In 1983, he left Assemblers and founded Twinkle Co. It garnered three or four buyers, and over the next five years he designed all of Assemblers dredges. began pitching the idea to sand and gravel producers with whom he already had solid relations. “And it seemed to work pretty well.”Īssemblers Inc. “We made a little money on it, which was our first goal,” Salemink says. That was 30 years ago, and the dredge is still operating at River Products in eastern Iowa. He kept it simple and applied the concepts he observed by visiting other dredges in the area. His first dredge had a diesel engine, an 8-inch pump and a cutterhead that could dig down to 35 feet. Salemink recently took some time with Rock Products to share his knowledge and experience. Dredges became Assemblers, Inc sole business.

He saw opportunity and set a goal of building better hydraulic dredges and finding ways to increase their productivity. He observed that many dredges were producing poorly for reasons that he identified despite his inexperience. His research in preparation for building his first dredge revealed a general lack of practical information about dredges and how they work. In 1978 he got the chance to build a sand and gravel dredge. He founded, Assemblers Inc (No period after Inc), to concentrate on the design and construction of aggregate processing equipment including crushers, screens and conveyors. The 86-year-old founder of Twinkle earned his degree in general science from the University of Iowa in 1961 and began his career in steel fabrication. Willard Salemink is a walking encyclopedia of dredging technology. The complete paper is presented below.īackground for the Rock Products article.

The article, which appeared in the October 2009 issue of that magazine, used only a small portion of the information I provided. Recently I was asked to provide background material for an article in Rock Products Magazine. Slightly useful stuff to know about dredging

Dredge how does a dredge work