testors acrylics. The kit was missing the necessary amount of pulley rope, so that came from my spare ship parts container.

Wiki says: "Dahlgren guns were muzzle-loading naval artillery designed by Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren USN (1809 – 1870), mostly used in the period of the U.S. Civil War. Dahlgren believed a safer, more powerful naval cannon could be designed using more scientific design criteria. Dahlgren guns were designed with a smooth curved shape, equalizing strain and concentrating more weight of metal in the gun breech where the greatest pressure of expanding propellant gases needed to be met to keep the gun from bursting. Because of their rounded contours, Dahlgren guns were nicknamed "soda bottles", a shape which became their most identifiable characteristic.  XI-inch Dahlgren shell gun: 465 were cast at (various locations) between 1856 and 1864. This is the only Dahlgren gun to have been designed both with and without a muzzle swell. The gun was typically mounted on a pivot or in a turret on a monitor. When mounted in a turret, the crew for an XI-inch Dahlgren was seven including powdermen. The crew for the gun when mounted on a pivot was 24 men and a powderman. XI-inch Dahlgrens were carried on (various ships) and monitors as well as the original USS Monitor. Many other conventional ships carried XI-inch Dahlgrens on pivot mounts. A few larger river gunboats also carried XI-inch Dahlgrens."

This version fired a 280 mm, 75 kg ball, about 1000 m.

John Clearwater

inbox review TITANIC Seal & Iceberg Scene

This is a first look in the box of the new TITANIC egg/cartoon scale model released in 2020. TITANIC SEAL & ICEBERG SCENE, from Suyata (HK) International Co., Ltd, of Hong Kong (kit #SL001). The kit is not officially available in North America due to lack of a distributor, but I acquired this one from the factory in China. It arrived in about 17 days by post.

Quality and details are excellent. It can be made waterline or full hull version. All parts are moulded in appropriate colours, but any purist will of course paint most everything. Technically it is a snap-together kit, but of course purists will glue everything in place and add rigging. Overall it is 150 mm long. For reasons I do not understand, all of the six seals in the kit have names. Even the small seals are the size of a funnels on the ship. Real wooden decks as extras are available for this Suyata kit on-line for only about $10. The only negative is the lack of decals for the hull. This seems odd given the quality and the decal for the base/stand.

Overall this kit is far and away better than the new Meng cartoon kit of the Titanic, which has fewer parts, fewer decks, and is overall smaller. This would make a great kit to do with a child over a weekend, or for an actual modeller to do up fancy.

My video review on youtube is attached here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjsfoTdB2cU

John Clearwater

November 2020 Virtual Meeting

 Capital Marine Modellers' Guild will have a virtual Zoom meeting on Tuesday, November 3, 2020 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Please contact club management by email for information on how to participate. cmmgottawa@gmail.com

Based on the previous meeting there are a couple of rules to make the meeting better.

1. please mute when joining.
2. Raise your Virtual hand if you want to comment as it stops us from talking over each other.

CMMG Zoom 2020-2021 Meeting Schedule

Until further notice, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Capital Marine Modellers' Guild monthly meetings will be Zoom meetings. The following meeting schedule will be in effect for the remaining season, subject to change as circumstances may permit. Please, contact Capital Marine Modeller's Guild at cmmgottawa@gmail.com for information on how to participate in the scheduled Zoom meetings.

Oct 6, 2020 07:00 PM
Nov 3, 2020 07:00 PM
Dec 1, 2020 07:00 PM
Jan 5, 2021 07:00 PM
Feb 2, 2021 07:00 PM
Mar 2, 2021 07:00 PM
Apr 6, 2021 07:00 PM

October 2020 Meeting

As the Nepean Museum continues to have covid-19 restrictions in place, it will not be available for an October meeting.

However, a Zoom Meeting will happen.

The Zoom Meeting will take place on Tuesday, October 6, 2020 starting at 7 p.m.

Contact cmmgottawa@gmail.com should you need instructions on how to attend.

MAUDSLAY'S OSCILLATING PADDLEWHEEL ENGINE

This is the bizarre Airfix 1:45 scale model of the 1827 OSCILLATING STEAM ENGINE for a paddlewheel ship as designed and built by Henry Maudslay. The kit was released in 1968 and re-released in 2012. The master for the model is a brass and steel model on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (please see last photo). The originals releases came with a motor and a drive system allowing the whole engine to run. 

Maudslay is considered to be the inventor of the first industrial screw cutting lathe, and of several other machines and technologies essential to the start of the industrial revolution in the early 1800s. This engine was used for a decade to drive two side paddlewheels on a Thames transport ship starting in 1826. In an oscillating engine the piston rods are connected directly to the crankshaft, and the engine cylinders are secured by trunnions in the centre, allowing the cylinders to pivot back and forth with the rotation of the crankshaft. This means it only operates at a low pressure. The real one is quite large, with the height of the cylinder and extended piston rod about the size of a person.

The model comes with a paddlewheel, but it looks awful in comparison with the engine, so I discarded it. All paints are acrylics by Vallejo and Tamiya. The Tamiya silver was the worst silver metal paint it has ever been my misfortune to use, and it was scrapped and washed off using GreenWorks cleaner in a few seconds. The metal was then painted using Vallejo burned iron, and the piston rods rubbed with a silver powder. All brass parts are done with Vallejo 998 Bronze.

John Clearwater

Maudsley's Oscillating Steam Engine

Maudsley's Oscillating Steam Engine

Model of the engine at the V&A Museum in London

No Meeting September 2020

Due to the covid-19 pandemic there has been no word from the Nepean Museum about availability of their facilities for a meeting. There will be no September meeting for the Capital Marine Modellers' Guild. Should the facilities become available for future meetings that will be announced on this site.

TIRPITZ (1:2000 scale)

This is the extremely tiny 1:2000 scale tiny model of the nazi scum battle cruiser/ battleship TIRPITZ which was meant to compete with the growing French navy. This is another in my series of fun and fast build COVID-19 models. I received it as a gift and the lockdown was a great opportunity to get it off the shelf, painted, rigged, and out of here. It was basically a two day build just for fun. The kit (Heller #052) has 46 parts. The model is a tiny 12 cm in length. The real ship was 241.6 m. The base is balsa wood and the water/waves are gesso painted with blue and white.

 The actual ship was launched by Germany in 1939 and commissioned into the navy in 1941. The only real task for the ship was as a raider against convoys moving towards Murmansk and Arkangelsk in the USSR, but even then it only managed two missions. It spent most of its operational life essentially in hiding -- blanketed in artificial fog, or covered by a forest of trees to evade British heavy bombers! Tirpitz was eventually sunk by RAF Lancaster bombers on 12 November 1944. More than a thousand crewmen died in the explosions and capsizing.

John Clearwater

nazi scum battle cruiser TIRPITZ

nazi scum battle cruiser TIRPITZ

nazi scum battle cruiser TIRPITZ

nazi scum battle cruiser TIRPITZ

nazi scum battle cruiser TIRPITZ

nazi scum battle cruiser TIRPITZ

June 2020 Meeting - cancelled

Due to the ongoing health crisis the 02 June 2020 meeting of the Capital Marine Modellers' Guild has been cancelled. Meetings will resume when the City of Ottawa re-opens all public facilities. Also, the annual dinner has been postponed until further notice.

Keep working in your home shipyard, and let's see a lot of finished models when this is all over.

R.M.S Titanic (1:800)

This is the simply awful kit from an un-named Chinese company, of the White Star Line's R.M.S. Titanic in 1:800 scale. The kit is moulded in three colours: almost none are usable. Quality of the mouldings is appalling. Detail is bad. Fit is poor. Design concept is ill-considered. Decals are plastic stickers which cannot be used.

Titanic was one of three sister ships, and was laid down in March 1909 and launched in May 1911. It was completed in April 1912 and sank on it's maiden voyage on 15 April 1912. Poor design; lack of appropriate lifeboats and lifeboat spaces; poor work by Harland & Wolff of Ireland; a major fire in the hull which burned for two days in the yard; and crass corporate disdain for safety by White Star and Bruce Ismay led to the deaths of 531 third class passengers as well as 155 second class passengers (mostly servants). There were 34 Canadians on board, mostly in first class. All Canadians in third class died, as did half of those in first and second class.

Survivors and families in the USA and UK grouped together to sue White Star for $16 million ($418 million today), but because the US Supreme Court interfered on behalf of White Star to limit the liability, White Star ended up paying only a mere $664 000. (or about $16 million today) in compensation to mostly US passengers. Compensation did not go to non-UK or non-US citizens, and nothing went to third class passengers.

The criminal actions of the White Star company were never prosecuted, and company director Bruce Ismay (who survived the sinking) remained free. White Star did not survive the great depression, and was bought by Cunard with British government bailout money in 1933.

John Clearwater

White Star R.M.S TITANIC (1912)  1:800 scale

White Star R.M.S TITANIC (1912)  1:800 scale

White Star R.M.S TITANIC (1912)  1:800 scale

White Star R.M.S TITANIC (1912)  1:800 scale

May 2020 Meeting - cancelled

Due to the ongoing health crisis the 05 May 2020 meeting of the Capital Marine Modellers' Guild has been cancelled. Meetings will resume when the City of Ottawa re-opens all public facilities.

Keep working in your home shipyard, and let's see a lot of finished models when this is all over.

The First Shot of the Revolution - the Cruiser AURORA

Here are a selection of photographs of the museum ship Cruiser AURORA in Petrograd, and some models of the ship as well as art.

The ship fired the blank shot which signalled the start of the final phase of the armed uprising in November 1917. Interesting fact: during the Great Patriotic War the ship was sunk to prevent it from being damaged by nazi scum invaders. After the war it was refloated and restored.

The ship is beautifully maintained and well worth a visit.

http://navalmuseum.ru/filials/cruiser_aurora

Enjoy
John Clearwater

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Cruiser AURORA

Ship Models in the Central Naval Museum

This is a selection of naval ship and submarine models on display in the Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg.

It is worth a visit to their new location at 2 Naberezhnaya Kryukova Kanala, St Petersburg 190000
http://navalmuseum.ru

Enjpy
John Clearwater

Kirov-class nuclear powered missile cruiser.

Sovetsky-Soyuz class battleship design model (ships never built due to war)

Project 949 Granit cruise missile launching nuclear submarine

667BDRM Dolphin SSBN

Project 941 тайфун (Typhoon) SSBM

Note the lower hull has been extended down to accommodate the long missile tubes which run up through the tower.

Aurora

Heavy aircraft cruiser KIEV

Large naval gun mounted on a railroad car with massive  sway braces