Glen McGuire

It's probably fixing to start snowing here in central Texas because I actually thought a couple of steps in advance on this project. When I was bending layers for the hull, I realized I would need a matching bend for the bulwark and the oarsmen platform on each side of the ship. So I bent some extra layers along with all the ones I needed for the hull. Snow and me thinking in advance don't happen very often around here. Here's the bulwark in work. I took one of my bent extra hull layers, drew the outline for the bulwark, sanded the outside to shape, cut out the inside, and smoothed everything out. You may also notice the odd deck planks that run perpendicular to the centerline of the ship. Next was the oarsmen platforms. Trying to decide what to do next, I figured I'd take on a real challenge (for me anyway) - making the ornamental bow and stern shapes. I'm not sure what you would call them. The one on the bow is not exactly a figurehead. So if anyone knows the proper terms, please educate us. For the bow and stern ornamental things, I needed some very thin wood. On @Keith Black's Lula log, he used some 1/64" birch plywood from Midwest Products for some of his tiny furniture. I thought that might be just what I needed so I ordered a sheet. It got here yesterday and I found it to be a really good product. I decided to start with the harder of the 2 shapes - the bow. I drew out the shape on the plywood and used scissors to cut off a squarish piece around the outline. Then I used a cordless handheld Dremel-like tool to carve the intricacies. It was very delicate work because the plywood is so thin, but it did not splinter or delaminate. The only downside I found was it created a lot of fuzz on the edges. But I can deal with that. I'm happy with the plywood product and how the bow pieces turned out. These pieces make the hull structure way too tall to fit into the bottle's opening, so they will have to be affixed to the ship inside the bottle. There is also a windlass of sorts that fits between the 2 pieces. So I'll probably use it to connect the 2 pieces first, then install as a single sub-assembly. Uh oh. I think it's starting to snow again outside.

I snuck back over here and got a little more work done on the Constitution. The next thing on my list was the quarter davits - a fairly simple process. I drew them out on 1/4" thick basswood and cut them to shape. The instructions called for mortising a double block into the davit near the top end. Next was adding a hinge at the base and an eyebolt on top. Then painting. I also needed to add a cleat to the side of each davit. The original builder had already made and installed some cleats on other parts of the ship. It looked like he made them out of 2 bent pieces of wire. I liked the way they looked so I decided to do try the same thing. I took some .02" diameter music wire, bent the ends to shape, and soldered together. And here are the quarter davits completed and installed.

That rigging is looking really good!

Nice, Ian! I found a video of what I'm pretty sure is a Texas penguin. He walks on ice and snow about as well as we drive on ice and snow down here! https://youtube.com/shorts/n9Fw2xrlszA?si=AXD9M3g5MM3Y-KTg

No doubt about it, Keith. And I'll probably have to drop those little houses onto the deck inside the bottle after the 2 halves of the hull are joined. Yippee. Nope. I'm sticking with the Bundy rum, Pat, and it's your fault!! 🍹🍹🍹

Good to see you back at work on this beauty, Ian. I know true colors don't always show in pictures, but based on the second picture of this post, I agree that a somewhat darker shade of gray would look better against the red.

Next to getting the ship in the bottle, shaping the hull is probably the thing I struggle with them most with these SIB builds. And the hull shape is on this ship is quite interesting. I found this youtube video where someone did a 360 degree view which is proving quite helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn1IDvpRXVE Here are some screenshots from the video. The bow is squared off with the keel going about 3/4 of the way up. The stern is also squared off with a poop deck of sorts extending prominently. Here's the progression of work, doing my best to shape the hull to resemble the pictures. If I ever go to the dark side of 3D-printing, this is the first thing I will try! I also did some preliminary work on the 3 little deck houses. After seeing the amazing work that @Keith Black has done on his tiny Lula furniture, I thought about asking him to make these for me!

I've had a Dremel for years and agree with Waldemar that it is loud and has a lot of vibration. I also have the drill press is even worse. It's poorly made and I've had to make some modifications to make it work. However, despite the issues, I'm still able to use the press and drill precision holes in my SIB ships with the smallest of drill bits (76, 78, 80). I don't use the Dremel outside the press. Last year I bought this rechargeable rotary tool off Amazon. It's cheap but works surprisingly well, at least for small sanding and shaping jobs like I primarily do. It's got enough power for what I need and the charge lasts a long time. If you're on a tight budget like me, it's not a bad option. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VHYX96W?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

That is a cool looking bottle, Bryan! You definitely should do an SIB with it! There are other Lego ships you could choose too. There's even a Lego ship in bottle kit!

Hmmmm. TBD on that, Gary. I had not thought of that, but it is a very interesting idea! I agree, Thukydides. It definitely jumped out at me when I was searching around for a subject. It will also present some significant challenges. The bottle opening is small - just under 3/4" or about 18mm. The banks of oars on each side will put the width well outside 18mm, so I'll have to split the hull down the middle. The structures on the deck and the sculpted feature on the bow make it a rather tall ship too. So I'm not yet sure how I'm going to engineer the thing to make it fit thru the narrow opening. There may be a lot of assembly done inside the bottle. We will see. WOOHOO! Google translate says the Japanese word for woohoo is YATTA!!

I promise you they will be there, Ian. But they will be so small you won't be able to see them until you've had a few tots of @BANYAN's Bundy rum! 🍹🍹🍹

I did get started on a new SIB project, but while waiting for wood and glue to dry I had some time to flip back over here and get some more work done on the Constitution. While the BlueJacket instructions don't mention boarding pikes, pretty much every model of the Constitution I see has them. I think they are a really cool detail, so I decided to add them to the build. The pikes are made from .02" diameter music wire. I cut them to length, mashed the tip in a vice, then filed to a sharp point. It certainly would have been easier if I'd decided to make these before I did all the running rigging as it was a pain to worm them into place against the fore and main masts. But I managed to install them without ripping down any of the lines.

I’m starting off with my preferred laminated hull. The Kentoshi-sen has a prominent upsweep at the bow and stern. To get the desired shape, I boiled the layers of the hull in water for 10 minutes, then put them in my high tech press. Afterwards, I glued them together and clamped.

Time for a new SIB project. And this one has a deadline. But I’ve got plenty of time since I just have to finish it before July. About a year and a half ago, I reconnected with an old college friend and roommate that I had not seen since the late 80s. He found out about my SIB work and asked me if I would make one that he could give to his wife for her birthday in July (hence the deadline). We got to talking about what the subject of the project should be and he asked if I could do one with a Japanese theme. He and his family lived in Japan for several years and loved the artwork and culture. So he thought his wife would like something reminding her of their time in Japan. I began digging around for historical Japanese ships that looked interesting or had a compelling story. Surprisingly, I didn’t find a whole lot to choose from. I’m fond of warships, but I thought one of those might not be the best thing for his wife’s birthday present. I finally came across a ship that caught my eye. It did not have the most compelling story behind it, but it had some really cool features and was very representative of Japan’s non-military nautical history. The picture labeled the ship “Kentoshi-Sen”. With further reading, I learned that Kentoshi is not the name of a particular ship. It translates roughly to “ambassadors dispatched to Tang”. So it’s actually the name of the nautical expeditions carried out by Japan in the 7th century and the picture is representative of the types of ships used in the expeditions. The purpose of the expeditions was cultural exchange with neighboring China. During the Japanese Nara period and the Chinese Tang Dynasty of the 7th century, Kentoshi-sen ships ferried Imperial Japanese Envoys to China. The Japanese envoys included scholars, engineers, diplomats, monks, court officials and merchants. They would return from China with new ideas surrounding engineering, architecture, and vocabulary which had a significant influence on Japanese culture. They also brought back items such as glass, musical instruments, textiles, scroll writings, and many other exotic curiosities. The cross-cultural exchanges began with 5 missions between 600 and 614 followed by 18 or 19 missions from 630 to 894. The last mission was in 838, thus ending the period of active diplomatic relations between Japan and China until the 15th century. Current pictures of Kentoshi-sen ships (as well as a full replica built in 2010) are based on drawings from the Toseiden emaki scrolls dating back to the 7th century. There’s also a Lego version of the Kentoshi-sen available, so the subject not as obscure as one might think! My goal for the project is to make the subject, bottle, and presentation authentic Japanese. So for the bottle, I wanted some type of Japanese adult beverage bottle. I searched all the stores around Austin but could not find anything suitable in my price range. The cheap stuff all had frosted or opaque glass and the clear bottles were way too expensive. Then I had an epiphany – eBay! I did a search for empty Japanese liquor bottles on eBay and found one I liked for $20. It was an empty bottle of Kujira RyuKyu Whiskey, single grain aged 20 years. Out of curiosity, I did a quick search to see what a new (full) bottle would cost. An eye-popping $400 - $700 depending on the store! So an empty bottle from eBay it is!! I was telling my son about the bottle and I mentioned that it had a cool picture of a blue whale on the label as well as the box the bottle came in. He said, “Duh Dad. Kujira is the Japanese word for whale.” Oh.

Minor but rather time-consuming progress made this week - adding all the hanging rope coils for the running rigging. A little over 100 of them. They makes me miss ratlines. Just kidding, Bob! I think we're getting fairly close here, at least inside the 20 yard line. Maybe? I believe the biggest obstacle remaining is the davits and davit rigging for the ship's boats. There's not a lot of detail on those in the instructions, so I've got some build log studying to do. However, I need to hit the pause button on the Constitution for a couple of weeks so I can get another SIB going.

Welcome aboard, Linus! Your 1/700 scale models are exceptional!!

If I gotta choose between the rum keg and the chart table, I'll take my chances with blind navigation! Exceptional work, Keith! Such a cool project and so well done!

As far as I know, my cows are strictly vegan. We've got a healthy number of rattlers around and they seem to steer (ahem) clear of them. I'll let them know that they are considered dietary supplements in your parts! 😃

That is the only "B" word allowed to be said around my longhorns, Ron! Others like Burgers, Barbecue, Brisket, Beefsteak, etc really upset them!

Those railings look awesome! Well done, Phil!

That's the best place to discover them, Ian!! That's hilarious! Remind me not to sit near you at dinner, Henry! 😃 Was that before or after the fall on the ice? I think you're gonna need a 55 gallon swear drum before all this is over! NO NO NO!! They have all been well behaved of late. Don't give them any ideas or encouragement, Keith! 😃 I have not tried those, Carson. I bet they are a lot better than Ol' Sailor Jerry's spiced rum!! 🤮 Thanks, Phil!! Thanks, Pat! I think. I'm going to assume that is an Aussie compliment! Speaking of Australia and cows, a friend sent me this. Can you explain this, Pat?

Ice and ratlines! Dang, Bob. That sounds like quite a fall. Glad you are still in one piece. I guess that last picture answers my question about the snow.

Thank you to all for the nice comments and the likes. I greatly appreciate your help and support. I have a question for Bob (a.k.a @Knocklouder). Do you have a Venmo for your swear jar? If so, I need to send you a large contribution. If you don’t have Venmo, then run a tab for me. Why? Well, a couple of days ago I was tooling along with the last part of the running rigging – the gaff and spanker boom. I got the gaff in place with its full rigging and a nice parrel securing it to the mizzen mast. I started working on the spanker boom and ran into a problem. When I put the yoke up against the mizzen mast, a bunch of the lines tied to the mizzen spider ring interfered with the boom’s yoke. I knew something was wrong but I was pretty sure I’d done the spider ring correctly. So I went back to the instructions and found this bit of info I’d somehow overlooked. “The gaff and spanker boom swing on the trysail mast.” The trysail mast? What the heck is a trysail mast? So I checked a my reference pictures from other build logs and there it was – a mast just aft of the mizzen mast with the gaff and boom clearly attached to it. And that’s when the debt to Bob’s swear jar started piling up. Ugh. I could not think of any way out of the jam except ripping the gaff out and all the gaff rigging I’d locked into place, followed by making a trysail mast and squeezing it into position. There was no reasonable way to drill a hole in the deck to step it properly, so it would just have to be glued into place. That whole exercise pretty much consumed yesterday. I picked a dowel just slightly smaller than the mizzen mast, but large enough where I did not need to remake the jaws on the ends of the gaff and boom. I put a notch on the top of the dowel to fit between the 2 center ribs underneath the mizzen mast top. I glued the bottom of the dowel to a larger diameter disk to look like the collar around the base of the other masts. I painted the mast brown to match what I saw in my reference pictures. It slipped into place quite nicely and I got the gaff reinstalled and rigging in place. Huge sigh of relief, but not real happy with myself for the careless oversight costing me a day of work. I did not take any pics of the gaff before I had to rip it out. Here's a pic of the new trysail mast in place along with some other shots of the gaff and spanker boom and their rigging. Gaff rigging below. You can see the halyard attached to the gaff at 3 points (2 of them via single blocks), running thru a triple block before heading below to the deck. Here's the spanker boom which bisects the vangs coming down from the gaff. Another shot of the boom showing the parrel wrapped around the trysail mast. A wider shot of both. You can also see the main lower yard brace in place now. One end is tied to an eyebolt on the boomkin just above the quarter gallery. It runs to a single block on the yard arm then back to a single block also tied to the boomkin. Then it runs thru a sheave in the bulwark and is tied off to a cleat on the inside of the bulwark. And with that, I dare say that the running rigging is complete!! WOOHOO!!! Another major milestone, albeit not without some difficulties along the way! When I got all the standing rigging finished a while back, I made a comment in jest that Pat (a.k.a. @BANYAN) needed to send me some of that Australian Bundy rum that I'd heard so much about, so I could celebrate the milestone. Well lo and behold, he took me seriously and being the kind and gracious man that he is, Pat actually sent me a bottle of Bundy rum which I just got. He timed his generosity to perfection! So this time, I was able to celebrate the completion of a huge milestone with a mix of Aussie and Texan flair! I made my favorite rum drink (mai tai) using Bundy rum for the spiced rum and dark rum from a distillery in Hye, Texas just to the west of Austin. The cultural combination was perfecto!!! So a huge thanks to Pat for his generosity and to everyone else for your support in helping me get this far in the journey! I hope none of your chooks turn into emus!

LOL! Who else but Knocklouder would say that!

I am fashionably late to the party but caught up on all the previous posts. What a unique and interesting subject you have chosen for your scratch build, Paul. Very impressive work so far. I look forward to watching your creation unfold!