Zheng He's Treasure Fleet by Glen McGuire – FINISHED - 1/1000 - BOTTLE

[Glen McGuire]

Game time!!  Unlike my previous builds where getting the ship in the bottle was the moment of truth, this time that will be the easy part.  The real challenge is assembling things inside the bottle.  It’s going to be a slow process as I’m using 30-minute epoxy for each step (hopefully that’s sufficient time).  So there will be long waits for the epoxy to set between each step.  

Here’s the starting point – with waves and whitecaps added to the water. I left a smooth channel down the middle so I can slide the ships as needed during the assembly process.  When I get the furthest left ship glued in place, I’ll add some texture in the narrow water before I put the middle ship in place.  

Here’s the tool I made to push the 2 halves of the hull together and hold them in place till the epoxy dries.  

I got the 2 halves of the hull inside and glued together.  No turning back now as the boat is not coming back out of the bottle!!

After the hull epoxy set, I needed a way to hold the hull steady while I inserted the masts and added fittings to the deck.  So here’s the tool I came up with.  It’s a brass rod with two prongs that fit inside two mast holes on the forecastle.  Secured of course with duct tape.

For placement of epoxy to exact spots on the deck as well as inside the mast holes, I use a long, thin metal rod with the end filed to a point.  The 2nd pic shows placement of two small shelters on the rear corners of the quarter deck.

The 1st pic below shows successful installation of the first mast and sail in the rearmost hole on the quarterdeck.  The 2nd pic shows successful installation of the other two quarterdeck masts/sails as well as the longhorn corrals and corn field.  

Next up is the real test - adding the hinged masts...

  

Edited August 26, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[gjdale]

So far so very good Glen. I’m holding my breath while you’re doing this, so please don’t take too long or I will expire!

[Glen McGuire]

53 minutes ago, gjdale said:

so please don’t take too long or I will expire!

You and me both!  I am not a patient person so this is testing my limits!! 

 

If I can get the next 6 hinged masts in place and raised on the treasure ship I'm home free.  The 2 smaller ships will be relatively easy.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

6 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

The 2 smaller ships will be relatively easy

You know you just cursed yourself. 

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

You know you just cursed yourself. 

Here's me at the start of these SIB projects...

[Keith Black]

 Finally, penguins!

[Glen McGuire]

While working the masts/sails, it dawned on me what the best thing about these junk ships is - no ratlines!!!   😍
 

Anyway, it was a long but successful process Friday night and Saturday installing the 6 hinged masts with sails.  I started with the ship resting in the middle bulb.  Here was the process for each mast/sail:

1.  Scrunch the sail up the mast, insert into the small bulb, and push it off to the side oriented where I could easily grab the mast with long tweezers.

1.  Mix some 30 minute epoxy and start a timer (it's really only about 20 minutes before it becomes too gummy to work with).

2.  Dab a bit of epoxy into the targeted mast hole.

3.  Grab the mast with tweezers and work it a bit to get it hinged at a good angle for inserting into the mast hole.

4.  Make a bunch of stabbing attempts until I finally hit the hole (trying to ignore the ticking timer).

5.  Using another way-back tool, straighten the mast upright and maneuver it around until the whole thing looks like it rests at a 90 degree angle bow to stern and port to starboard.

6.  Let it sit for 2-3 hours, then rinse and repeat.

 

During the whole process I was really worried about the mast hinges.  They were getting a lot of work as I was repeatedly having to push the sail up and down to make room for each successive mast/sail.  But they held up quite well.  I was terrified that one would stress and break which would have been a catastrophe. 

 

After all the masts/sails were firmly in place, I slid the ship into the back bulb, pushed it to the side as far as possible (maybe 1/2"), dabbed some epoxy on the water, and slid it back over the epoxy to lock the ship into its final resting place.       

 

Once that round of epoxy was dry, I carefully raised the folded part of each mast/sail till it was upright and straight.  Then I dabbed a touch of epoxy onto the hinge to lock it and moved on to the next one. Distorted pictures follow... 

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

[Keith Black]

Congratulations, Glen. She looks right smart and right at home, perfect. 

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

On 8/26/2022 at 7:55 PM, Glen McGuire said:

Here's me at the start of these SIB projects...

  Penguins DO fly ... underwater !

[mtaylor]

Take a deep breath, Glen and maybe an adult beverage to calm the nerves.  Very well done and looking super.

[Roger Pellett]

Well Done !!!

[gjdale]

Woohoo! Well done Glen - I can breathe again! That’s looking superb.

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you, Keith, SH Johnny, Mark, Roger, and Grant!  

 

1 hour ago, gjdale said:

I can breathe again!

 Yes, huge sigh of relief here!!!  On the home stretch now.  Hopefully I did not jinx myself as Keith alluded to earlier!  

[BANYAN]

Great start to the installation Glen; looks great!  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

The middle ship is in the bottle and assembled in place.  Two down, one to go!

[Glen McGuire]

The third and last ship is in the bottle!  The mini Treasure Fleet is afloat!!

 

Now I've got some work to do on the base for the final presentation.

[gjdale]

Congratulations Glen - that looks fantastic! I’ll hold the champagne until the base is done - if it’s anything like your previous efforts, that will be special too.

[Keith Black]

Glen, congratulations! That is so cool and you managed to stuff a herd of Longhorn in there too. Wait a minute, WAIT A DOGGONE MINUTE, your next project..........the Ark! 

[GrandpaPhil]

Congratulations!  Very nicely done!

[Glen McGuire]

3 hours ago, gjdale said:

I’ll hold the champagne until the base is done - if it’s anything like your previous efforts, that will be special too.

Thanks, Grant.  The base is a sword holder shown in one of the early posts.  I've got a couple of things in mind to do to it to try and make the whole thing look better.  We'll see how those turn out.

 

3 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Wait a minute, WAIT A DOGGONE MINUTE, your next project..........the Ark! 

Keith, you have now joined my son on the list of people no longer allowed to suggest new SIB projects! 🤐

 

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[mtaylor]

Sweet work, Glen. I suspect all of us following along were holding our breath with you on the bottling.  

[Keith Black]

I guess this means no penguins, lions, tigers, and polar bears.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Keith Black

[Glen McGuire]

On 8/30/2022 at 8:00 PM, Keith Black said:

I guess this means no penguins, lions, tigers, and polar bears.

While waiting on an Amazon delivery so I can complete the treasure fleet base, I decided to see if I could actually make something resembling a tiny penguin.  Since the longhorn herd turned out pretty well, a penguin shouldn't be too hard, right?  So here he is.

 

He's 1/16" tall.  That scales to about 1/750 based on a 4' tall emperor penguin, so it's definitely a reasonable size for one of my SIBs.  I may open up the Aurora bottle and try to mount him on one of the broken ice floes.  If that doesn't work, I'll save him and maybe do an Endurance down the road.

 

Oh, and I named him Keith. 

[Keith Black]

 Thank you, Glen. You're a true gentleman and friend for playing along, he looks great! 

[gjdale]

Keith is looking very healthy there Glen. A Polar Bear should complete the setting nicely!

[Glen McGuire]

Here’s my idea for the final presentation.  My thinking might be a little far out, but hang in there with me on this!  

Since the base is a sword holder and the bottle sits on the sword holder, the bottle should serve as the sword or at least bear some resemblance to a sword, right?  So my thought was to have a sword handle protruding from the bottle opening and the end of a scabbard protruding from the bottle’s base.  I was not sure how that would turn out but was determined to try.    

I found a smallish Chinese-style sword on Amazon and ordered it.  The sword is actually a letter opener that fits inside a scabbard.  To secure the sword handle to the bottle opening, I cut the sword's blade off about ¾” from the hilt.  Then I found a cork stopper that fit the bottle opening (the bottle originally had a screw-on cap), sanded it down, and slotted it so the cut-off blade would fit snugly inside.  Then I color matched the stopper to the sword handle’s color.  

For attaching the scabbard end, I could think of no option other than using epoxy to affix it to the bottle’s base.  The scabbard is actually thin metal painted to look like wood.  I cut it off at the length I needed to balance it with the handle.  Then I carved out a little wood grommet with a small, angled support and epoxied the scabbard to the grommet.  Then I epoxied the whole thing to the bottle’s end and set the bottle inside the boot holder to cure.  Believe me, I was more then a little nervous turning the bottle on its end like that to fit inside the boot, but everything inside held tight!

 
While waiting for the epoxy to fully cure, I added a few touches that a friend with an eye for details suggested.  I took 2 of the small red and green “jewels” from parts of the scabbard that I was not using and added them to the hilt to match the scabbard end cap.  I also highlighted the Chinese lettering on the base (“A Great Treasure in Your House”) with a paint color that matched the sword handle.   
 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

And here's the completed project!

[gjdale]

Wow!  doesn’t even begin to describe this Glen - that is just outstanding! Well done Sir! And now we can crack open the champagne…

 

[Keith Black]

 Folks, that wild and crazy guy Glen McGuire has pulled another penguin out of his hat with his Zheng He Treasure Fleet!

 

 Congratulations, buddy. You've hit a home run.