Javelin

You do know what's missing, right? No, ain't talking about penguins... water that runs off the edge of the bottle opening! either running straight down or into a slight bend in the direction of Kraken's mouth... I'm thinking mixing clear acrylic gel with the same pigment as the epoxy? Or building it up externally from epoxy and then gluing it in place at the opening? Just saying though... Fantastic job so far!

Made some serious progress, almost time for putting in the bottle I think. Time for some test fitting. Luckily the deck cargo, the transition pieces, can stay on deck, so I can glue them before inserting the ship in the bottle. Although initial tests with my prototype bridge seemed ok, I made another test of the actual bridge, with the helicopter pad and mast in place, to see if it would really fit. Seems to be ok for now. Still some work to do on that helo pad and crane boom rest. For the larger grills I did use masking tape to paint them on. Since I can't cut the masking time consistently in this small size, I decided to make a large opening and seperate tiny strips to separate the grills. And some more small platforms in the making. Basically I use 0.1mm copper wire, bend them to shape, cut them to size and glue them to the platforms. Luckily those platforms can then be glued to a larger structure rather than resting on 4 of these tiny legs.

Hi Glen, not sure what you had in mind. I do believe it would be too large as well, or at least difficult to cut to shape. For now I settled on marking it with a very fine tip marker. Only later on I figured out I should have used masking tape to keep at least straight lines on top and bottom. I tested that, and it worked, but it was difficult to keep the lines horizontal and not angled one way or the other... I had this solution in mind, but it's not my favorite as it's only waterproof when applied on an absorbent surface (paper). I currently touched some of the windows and left some smudges on the white afterwards... Not all windows are on yet, but looks good enough for now. I'll see on the next build if I find any better solutions. Also continued on deck with the equipment. Lucky for me that equipment is off-centered, so it can be used to hide the seam! Forward part will be largely filled with lots of containers in different colours. Proceeded on the deck cargo as well. Decided to dress her up once more to see how she looks. Eventually she has to be easy to assemble as I'll have to do it in the bottle after all... I'm testing to see if the deck cargo can stay in place with the legs in bent position to pass through the neck, that way I could avoid mounting the yellow mushrooms (Transition Pieces) in the green circles inside the bottle (which for sure is going to result in them toppling over etc.). Next to the bottle you can see a cardboard template for a possible base for the bottle, resembling the wind mill tower. I noticed the bottle is very heavy at the back, so I'd have to mount it in a weird after position. I'll see where this goes. I'm fairly happy with the dimensions and angle of this mock-up.

Well done, the ships make a nice couple. Love the significance of these seemingly insignificant vessels. Good to see you persevered and gained the experience!

Thanks for the input Glen. As you could have guessed the last post was the point where I was. Now I'll continue the build. The target for now is getting that ship ready to bottle and assemble it inside the bottle. Everything else, the epoxy, the bottle dressing itself, is a plus and considered optional. I've continued with some tiny platforms and the rescue boat as well as some painting. I've ordered some fly fishing binding wire (thanks again Glen!) for rigging of the crane. Since I don't have any experience with such wires, I've ordered several types and sizes to see what works. The wire should arrive in a couple of days. In the meanwhile I'll continue with the deck outfitting and further painting. Need to hide that ugly seam as much as I can. Currently also figuring out how to get windows on that superstructure. Without them, it would be bland, but getting them on in a decent size is going to be a challenge...

Very impressive work. Would make for a nice project in itself. The shape doesn't look off at all. I'll follow along.

Thanks for joining in and all the likes up till now. Yes Glen, the lattice is the 0.1mm copper wire. I made a small jig of a plate (cutting board) and a small beam on top. I'd put the long length of wire with one end against the beam and then cut to length. Later on I'd keep doing that, using the first cut as a length measure. This way I had a more or less consistent length for a lot of these small parts. For the "hub cap" I made a drawing of what I'm toying with. The more I look at it, the more the top idea is losing out. The blunt cap is perhaps even more frequently used at sea, but still I do believe it is more abstract and would be more difficult for people to figure out what it is. The sharp cone at the bottom would be nicer, but more work to build. I'm also not sure on its position, close to the bottle gives a more faired and realistic view, while further forward (like the blunt cap idea) gives the better view of the neck. I also drew the holes for the blades that would allow light to enter and give visibility to the bottleneck. Let me know what you guys think.

Great solution indeed. It'll take quite some clay, but it's a very good shape holder. Tapering the ends won't be easy though, I guess you'd have to add clay at the top rather than try to taper the cable. Will she be getting a head/mouth at the center? Or just teeth sticking out of the water?

Next step was to measure the inside of the bottle, to see how much height I'd have to raise that crane. The inside of the bottle is conical, so I have more height towards the neck than towards the bottom of the bottle. On the model itself I painted the legs in the "new" color as if the ship were brand new, but I'll try to weather them with rust as the really are. The banded appearance I achieved by stacking small disks on top of each other, some 0.3mm thick, were painted red around the edge, while the others, 0.5mm thick, were painted white. I didn't really see another way to consistently paint such fine stripes, yet they were very important for a realistic impression of the vessel. I then clipped the legs in height to compensate for this stack of disks. Then it was time for the crane. I know from the start it would be difficult without making my own PE. I decided on a "solid" version as you see in some 1/700 kits. I'd also have to handle it inside the bottle, so it should be quite sturdy. I used a styrene base with 0.3mm steel wire on the corners and 0.1mm copper wire (from dismantled electronics wires). Copper wire cuts easily at length, which is something impossible with the very strong 0.3mm steel wire. I then raised the crane, using the measuring stick from the bottle for a good height. I did leave some open space, as I have to bend the legs and lower the hull over the hinges. Also the sandy bottom is not entirely flat. It still needs some more paint and rigging, but I think it will do.

Thanks for the welcome. As you have probably seen, I've been active already. Now slowly plowing through some awesome rigged ship topics. Great and helpful work over here. Contemplating a Vanguard Alert as a first wooden ship for the moment. However my shipyard's a bit full, so we'll see.

Hi Glen, I was saying somewhat the opposite, that the nacelle idea would be difficult due to the blades, but given your comment, I actuall thought about it again. A small tower on the bottom would indeed be a nice stand for the bottle, while the tip could actually be a nacelle without the blades. This vessel builds the towers, puts the nacelles on top and then inserts the blades into the nacelle, so an unfinished windmill is a possibility. If I'd leave the blades out and leave 3 large holes, it would allow more light to enter the front of the bottle and give some visibility to the bottleneck, which would otherwise be nearly invisible... I'll have to draw it out. It would take a long time to build that hub though, not sure if I want to invest this much time in it. I don't really have much of a connection to the vessel and I'm having trouble considering it a real project. It remains a prototype in my mind for the time being. Now on to the vessel itself. I continued the hull, losing quite some time with a nasty seam in the middle. Again I was in doubt whether to give it a better finish or leave it as it was, about 0.5mm in between the hull halves. I decided to try to fill it and give it a better fit. It'll always be visible of course, but I'll try to hide it with deck equipment and a lot of it is already covered by the accommodation block as well. As you can see in these pictures, the hinges, which will be retracted into the hull, are made invisible by these blocks around the legs (where I assume the jacking mechanism is located). She has a very unusual triple Voight Schneider propulsion, which is something normally used by tugboats. This propulsion is basically a modern paddle wheel, with the blades standing upright and rotating. The angle of the blades varies during the rotation, creating a forward motion. I made the base for this propulsion in form of 3 circular plates at the bottom, but decided to wait with the tiny blades until the last moment before bottling, since they will be too fragile to handle during the build. In the back you see the three propulsion circles, the central one was also the reason for splitting this hull this way. The bow seam I solved (after several attempts) by covering one half of the bow with vaseline, while applying Milliput epoxy filler to the other half. This way I got a good fit and the filler would stick only to one half of the hull. The back was eventually done in the same way. You will also see that on the top deck, the split is straight in the back. This allows me to align the hulls easier inside the bottle.

Hi Glen, You got that right. I made a sketch especially for you, as I normally don't really make any drawings of what I have in mind (so later I can't say it doesn't look anything like what I had in mind in the beginning 😁). Since I didn't feel like making some of its normal deck equipment, like the blade holding rack, I decided to picture her with a deck cargo of Transition Pieces (like big yellow mushrooms), which will also help to cover the seam between the two hull halves. Then of course the idea grew further to add a foundation, that's the dark object between the legs of the ship. It'll double as a good level indication while pouring the epoxy. I'll first "glue" it, as well as the ship, to the bottom with some acrylic gel or acrylic-sand mixture. For the vessel this will make sure that all 4 legs rest on the bottom, while it will also make sure the vessel doesn't start floating and topple over. It's quite a top heavy structure, which isn't a problem as long as the four legs are resting on something, but I'm afraid it might fall over in the epoxy. Another issue is that I won't be able to apply waves with acrylic on top of the epoxy layer, I'd have to work between the legs to get behind etc. so that wouldn't be feasible. On the other side, in 1/2000 scale, waves would be tiny after all... Here a very early shot of the prototype in a cut-off test bottle. I used a wine bottle, which wasn't a good choice, since the long, slender neck presented some issues, which, in the real bottle, weren't an issue. It did give some valuable info on the leg construction and assembly sequence inside a bottle. And the tools I've developed up till now. I also use a small 0.8mm brass rod with a 90° angle at the end, much like your tools. The lowest tool in the picture was the first one, where I discovered a few things, which then developed into the styrene tool right above it. That is my most handy tool together with the long tweezers. One of my main issues for now is that I can't really think of a surrounding for that bottle. I love your Kraken as well as the treasure chest etc. on your builds, but can't really think of a theme decoration for the stand of this one. Was thinking of a wind turbine nacelle, but can't really put huge blades around the neck of the bottle 🤪

Hi Glen, well it's difficult to say. My first layer was very thick, up to about 1cm in height I think. I also added too much water, around 25% I estimate, which meant the water layered above the sand-acrylic mixture in the end. I didn't really think of tools before I started this, so I made it liquid to make everything flow smooth by itself, so I'd have a flat bottom. It didn't really work out that way. However, that took around 1 week, of which the first 3 days were without the "clever method", then I started thinking about that solution. Because that first layer was so liquid, or at least had liquid at the top, and me making the mistake of handling the bottle, some smudges occurred on the edges of the sand layer. The acrylic stayed there. I was rather convinced I'd be able to scrape it off as I sometimes tear off complete layers of acrylic when I don't like the result. In this case of course I couldn't scrape it off, so I added additional layers. Here is an additional layer being applied. Learning from my mistakes, I made it a lot less liquid, and made a few handy tools to spread it along the way. This layer applied about 2mm thick took around 1 day to become hard and I'd guess around 2 days to fully dry, blowing the bottle around 3 times a day with air. I do recommend not to put full air flow inside when things are still liquid. It'll probably blow stuff around, so in the future I'd start with very low flow/velocity and only apply full flow when things are hardened. The funny thing is that I could follow the drying process quite clearly since the sand goes from dark/wet to light/original colour/dry.

Since this build was already started before I started posting here, here's another update to get you up to speed. Due to a lot of uncertainty on epoxy (never used it, but was always curious about it), I also made a prototype bottle. I put a small styrene rod, which was actually a windmill foundation that was too short, as well as some copper wires of 0.1mm and 0.3mm diameter in it. The wires aren't for this project but perhaps for future reference, so how the bottle and epoxy would distort the view of such wires. I'll probably add something floating as well, just to see how that works. I'm also not sure whether the sand-acrylic would mix well with epoxy, perhaps create bubbles due to its own structure, so that will be tested before I sacrifice my big bottle... Then of course it was time to start the real ship. She'd be too wide for the neck, so she'll be split it 2. Additionally I didn't want to split the bridge, and even if I did, with the offset helicopter platform, she'd probably still be too wide. The idea is to actually put it in with the helicopter deck to the end or fore part of the bottle and then rotate it 90° inside the bottle to mount it. This way it will also cover part of the seam between the halves. Additionally I'll be putting some deck cargo on it to cover as much as I can of the seam. I saw the wedge shaped fore and aft on a build over here I believe, and I figured it would be useful to make the bulbous bow easier as well as the longitudinal positioning of the two hull halves.

Hi Glenn, late to the party as ever, but do you recall any heating of the epoxy inside the bottle? Did it turn the bottle (at least at the bottom) warm? I'm trying to make a styrene ship in a bottle with epoxy (thanks for showing that process in this build log!), but I'm somewhat worried that the epoxy might melt the vessel or at least its legs while curing. And yes I'm going to try to pour the resin with the ship already inside and I'll make a first trial to see how I'll avoid messing up the ship in the process.

An old idea of mine was to put a Ship in a bottle, but I didn't (and still don't really) have any idea about old rigged sailing ships. So the idea was to put a modern vessel in a bottle, however due to their generally large lengths and slender shapes, they would become so narrow and low that they'd fit through the neck of a bottle without any manipulation. Recently however I found a vessel with acceptable measurements and a good challenge to put in a bottle. During research I never quite found a good guide around the net, but recently I discovered this board and Glenn McGuire's (as well as IgorSky and others') build logs. Their ideas gave me the right input to start my first own SIB. So here it comes. As the title says, the ship is the Sea Installer from the DEME company. She is a jack-up wind installation vessel used for installing foundations on the seabed, mounting transition pieces on top of installed foundations as well as complete windmills on top of those transition pieces. She is one of the rare versions of these vessels that jacks herself up on cylindrical legs (= like ship's masts) rather than lattice legs, which makes her suitable. Following Glenn's builds my idea was now to put a seafloor of acrylic gel mixed with sand on the bottom to have a solid floor. Then I'd install the vessel on her legs and pour transparent epoxy to simulate the water layer. I was warned by Glenn's posts about the extremely slow drying times inside bottles, so I tried several things to solve this issue. Since the acrylic-sand-water mix is basically hardening by evaporating the water, I put it on one of my central heating heaters and when droplets started forming on top, I inserted a styrene tube and blew with my airbrush compressor through that tube. This way you insert relatively dry air inside the end of the bottle and the moist air is pushed out through the neck, around the tube. Once the droplets were gone again, I stopped and let it sit untill droplets formed again. Here is a picture of that process. The small diameter tube is inside. Since I never tried anything like this before, I decided to invest in a full size prototype to trial the engineering behind my build. This gave me an idea of the size I'd be dealing with and the issues I might have. Here she is standing next to the original leg design (based on the hinging mechanism for sailing ships I picked up over here. The idea was to hide the hinge by pulling the hull over them. Although I had a tight fit around those hinges, I was affraid the leg would drop out while inserting it into the bottle or pushing the hull unevenly over the four legs with no room for correction inside the bottle. So I decided to make a reduction in diameter around the hinge with smaller holes in the hull. This way the leg would not be able to fall down during inserting, and the hull would not be pushed to deep on any of the legs, since it would rest on the larger diameter lower section.

Well there it goes, finally decided to join. Some might know me as Neptune at modelwarships.com, but Neptune was already taken over here. I'm in my late 30's, mainly building merchant ships from scratch in all sorts of ways, but generally styrene. I had noticed this site a long while back, but didn't notice any forum connected to it. Recently my interest was sparked by sailing warships and I discovered the awesome build logs over here. I've also toyed with the SIB idea for over 10 years without doing anything with it. I then noticed Glenn McGuire's builds over here and plowed several times through them. In short, I recently started my first SIB (of a modern offshore subject), but plan to create some more, eventually venyuring into rigged ships (I think, still need to learn a lot)