Top sail schooner by Piet - FINISHED - 1:2000 - BOTTLE - shipyard diorama

[captainbob]

You do wood work and metal work, now you can add glass work to your resume. 

 

Bob

[Piet]

Thank you Pat, Patrick, Mark and capt Bob for visiting and your very kind comments.  And of course tanks to all who clicked the like button.

 

Yup folks, I thought it was prudent protecting my delicate hands.  Actually I had to cut three of them buggers.  Number two turned out to be frosted inside, thus useless.  Well, number three turned out okay.

 

Today I'll show a little more progress.  This'll be the base for the diorama.  I used 1/4 inch poplar with an additional 3/16 inch layer on top so I could make an incline for the slipways.  I cut a circle of 63 mm with a circular groove of about 50 mm that's about 3 mm wide to receive the globe.

I then modeled the landscape as shown on the pics below.  To simulate the ground I used a piece of 400 grit sandpaper.  This did cause me a few head aches later on but I managed to work around it okay. 

 

For the retaining walls I used strips of file folder card that I soaked in liquid wood hardener to give it some beef.  Then made a bunch of retaining posts and cemented everything to the base cut-outs and painted it in a darkish brown color, simulating age.

 

I'm thinking of reducing the base diameter when the diorama is completed and finish it with veneer and poly.

 

Okay, here are a few pics to show what I have done in this step.

 

This is how it started, bare bones and just an idea in my head.  Well, actually I did make a few sketches though before cutting into things.

 

Here I have glued the sandpaper on top of the wood.  The point where the ground starts to angle down towards the future water is barely visible.  The globe behind the base is the number one lamp I cut and yuns can see the chunk of glass missing.

 

Here I have placed the globe in in the groove I cut previously to check for fit.  That's what broke that chunk of glass lout of the lamp, being too rough with it I guess.

 

These are the retaining walls and the supporting poles.

 

One of the walls is temporarily put in place so I can mark it to cut it for a final fit.

 

Both retaining walls are now cemented in place with their supporting poles.

 

Cheers,

[Keith Simmons]

Hello everyone and thanks for your comments and all the likes, it's much appreciated.

 

No ratlines on this ship Jan.  She'll have only two shroud lines per side per mast and made from steel.  

 

Here's where I had re-engage the silk thread I had bought initially.  First I thought using my own hair or that of Gwen but she wouldn't part with hers and mine was too fine.  I did try using the mono filament for the stays but they were even too thick for scale.  I cut a piece of the silk threat and unraveled it so I had the individual threads as they came out of the silk worm's spinnerets.  They were the most unwieldy threads to work with, it was like working with smoke.  

 

What I did was take three of the strands and with a drop of nail polish that I squeezed into the threads between index finger and thumb, pulling it down several times till the nail polish set up. It stiffened up quite nicely and produced a more realistic thickness for the shrouds and the rest of the standing rigging.  It even took most of the twist out of it.  The lines between the boom ends and the gaff ends are two of the silk threads.

 

Attaching the shrouds was simply looping them around the lower masts, secured with a tiny dab of nail polish.  After all of them were secured to the masts I pulled two of the shrouds down to the hull, securing one at a time with nail polish.  I had to be careful not to pull too hard because they did pull the masts out of plumb. 

 

next was making the chain plates.  They were just four slivers of bamboo.  I left them long in order to have something to hold on to and with a tiny dab of CA ,that I mostly wiped away, I attached them over the shroud ends against the top of the hull.  After they were secured I cut them off with my trusty #11 blade.  In one of the pics below you may be able to see them.  

 

Next came the topsail yards.  Here too I tied a piece of mono filament to them and then around the mast with a tint dab of CA. 

 

After all that nerve wracking work I added the rest of the standing rigging and the topsail yard lifts.  I do have to redo one of the shrouds because they seem to have loosed up on one side and the aft mast is not quite horizontal anymore.

 

Holding the ship at normal looking distance she looks quite presentable, better then in the pics.

 

Okay, my next project was cutting the 75 Watt lamp to function as the globe over the diorama.

 

Shrouds 3.jpg

This shows the difference between the mono filament (bottom) and my hair.  It just worked out so that three of the single silk threads was slightly thicker then my hair, just right for my purpose. I did not measure the thickness but take my word for for it, they were thin.

 

Shrouds 2.jpg

This shows all the shrouds attached to the masts, 

 

[attachment=319565:Shrouds cemented on 1.jpg

Here are all the shrouds cemented to the top of the hull. Now I could cement the "chain plates" to the hull.

 

2016-01-24 13.01.28.jpg

This shows the top sail yards also secured and rigged.  As you can see the rear mast shrouds are a little loose but will be replaced at some future date. 

 

Cheers,

Hi Piet,

 

   Where did you get the HUGE clothespin and exacto knife......

 

   Good job

 

   Keith

[cog]

Piet,

 

Very nice work. It doesn't surprise me you had to cut three of them fish bowls. Always something which goes wrong, but good recovery. I like the retaining wall for the "quay". starts to look like a slipway too. Looking forward to your next post!!!

[amateur]

Looking great!

Jan

[Omega1234]

Hi Piet

 

Nice work!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[popeye the sailor]

so....this is where you've been keeping yourself.    I had heard that there was a light bulb shortage up here.......never did hear where the buggers have been going to      this is the mystery project?............your not going to have snow........are you !?!?!?!?  of course not!      

 

very ingenious idea.........and something off the beaten path.......PERFECT!!!       looks great so far!   amazing how you cut the bulb.....that's some fragile stuff.    I read about the trials with the rigging.........right away I thought of the armatures from those little toy motors.  the copper wire is very thin.  there may also be a solvent to remove the label on the glass {if you haven't done that already}.

 

now that the cat's out of the bag..........{cat hair!   anyone got an Angora?}.......I can follow along.   I'm trying to play catch up........saw your log on the right hand side......and here I am!      now......don't strain yourself lifting that heavy boat......

[BANYAN]

You like to set yourself a challenge don't you Piet?  That base is looking great, pity about the glass though.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mobbsie]

It's all coming together very nicely Piet, It looks great now but when finished I'm sure it will be fantastic.

 

I do like your sidelines.

 

Be Good

 

mobbsie

[Piet]

Hello everyone and thank you all for your kind comments.  And to all who clicked the like button, thank you.

 

Yes Keith, I need something to show the relation to the size.   Igor is using a regular wooden match stick, which I started to employ later on the build.  Then some wise crack was made about a grain of rice 

 

Hey Popeye Denis, good seeing you in my micro shipyard.  Yup, this was the surprise project and even with several redoes and different things to try out it's progressing to what I had in mind.

 

Yeah Pat, nothing like a challenge, but it's a lot of fun doing it.  Sometimes frustrating, especially when a completed part "twangs" out of my tweezers and disappears somewhere in the garage.  Sometimes I manage to find it again.  I don't know how many things I had to do again.

 

Hi Mobbsie, good to see you back.  Thanks for your accolades my friend.  I'm actually close to completion.  I took the project with me to the eye doctor yesterday to show that my cataract eyes can manage small stuff.  She loved the model very much.

 

Talking about eyes and eye doctor, besides it being a challenge building something in micro miniature, it's also good exercise for the eye muscles.  The doc agreed.  So far both eyes have not changed since the operation three years ago, still 20/20 in the right eye and 20/25 in the left.  However there is some scar tissue growing in the left eye where the doc made the incision for the new lens.  It's not bothering me and the doc said that it can be removed with laser surgery whenever.

 

Okay, today I'll add a few more pics of the progress since the last update.  I decided to make two slipways.  The reason was that the ship building area was much too wide for one and I wanted to add a schooner on the ways in progress of being build.  I thought to put the keel with bow and stern on the slipway with a few frames already fastened to the keel.  

I had no idea if it was even possible and if not I could always rework the rejected model and cement that one to the slipway.  So my friends you'll have to wait to find out.  Did he manage to pull it off olr did he give up?????

 

The first three pics show the making of the slipways. I had to make the cross beams first and then the three lengthwise beams.  I used boxwood for the beams instead of bamboo so I could make them squarish enough to make it believable. I forgot the size of them but 0.2 or 0.3 mm comes to mind.  

I'll add some detail of the how with the pics.

 

As a little side project I made a 30 foot supply sloop.  Reason being is that I also made a dock protruding from the wall over the water.  

 

Okay enough of my jabbering and time for the pics. 

 

In order to cement the cross beams for the slipway to the base I figured gluing them on a piece of paper with diluted school glue. Then use a few drops of CA on each beam and cement the whole thing to the base. After the CA had set I made the paper wet with water and peeled it off.  It kinda worked okay, except for a few of the beams coming off but I just re-cemented them into place.   As it turned out the slipway was too long so I removed quite a few of the beams but had to add some where the gaps between them were too great.  I also made the beams longer then required, this way I could make them all somewhat even in length.  Not too precise but realistic enough.

 

This shows the completed slipways.  The light colored areas is sand.  I bought some model railroad sand but the grains were much to large for my scale.  I pored some into a granite mortar and pounded the daylight out of them to make it into a rather fine powder.  I used clear nail polish to whet the areas I wanted a lighter color with texture and sprinkled the sand on it.  Later on I did add some paint over the areas using the dry-brush method.  The final landscaping was a concern for me with an eye on the scale.  You can see the dock I added.      

 

This is another view with a better shot of the wall and the dock.

 

 

Here is that 30 foot supply sloop.  It's pretty well done here except for the sail.  Like with the schooner I mounted a toothpick to the bottom of the hull for handling purposes.  It and part of the bottom will be removed when I'm ready to cement it to the water. 

 

Here we have the completed sloop with the main sail set.  Just for grins I have put a grain of rice above it so yuns can have comparison.  I did also doctor up the bow a little later on when I removed the holding pin and some from the bottom.  By the way, the sail is made from the packing paper from a package Igor send me, it's like real thin tissue paper even thinner then cigarette paper.  Thanks Igor!    Yup, it has a cockpit and a cabin, of sorts. 

 

Cheers,          

[Omega1234]

Hi Piet

 

Oh come on!!!  A 30 foot sloop.  A partially built schooner on the slipways.  Another slipway.

 

And...all of this in micro-miniature!!!!!  

 

Utterly amazing, that's all I can say.

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[cog]

Where did you get that 30 ton grey-ish rock from ... because I'm taking that pic with a grain of rice ... that's a manipulated image, it can't be real ... you've been photoshoppin' all day to get it right, haven't you !?!?!? ...

 

I'm   ... you've even exceeded Igor(Sky) in smallness, any PE to be added for details? It really looks promising. Slipways are coming along nicely, How high will the water come? You keep us in suspense my friend, or should I say suspended between postings !

[IgorSky]

Just amazing work, Piet!

[popeye the sailor]

that's what happens to projects like this.......they have a habit to snowball       well.......I guess.......there's your 'snow' Piet!       are you going to add a building or two?

[captainbob]

Ha, it's a trick.  It's "long grain rice" to make the boat look smaller.  Well done, Piet.  Well done. 

 

Bob

[NenadM]

Can it be smaller ?

I said - NO

Piet said - YES

 

well well well done !!!!!

[mtaylor]

Extra, extra long grain of rice?          Seriously looks good.  I don't know how your do it.

[Piet]

Thank you all my friends for your very kind comments, I really appreciate it.  And also to all who clicked the like button.

 

Thank you Patrick, I'm coming close to your miniature work.  There is still hope for me?

 

Carl, that grayish looking bolder is just a grain of Basmati rice, nothing fancy or extra large.  No, I'm afraid no photoshop for me.  I have version 6 still in the box and have no idea how to work it anyhow.  Maybe some day I'll get the latest one and spend time to play with it.  I am not a computer guy. 

The water will come to the end of the slipways.  Our imagination should see it going under the water a bit.

 

Hey, captain Bob, no trick rice here but someday they'll make a GMO version

 

Thanks Igor, accolades coming from you and Patrick are really appreciated very much.

 

Yeah, Denis, this kinda stuff has a tendency to escalate into more and more impossible things to try.  Yup, there'll be a steam powered sawmill and a shop - office building - - - with trees and grass and weeds and gravel and logs to be milled and already sawn planks.

 

Thank you Nenad, I try. You ate no slouch either making  impossibly small stuff.  All you guys are an inspiration to me.

 

And thank you too Mark. 

 

Just got a message from Gwen telling me that she's back in the USA, in Pittsburgh.  She's going to stay with Marianne for one day and then fly home on Monday.  That means I'd better get the house in ship shape otherwise - - - - - be afraid, be very afraid ;)

Other then laundry, mowing the front and back, doing some grocery shopping for her and making a nice dinner nothing much else to do.  No time for the shipyard I'm afraid till later on in the week. But I still have a few pics of progress to post from work I already did.

So with that I'll sign off for today.

 

Cheers,

 

[Omega1234]

Hi Piet

 

Thanks for your compliment above, but trust, me, even my nano micro-nuclear submarine and cutter models which I put in my previous model Symphony, isn't a touch on what you're doing here.  Seriously teeny tiny marvels, for sure!

 

Also, I doubt that you'd have a need to be scared of Typhoon Gwen.  You've been doing lots of work on your yard and the house lately, so I'm sure all's ship-shape already.

 

Still pays to be cautious, though..!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[Piet]

Thanks Patrick, you are too kind and really appreciated.  Thanks also to all who visited and clicked the like button.

 

Well, we are ready for another installment showing this time one successful item and several not successful.  But in the end I did manage to get what I was after, sorta

 

By adding a second slipway I thought of putting a schooner in the stocks being build up.  Mostly just bare bones, the keel and a few frames.  I decided not to go hog wild with all the frames and few hull planks.

As it turned out that was a prudent decision as I will show.

 

Okay, I think a few pics can tell the story better.

 

Here I used 0.5 mm maple veneer to cut-out the three parts for the keel assembly.  I used the acceptable schooner as guide for size.

 

This shows how I cemented the three parts to copy paper for strength.

 

Keel assembly completed and strong enough for the purpose intended.

 

Next came the making of the frames for the ship.  My first try was using wood, of course. I cut a few slivers of poplar, thinking it was soft enough wood and easy to bend to such a tight radius.  Hmmm, no good.  It started to split at the radius.  Even going with thinner slivers didn't work out.  Yes, I soaked the slivers of wood overnight.

 

Second try was with file folder cad soaked in wood hardener.  I made a different jig pushing the card in with a wooden form.  Looks good but - - - -  Didn't work either.  The card also split, at this point I was really disgusted but thought to try with copy paper.

 

This is the attempt using copy paper soaked in wood hardener. It seems to be workable and worth a try to pursue.

 

I now attempted to cement the deck beams in using copy paper as reinforcement..  The problem here was cutting it off the paper.

 

 I'm not giving up,stubborn Dutchman that I am.

 

Cheers, 

[popeye the sailor]

got an old credit card..........or one you'd like to see gone?  very thin plastic?

[DSiemens]

Piet I love the scale you chose yout doing a fantastic job with it. Good choice using filiment for the rigging. It realy is hard finding anything small enough to work. Also good choice using paper. Ithe isn't as forgiving as wood but it can take the scale better.

 

One thing you might look up is a company called cards of wood. Www.cardsofwood.Com They sell business cards and other paper products made out of wood. They have wood veneer you can put through your printer. It should work better than your .5 mm.

 

Keep up the great work I'm excited to see how she turns out.

[BANYAN]

Glad it's you and not me trying this at such a micro scale Piet. Did you try gluing up on wax (grease paper for cooking) as it won't stick to that I think.  I do my gluing up on a glass plate, again for easy removal.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[cog]

Piet,

 

What on earth have you got yourself into ... Need a new record for Guiness?

 

Daniel has a good point for the alternative wood. that 0.5 mm is a bit hard to deal with for the scale, and what you want. I presume you don't want to work with plastic, else popeye made a good suggestion ... I would use veneer, which is ~0.1 - ~0.2 mm thick, or plastic to realise it ...

 

Keep it up my stubborn friend

[Piet]

Hello all y'all and thanks so very much for all the good info.  Thanks also to all who clicked the like button.

 

@ Denis: Yes, plastic would work but still too thick and besides, I am stubborn enough to use only wood and paper.

 

@ Daniel:  Wow, thanks for the info on Cards of Wood.  I had no idea they exist.  I'll be visiting for sure.  At this writing the problem is resolved by still using wood.  When I come to that phase in the project I'll explain how and what I did. I could only use the filament for attaching the booms and gaffs to the mast, the rest of the rigging had to be done with just a few strands of silk.  It worked out okay.

 

@ Pat:  No, I didn't use wax paper but a very slick plastic sheeting.  The problem was not so much detaching it from the plastic but the very fragile nature of the parts.  In the end I gave up on the deck beams.  As it sits on the slipway you can hardly see the thing.  My wife had to use a magnifier to look at all the stuff I have on it.  She knew I was using a few single strands of silk but she had to put the diorama under a light and  with the magnifier she saw the rigging. 

 

@ Carl:  No world record I'm afraid and it's also not to outdo anyone else.  I guess I needed something to challenge myself and to keep my eyes in good working order.  As it is there is some scar tissue in the left eye and a thin film on the backside of the lenses.  The left eye gives me a slightly double image and both conditions do show a slight fuzz.  But with the optivisor on I can work with it.  I'll make an appointment with the eye doc and have the laser thingy done.

Yes for sure Daniel's idea is a keeper and will pursue it further.  Kinda late in the game for this project but as I mentioned it already, I have found a way do do it anyhow.  Actually I did make my own veneer that was close to 0.2 mm but also impossible to bend into that short radius. 

This is what's so great about this forum, so many great folks willing and able to help.

 

Cheers to all,

 

 

 

[Piet]

Thanks again everyone fr visiting my micro miniature shipyard and for all the likes, it's really much appreciated.

 

Today's post is about details for the landscape and saw mill.  Some time ago I mentioned that I was cutting planking, well here are a few pics of the logs and how I made the ship's hull and deck planks.

I plan to place the logs near the future saw mill and stacks of planks near  bare-bones schooner.

 

For the logs i used wooden toothpicks and the planking from regular copy paper.  The copy paper I first soaked in the wood hardener liquid and after it had dried cut it into 1 mm strips. I left the strips for the deck planking white but painted the strips for the hull planking with Van Dijk brown.  It kinda matched the maple  of the semi finished schooner.

 

At this point I was still thinking about how to make the hull frames for the bare-bones schooner and came up with an idea to try.  I'll explain in a future post.

 

I need to remind everyone that these posts are all after the fact, with other words, the work was done many weeks ago. 

 

Here we have a bunch of logs ready be cut into beams for the frames and planking.

 

This shows the material for deck planking and hull planking.  I had to keep these wider then the scale width for the planks because cutting them with a pair of scissors or or office cutter was near impossible to get a  looking strip.  I figures that once I cut the planks to scale length I'd split them in half with the #11 blade

 

These are the rough cut hull planks.  Same story here

 

 

These are the planks for the decks.  They will be cut in half lengthwise for scale.

 

These are the hull planks cut to scale length and also to be cut in half length for scale.

 

Cheers,

[mtaylor]

Incredible, Piet.   Just incredible.

[Omega1234]

Hi Piet

 

Tiny, fiddly and challenging, but, oh, all so good.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the final product!

 

Cheers

 

Patrick

[rwiederrich]

Magnificational.........

 

I love the indescribably microscopic modeler........

 

Love it.

 

Rob 

[cog]

Maybe you should be called Mr Fiddly. That just doesn't only look small, it is tiny!!