DSiemens

So crazy thing happened at work a week or so ago. We had a secret Santa sort of thing at work and one of my coworkers went well out of there way to find a ship in bottle kit. They went to just about every hobby store in Denver and found this one which was under the $20 limit set by the company for this activity. I'm actually highly surprised they found one at all in an actual store. I've only ever seen them online. After I got it they told me they want to see it when I'm done. I accepted politely and told them I would, inside I was thinking haven't you seen the ten ships in bottles in my office? I'm going to bash the heck out of this kit and show you a ship in bottle you won't believe! I've actually built this kit before and as far as beginning ship in bottle kits go I think it's one of the best. It is incredibly simple and the instructions are pretty good. It follows the most basic ship in bottle process using hinges for the mast. As far as ships go the rigging very basic and the parts are way off scale, not that they had any scale in mind for it. The bottle is a great beginners bottle as well. The opening is a massive inch and a quarter. More than twice the size of my usual half inch bottles. It gives you a lot of wiggle room to work with. If any one were to try a ship in bottle using a kit I think they would have an easier time with one of these then the Amati kits. Bearing in mind of coarse these will look much cheesier. Enough talk here's a photo. Here is everything that comes in the kit. There's the ship itself which I think is made out of pine. It's a more solid wood them I'm used to. There's skewers, tooth picks, popsicle stick and piece of balsa. Sand paper thread and larger string for the bottle neck and a cork. Also some tiny nails and wire for the hinges. I'm missing a page of the plans but I'm not to worried about it. I will also note that the bottle stand that comes in this kit is one of the best and I've designed many stands after it. It's just a block of wood rounded out on top but it seems to fit any round bottle I put on it. Big enough to hold the bottle small enough to not detract. I really want to go for the romanticized pirate look. Looking at the block they supply the ship has more of a clipper type deck with a long narrow bow section. I suspect they use the same piece of wood for their Cutty Sark kit. Most "pirate" like ships had a more rounded bow so I looked through the book The Story of Sail for something with a narrower bow. I think galleons is as close as it comes. They are rounder but the forecastle juts out and narrows similar enough to the cut out that came with the kit. This particular ship plan is for a ship named the Revenge from 1577. It was for a time Sir Francis Drakes Flag Ship. The ship itself has an incredible story even after Sir Francis Drake I highly suggest looking it up. I'm not sure I'll copy this one exactly but I will take a lot of aspects from this ship. Also if any one has any ideas they want to throw in to totally bash this kit post them. I want to have a lot of fun with this one so the crazier the idea the better.

I love the fine detail work. Good looking parts at this size are hard to find. Great work!

What you have is already incredible. I would have used what you did a few posts back and your getting better. I look forward to seeing more.

Your post just gave me a ton of ideas. Thanks!

I can pass on your hello Jeff. I see John in my local club all the time. He really is an exceptional modeler and a character on top of that. He always has some wise crack that makes us all laugh. David your right about his sources. He seems to know every one and it gives him an in where there otherwise wouldn't be one. He's working on a clipper ship now and was able to obtain a copy of the original plans because he knew a professor who happened to be speaking at the library where the old records were kept on the east coast. He had reached out to the library before but hadn't heard back. Helps to know people.

Now that's a great scale. Great work she's amazing.

David, I think that depends. Plasticine does go in very easy. The stuff I've used never really cures but stays stiff enough it doesn't move either. There is some molding that can be done out side of the bottle but a lot gets squished around going in. Sculpting while in the bottle is tedious but not impossible. Jeff is looking to put in a lot of detail. Especially if he's looking at wave spacing and wave direction in regards to wind. With that level of detail I think wood its the right answer. He can get exactly what he wants and it won't change after it gets in.

I don'y know if it's ever to late for trout just depends on if you like sitting on snow fishing out of a hole or not. Glad to hear your back Augie.

Absolutely incredible!

This looks like a great idea for seas the waves look very good. I like the choice of colors too. Also thank you for your kind comments on my blog.

The lasr part as far the ship goes is the sails. I just trace them the best I can and compare them to the ship and trim them. Once thier ready I glue them in place. The main sail I just glue to the gaff so I can wrap it around the ship when going in/ I make sure to keep the wind direction in mind so all the sail look uniform. Doesn't make sense to have the sails leaning i multiple directions. I actually had to finish this ship fast to include it in a show for the Rocky Mountain Shipwrights. I didn't include all the running rigging this time. For the sea I put just a little bit of clay in the bottle and flatten it out. I held it over a hot burner for a few seconds to make melt the bottom. This just makes sure the clay sticks to the bottle. I give it a few minutes to dry and then it's ready to go. I cut the ship off with a dremel and carefully fold the mast back being sure the main sail curls around the ship and doesn't crinkle. Once in the bristles pop the mast back up. I put a little white glue on a tooth pick and get it between the ship and the sea to glue it down. I then use a small piece of wire to glue the forward stays down.

Thanks Mark a Michael. Parbick I use a cutting wheel on a dremel at a low setting to cut the ship off. It's fast even on low setting and it's nice and precise. Once the standing rigging is in place I work on the running rigging. I don't go crazy on this but I like to add the rigging on the boom and gaff. For the boom I tie an over hand knot around the boom and glue it on either side of the ship like I did with the back stays. I'm not sure you can see it in this photo but here is is. Here's a better picture of another one I did. You can see all of the running rigging I include.

Thank's Augie. I've actually thought of making one as a necklace for the Admiral. I"m not sure it's her style though. Thanks Omega and Jesse. I cut the lower part of the mast and glued on the upper section. I used a few less bristles this time so that it was thinner. I then measured again to make sure it wasn't to tall. I got a little ahead of my self with the rigging I suggest having the mast and bow in place. For the rigging I usually cut way more then I need. to. It's easier to trim it afterward. I start the rigging with the back stays. To do these I tie an overhand and put it over the mast with even amounts going to either side. I then glue them to the thread already on the side of the ship. As the lines are glued down I check the rake of the mast so that the lines are tight and the rake is correct. Because I haven't had enough torture tying it the first time I did it again. I then glued the spars boom and gaff in place and added the forward stays. On a normal ship in bottle the forward stays run to holes or thread blocks and then out the bottle where they can be pulled to pull the masts up. There's no way to drill a hole in this bow and thread blocks can look bulky at this scale. So I use a trick I learned from Heather Rogers. I pull the line tight and put a little super glue on it. When the glue dries the line will stay straight. This also works for lines that you want to model as being slack if they were full scale. I cut them short so I can glue them in place once the ship is in the bottle.

For the mast and spars I used paint brush bristles. To make the mast slightly thicker then the spars I glued four or five together. One of my rules in building small ships is make it big and cut it small. This is where I started comparing it to the bottle to make sure the mast would not be to tall. I plan on having to sections to the mast but continually checking it always helps. There's nothing worse then getting a ship in a bottle and having the mast be to tall to fit.

Thanks Omega. It did turn out better and easier with punching the holes after the fact. Thanks Mario. A lot of progress made. I coated the bulwarks with nail polish and drilled the holes out. They did bend a little I think a couple more coats would have been better. They weren't hard to bend back with some tweezers though. The cannons are 30 gauge wire I got from a hobby store. It was already painted black. I did the mast next but I actually suggest doing the bow first. I used bamboo for this. In the past I've used a needle painted black. I pulled a bambooskewer through a draw plate until I got it to a very small size. In this case I sanded it even smaller to get to the size I needed. I glued on a long piece and cut it smaller after it dried.

I like the idea of a removable rudder. I think the ultimate in rc ships is having a model you can both sail and display. Also having removable rudder and keels will give you the ability to experiment with what works best for your model. I'm still learning the actual mechanics of how a ships work. I think RC ships really bring that side of modeling out.

Thanks Omega. Well after some thought I decided to redo the last part. The results were much better. Here's what I came up with. After looking at the gun ports and remembering how the cannons compared in the last ships I think cutting them out nice and square may be a bit much. At this scale the square ports are not even seen. So in order to make this somewhat easier and better looking I decided to redo the bulwarks with no ports cut out. I stiffened them with clear nail polish so I can drill holes later. I also added the forward part of the keel with a toothpick shaving. Aside from the cannons it's finally ready for the masts, spars and rigging. This is actually the easier part of this build and it really brings the ship to life.

Excellent work. I wouldn't worry about the six pounders. I think the paint job gives it a look like it's seen a bit of action and a few months at sea. I wonder about the rudder though. Not having built an rc model I can't say for sure but it seems in others I've looked at the rudder was made bigger then the actual ship would have had. I would guess that the small rudder actual ships had worked but that the become less effective at this scale. Having never sailed one I can't say if that's true. It could have to do with the amount of maneuverability the modeler was looking for or how heavy the ship was. Perhaps some one with experience can fill in the gaps. It's something to think about. I'll leave for an example the video of the Prins WIlliam. You can see as he is setting it in the water how much bigger the rudder is and how it has a large dagger board. This is a totally different ship then yours so it could be that it was needed for this one but may not be needed for yours. Does any one have any thoughts on this?

I have he is an incredible ship in bottle builder. His ships are very clean and accurate.

Great work so far. I have built with balsa before and found it extremely soft and brittle. I think you'll find the fir tougher to carve but more durable. You'll be able to leave smaller amounts in areas like the rudder. You probably already know this though. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the coming months.

Very impressive cannons. I agree I would have had a hard time getting rid of the Damascus steel too.

I used the same technique for the top of the bulwarks. This can be tricky because you don't want the thread to fall over your gun ports. In this case I don't think I have enough curvature in the bulwarks so I'll probably do them over. I'll post more when I get to that point. So theres the general idea for the bulwarks. Next comes bow and masts.

I then glued it on and trimmed it off. I then glued on the channels. For this I used an old ship in bottle trick by glueing thread to the side of the hull. I've seen this used in older ships when they wanted a nice thin line on the hull. It's often to small to paint so thread does the trick. I did the same thing in a little coastal schooner I built. Plans for this schooner are in Don Hubbards book Ships in Bottles. I highly recommend it for those wanting to get into ship in bottle building.

Thank you all for your compliments. Sorry I haven't posted to this in a while. School started up again and they tricked me into taking statistics. They relabeled the class to quantitative business analysis so I thought that can't be to hard I'll take it with cost accounting. Yea.... Any ways I squeezed in a few minutes to build and put together the next section. This part is one of the harder parts of the builds. Mostly because of the darn gun ports. I'm still figuring those out at this scale. My first version of this build I was able to carve the deck out and leave the bulwarks in tact. I then drilled out the gun ports with a tiny drill bit. I must have had a nice piece of wood then because the second time I tried this build that method failed miserably. At that point I cut out each section of the bulwarks between the gun ports and glued each in individually. That proved tedious especially at this scale. This time I tried another method that worked pretty well and was less tedious. IF you have suggestions for this part let me know. I started with a piece of sketch paper and I painted one side with a wood stain. I then went about measuring the height I needed. It's hard to measure this small so I eye balled it. The height I'm looking for is the distance between the channels and the top of the bulwarks. The channels will be used to hide the edge of the paper. I cut a stip out the entire length of the page. This allows for plenty of screw ups. This one came out a tad thick but that's ok. I can do a little trimming after the fact. Here's the hard part. I cut out the gun ports with an exacto knife. I may redo this part forward to get it better but in the interest of time I'll post what I have. This time I tried cutting out the ports leaving the bottom portion of the paper to hold it all together.

That looks like a great model. Your sure to have fun with it. I look forward to seeing your progress.