Glen McGuire

The precision in your work is outstanding, Paul.

I've been been procrastinating, waiting for you to get here, Roel. Now we can get this party started! As for your suggestion about using cotton balls for the ball of fire, you're right on the money as usual. That is what I'm going to try first as you will see below. Welcome aboard, Ken! Glad to have you along for the ride and glad you got your safety gear on! As for the LED lights, like Roel, you are on the money as well. After some research, the grain of wheat bulb lights seem to be about the same size as the LEDs I got, so I'll likely go with them. I also found some flickering ones as you suggest. It's been quite a busy September around here and I have not completed any subassemblies or sub-steps yet. My progress has been kind of scattershooting so far, but I will post a few updates below. First, like Roel suggested, I'm making a run at the fireball using cotton balls. I heavily diluted some acrylic orange and yellow paint to dip the cotton balls into. After tightly squeezing the out the paint, I teased the cotton balls back out and let them dry. I plan to pull apart small pieces and fluff them up to give the fireball its final shape. I've still got to do some dusting of red and black paint onto the cotton. An airbrush would probably work best but I don't have one. I'm going to try with a fan brush, but if I can't make that work I may have to invest in an airbrush. I also began work on the hull for Queen Anne's Revenge. For those that have followed previous builds, I'm doing my usual laminated hull process. I lined in the deck planking and stained it but I haven't sanded it down to size yet. At the same time, I'm also testing out lighting ideas. As Ken suggested above, I've got flickering LEDs. These have a yellowish tint and a soft slow flicker which I think will work well. I also got some rocker switches and wired things up for a test light show. So no major milestones completed yet, but the work in progress seems to be heading in the right direction.

Looking very sharp, Gary! Particularly the sheer trim on the bow with the elegant scroll. Nicely done!

I beg to differ, Roel. Your work is very impressive. Especially since you are always doing unique subjects, so you don't have other models to reference.

Amazing work, Keith! I agree with Jacques C. I did not really grasp the scale until you showed it next to the dollar bill. Wow!!

I'm not sure what nibbling is, Mark, but if this is what you are talking about, that's some very nice work!

Hmmm. I was not even gonna try to incorporate any lighting beyond the Greek Fire. Never heard of "grain of wheat" bulbs, so I will have to look into those and see if they might work. I hope they are very small! Thanks, Johnny!

Before fully committing to this project, I wanted to see if I could actually drill a clean hole in a glass bottle. After watching several youtube videos, I found a technique I thought might work. I bought these diamond coated, hollow drill bits off Amazon for $15. The suggested technique is to run cooling water over the bottle and start the drill at a 45-degree angle till you get a small notch cut into the glass. Then slowly work the drill into a horizontal position. Once the vertical orientation is established, you gently rock the bit back and forth while applying light pressure letting the bit do most of the work till the hole is fully bored. It only took about 10 minutes. Afterwards, I had a pretty clean hole with no cracks and just a very tiny amount of chipping. The hole is 3/16 inches in diameter, so the chipping is only noticeable in these closeup pics. @Keith Black wants me to try and fit the ship thru this hole, but I’m not even going to try! I got some small, flickering LEDs from Amazon that run on a 9-volt battery. One or maybe 2 of these will go inside the fireball to bring it to life. Here’s the LED wire extending thru the hole and out the bottom of the bottle. When the time comes, I will be making the epoxy resin water a dark blue to hide the wire. Now that I’ve got a good hole in the bottle, we are off and running. Here we go!!

Time to get 'er in gear and start work on another SIB. I was tossing around a few different ideas and I just could not get rid of this one image that was floating around in what's left of my mind. In the 4th installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie (On Stranger Tides), there is a scene where Blackbeard is captaining his Queen Anne's Revenge when a mutiny breaks out among Jack Sparrow and the crew. Blackbeard appears on deck and raises his sword, bringing the rigging to life which begins roping and hanging crew members from the yards. Blackbeard decides to spare the crew but make an example out of the cook. He sets the cook adrift on a small raft, points the Revenge at the raft, then unleashes a ball of Greek Fire from the bow, engulfing the cook and raft in flames. Here's a 5 minute video of the scene from the movie: https://youtu.be/fO4ZLQmcXMU My idea is to capture the moment where the Revenge is spewing out the Greek Fire. Here's a screenshot of the moment from the video. The scene is so dark that you don't get a good view of the ship, but you get the idea. And here's my crude artist's rendition of the SIB concept. Now, to bring the SIB to life, I want to actually light up my fireball. So I'm going to try and incorporate some flickering LED lights within the fireball and run the wiring thru the bottom of the bottle and into the base where it will lead to a battery and power switch. I think I've been reading too many of @Ian_Grant's build logs, which is why I can't get this crazy idea out of my head. Obviously, this is going to require doing some things that I haven't done before - making a fireball, drilling a hole in a glass bottle, rigging up some electrical stuff, etc. So put your helmet on and buckle up. This is probably gonna be a rough ride!

I appreciate the explanation you give for the actual purpose of each new thing added to the ship. Every post is a learning experience! Fascinating build log to follow.

I wish I was as good looking as Mr. Nash!

I thought one of my penguins was AWOL. Now I know where he went!

Awesome, Keith!! I showed your work to Rosanna and it put a big smile on her face!

That is incredible work, Gary! The pictures look like showroom shots for the real thing. Wow!

Love those mini-machine guns!!