SY Aurora by Glen McGuire - FINISHED - 1/500 - BOTTLE

[Glen McGuire]

Thanks, Keith!  Regarding the fate of the brandy, I did sample it.  And let me tell you, there's a reason it only cost $8.  😝

 

I had to go watch a video on using a housing spreader since I've never rebuilt a differential before.  Now I understand your comparison with SIBs.  Dang, that would certainly be a handy tool for me and my habit of making things too fat for the bottle!     

[Roger Pellett]

Glen,

 

Might it be possible to hide a thin piece of piano wire in the smoke plume with the bottom anchored in the smoke stack?

 

Roger

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Roger Pellett said:

Might it be possible to hide a thin piece of piano wire in the smoke plume with the bottom anchored in the smoke stack?

 

Hey Roger - you nailed it!  That's exactly what I'm trying to do.  As soon as I finish with the railings, I'm gonna put the smoke in as you suggest and give the whole thing another test smash to see if it looks like the smoke will survive.  I need to be able to position the smoke where nothing has to lay on top of it and also where none of the lines grab it when I raise the masts.  Plan B is to thread the needle and place it inside the smoke stack after the ship is inside the bottle. 

 

One way or another, it's gonna get in there!  

[Glen McGuire]

The railings continued to give me fits but I finally got it worked out.  The tiny RJ45 wire and other small strands of copper did not work.  Just too flimsy.  So I went back to the .015” music wire.  I tried cutting a straight piece for the rail and soldering all the stanchions to it.  Fail.  If I used enough solder to make the joints strong, the joints looked fat and wrong.  If I used a tiny bit of solder for a clean-looking joint, it was too weak to hold when inserted into the pre-drilled holes.  So the solution I came up with was to take a straight piece of music wire for the rail and bend down the ends for the front and back stanchions.  I glued it in place and it was solid.  I then inserted all the in-between stanchions with a touch of CA glue on their tops.  Certainly not perfect, but as good as I can do.  As Dirty Harry said, a man’s got to know his limitations.

    
As for the smoke, I did one last test smash and ¾ insertion with the smoke in place.  The railings were fine and the smoke survived.  It will still be a delicate operation to avoid distorting the smoke when raising the smoke stack and masts, but I believe that will be far easier than trying to insert it after the ship is in the bottle.

So the ship build is complete!  Next up is making the ocean and pack-ice.  I’m going to try epoxy resin this time for the ocean.  I’ve never worked with it before so it’s back to YouTube U and the practice bench.  
 

[Keith Black]

 Glen, the railings look much better, she's quite the little jewel. 

[Glen McGuire]

I finished up my YouTube U classes on epoxy resin and did a test run in a red solo cup.  I also rolled out a small piece of white modeling clay and cut it into a few pieces for broken pack ice.  When the test resin was dry, I popped it out of the cup and placed the ice and ship on top to see what kind of look I had.  The ice looks a little thick and maybe the pieces are too large, but overall I think I’m on track.  So I went ahead and poured the resin into the bottle for real and set it aside.  

[Glen McGuire]

It takes 72 hours for max hardening of the resin.  In the meantime, I decided to jump ahead and work on the very last step of the whole project - how to secure the bottle to the sledge.  

 

The Museum Discovery Centre of Sydney, Australia has one of the sledges from Mawson’s Australiasian Antarctic expedition.  On their website they have a picture of the sledge with a bunch of straps which they describe as follows, “Leather straps are wound around the top rails. These have holes and buckles and were used to secure the load while in transit. The leather appears to be vegetable-tanned cowhide.”    

 
I decided to try and secure my bottle to the sledge in the same manner.  I found some strips of deerskin leather that I thought would work well for the strap.  For the buckles, I bent some .025” music wire into a rough square and soldered the joint for the frame.  For the prong, I used some soft brass wire of the same diameter so I could attach by twisting the end around the frame.  Looks like this will work ok.
 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[Landlubber Mike]

Looking great Glen.  Love the new rails - well done sorting that one out!

[Keith Black]

 Glen, it looks like you're just about ready for the big push. I think you're right about the test ice pieces being too big.

 

 Along with broken pieces of pack ice there would be slush ice but I'll be hanged if I can figure out how to replicate slush ice on the resin base in the bottle. I don't think trying to replicate slush ice with paint would work? Maybe sheetrock dust but how would/could one secure it to the resin and how would you remove excess from the bottle's sides? Outside the bottle, no problemo but inside a bottle..........I take my hat off to you and others who do SIB's. 

[Glen McGuire]

Thanks, Mike and Keith!

 

Keith, I hear you about the slush but I think it's beyond my capabilities.  It's going to be hard enough for me to get those pieces in their proper place by dropping them in with long tweezers.  I'm definitely going to do some unglued, practice drops! 

 

Below is kind of what I have in mind.  Probably a little more space between the pieces of ice and no slushy stuff in between.

 

And yes, almost time for the big push.  Anxious moments ahead!!! 😳

[Keith Black]

 How will you get the ice glued down once placed? Will you insert Aurora before gluing down the ice? Sorry for the questions, Glen. 

[Glen McGuire]

32 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

How will you get the ice glued down once placed? Will you insert Aurora before gluing down the ice? Sorry for the questions, Glen. 

 

Keith - I appreciate the questions because they are the same ones I'm trying to answer as this thing moves along!  I come up with these ideas of how I want things to look but don't really have any idea how to do it until it's time.  That's the challenge being a newbie modeler trying to do this from scratch.  I have no instructions or plan!!  But that's also what makes this so much fun!

 

So here's what I'm thinking - first, take a small piece of wood that's the size of the ship's bottom and place it where I want the ship to go.  Next, dab some 30 minute epoxy on the bottom of each ice piece and place them inside the bottle around the piece of wood.  After all the ice is in place and the epoxy dry, remove the wood and replace with the ship. 

 

After reading you question, I went and did a short test since I had not actually tried the long tweezer/ice idea yet.  It went ok as you can see in the pic below.  It's going to be tedious with so many ice pieces, but should work.  I may err on the side of somewhat bigger pieces just so I don't have so many to deal with.  Plus, those long tweezers are pretty large - they handle larger things better than smaller ones.  I will do some testing with different size pieces and then make a final decision on what to do.     

   

[Keith Black]

 Thanks, Glen. Hey, when I saw those tweezers in the bottle a light went on. In the QC dept. where I last worked, we used vacuum pens to pick up and inspect IC's/electronic components. I don't have a clue if this would be of help or made to work for doing SIB's?  

 

https://www.amazon.com/Vacuum-Suction-Chip-Pick-Up-12000pa/dp/B07Q12CZWR

[mtaylor]

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

 Thanks, Glen. Hey, when I saw those tweezers in the bottle a light went on. In the QC dept. where I last worked, we used vacuum pens to pick up and inspect IC's/electronic components. I don't have a clue if this would be of help or made to work for doing SIB's?  

 

https://www.amazon.com/Vacuum-Suction-Chip-Pick-Up-12000pa/dp/B07Q12CZWR

Those might help with any ship model.....  tiny bits seem to be the norm.

[Glen McGuire]

Keith - Hmmmmm.  I'm with Mark, I think that vacuum tool could have a lot of uses for a lot of things including SIBs.  Hmmmmmm again.

[Keith Black]

 The object you want to pick up has to have a flat surface. I see it being helpful for installing windows but where I see it possibly being most helpful is in card modeling. I'm going to ask Chris if he thinks it might be of help. 

[Roger Pellett]

Just a thought.  Use your system for epoxy gluing your ice to the epoxy ocean.  For the boat hull, glue a very thin piece of modelers plywood it in place with epoxy.  When the “big push” comes use a more user friendly glue like Titebond III to glue the hull on to the plywood.   If something goes wrong, it would be much easier to retrieve the hull and to clean things up.

 

Roger

[Glen McGuire]

Hey Roger - Thanks for the suggestion.  I will consider that after I see how things look when all the chunks of ice are in place.

 

Quick in-progress update.  I've begun putting the ice chunks in place...very carefully and very slowly!  So far I've only dropped 1 by accident inside the bottle.  I got lucky and it landed glue side up so was able to retrieve it for another try!  Only about 50 more pieces to go!   

Edited February 5, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 Glen, how long do think it will take you to carve the Polar bear? 

[gjdale]

4 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Glen, how long do think it will take you to carve the Polar bear? 

 

Now you’ve done it! You just know that Glen is gonna do something with that don’t you? 

[Glen McGuire]

9 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Glen, how long do think it will take you to carve the Polar bear? 

 

OMG!!!  NOOOOOO!!!

 

OK.  First of all, the ship is in Antarctica so thankfully there are no polar bears.  There are mainly penguins.  And second of all, uh.....crap!  🐧

[Keith Black]

 I tried making it easy with a Polar bear but oh no, you had to go get all zoologically correct so now it's penguins, eh? Because penguins are so much smaller, a pair? 

[gjdale]

Keith - told ya! 🤣

[Keith Black]

 Grant, I've got faith in Glen. I bet he's able to whip out penguins to the rate of about one an hour. I mean, how hard can it be? 

 

[Glen McGuire]

I want my mommy!  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

[Keith Black]

 Glen, just think of the awesome amount of detail you could get in .06 inches ............Can you imagine trying to carve anything that small? I'd try to replicate something that small with a tiny drop of paint and be proud as punch if the paint drop didn't spread beyond .06 inches. 

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Can you imagine trying to carve anything that small

 

At 1/500, I think if I glue a couple pieces of salt and pepper together it will look more like a penguin than anything I could carve!

[Glen McGuire]

OK.  Despite shaky hands from thinking about polar bears and penguins, I managed to get all of the pack ice in place.  And BTW, thanks to @Joe100 for the idea of using putty for the ice.  

 

I will let things sit for a day to make sure everything is set.  Then we're gonna see if this whole thing will work or not.  Moment of truth coming up!

[Joe100]

Now that is fantastic! Glad the tip worked, it’s really a great addition. 

[Ian_Grant]

It's gonna be amaaazing!