Roman Quinquereme and Claw by Glen McGuire - FINISHED - 1/500 - BOTTLE

[BANYAN]

Wow! that looks great Glen.  The level of detail at this scale is amazing - you continue to impress (even though you ignore our calls for seagull poo etc says I quietly - sorry don't want the penguins to hear)  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

This is one of those builds that just make one have to look twice or thrice.   So much detail in such a small space.  Impressive and I look forward to more.

[Knocklouder]

Amazing work my friend.      

[Javelin]

I was just wondering though, you poured the resin, but didn't put the ship in? Does that mean you'll pour another layer or will you insert it with acrylic gel on top of the epoxy due to its limited draft? 

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you, Pat, Mark, and Bob for the kind words!  As for the last part of Pat's comment, I did give consideration to adding a "buffer" which is an ornamental piece on the bow.  In the picture below, you can see it in front of the eye, directly above the spikes of the ram. 

  

 

The buffers were usually some type of animal head.  Hard to tell from the picture above what animal head was used so I zoomed in:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

4 hours ago, Javelin said:

Does that mean you'll pour another layer or will you insert it with acrylic gel on top of the epoxy due to its limited draft? 

Good question.  I will not pour another layer of resin.  I will glue the ship directly to the resin and then add acrylic gel on top of the resin around the ship for water texture.

[Boccherini]

Glen,

just caught up on your project, still enjoyable to see what you've been up to.

I was going to ask about the fate of the penguins........you anticipated my query.

 

Grant.

[Glen McGuire]

4 hours ago, Boccherini said:

I was going to ask about the fate of the penguins........you anticipated my query.

Yes, the penguins live on and somehow find their way into each project regardless of the subject!!

[Glen McGuire]

With the ship almost complete, I circled back to the issue of how to join the 2 halves of the hull once they are in the bottle.  I experimented with the noose idea from @Keith Black and @Javelin as well as my first thought of building little platforms and sliding them together.  Those proved more difficult that I was comfortable with.  I came up with another plan which I believe is more manageable. 

 

I made 2 small frames which fit around the oars and press against the tapered part of the hull just short of the bow and stern.  Then I'll use 2 prongs to press against the frames pushing the hull halves together.  Strings are attached to help me retrieve them from the bottle after usage.  See below.

 

Next was adding the rigging.  With only 1 mast and sail (not counting the 2 little tringle ones at the top), the rigging is pretty simple - 2 back stays, 2 front stays, 2 braces, and 2 clewlines.  The 2 back stays are tied off to an eyebolt short of the archer's tower.  All lines run along the base of the bulwark, thru small holes in the bow, and out the bottle. 

 

I almost forgot to add the decorative tail pieces on top of the stern post!  They were the last pieces of the puzzle.  Here are pics of the complete ship with everything dry-fit in place.

 

And with that, the moment of truth is at hand!  This one will be unlike most of my previous SIBs where squeezing the ship inside the bottle without destroying anything was the make or break moment (literally).  The 2 halves of the quinquereme fit thru the bottle opening fairly easily.  The real difficulty comes from having to insert the 2 halves of the hull with all the rigging lines attached to each piece, while the mast/sail remain outside the bottle.  There will be a lot of slack in all the lines so when I push the mast/sail assembly inside the bottle and into the hull, it will be very hard to keep the lines from tangling up and/or pulling off the oars or ballistas.   

 

This has the potential to turn into a real mess.  Adult beverages will be nearby and ready for the result, good or bad!      
 

  

Edited August 12, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[gjdale]

Ingenious solution to joining the hull halves Glen, but then we’d expect no less from you! Can’t wait to see this go into the bottle.

[mtaylor]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you on the inserting. 

[BANYAN]

Good luck Glen, hoping all goes well.
 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

 Glen, may the not too much force be with you. 

[John Fox III]

Greetings Glen,

I enjoy your updates, often look forward to seeing them. When I've had to insert masts with rigging separate from other parts I usually wrap the mast/rigging in tissue paper. It helps keep things from getting too tangled, and is easily cut off later, though one has to be careful not to cut rigging when doing that.

Anchor's A Weigh!

John Fox III

[Louie da fly]

Good luck with the insertion. You're a braver man than I am!

 

Steven

[Javelin]

Great solution for getting those halves together, will keep that one in mind for later.

 

Applying that acrylic after the ship is in, will be terribly difficult with that mast and those oars in place. On the other hand it would be difficult to insert and assemble the hull while the gel is still wet... 

 

Perhaps apply the gel in the back of the bottle and a bit on the sides leaving a large spot open in the centre for the ship? Then let it dry, insert the ship and add acrylic around it? 

Just thinking out loud. Didn't apply acrylic to my Sea Installer because of the difficulty to go around objects and smearing it on the vessel. I'll be happy to see your solution. 

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you to Grant, Mark, Pat, Keith, John, Steven, and Javelin for the well wishes.  I needed them more than ever for this one!

 

@John Fox III - The tissue wrap idea for the lines sounds brilliant.  I wish I'd read your post before I dove head first into the insertion process.  It might have saved me a lot of time and angst!  

 

@Javelin - I've actually added water texture both ways you describe.  For my Independence, I put a fake hull in the bottle, then textured the water with acrylic paint all around the fake hull, leaving a nice open spot for the real hull after the fake one was removed.  For my Adventure Galley, I had a split hull (like this project), so I needed a really wide bare spot on the water which meant I'd have to apply texture after the ship was in anyway, so I decided to do all the texturing after the hull was glued in place.  I used bent q-tips and prongs to maneuver around the ship.  It ended up being easier than I expected, so I don't think it will be too difficult for this one.

 

On to the main event, man vs model.  The insertion and final assembly process was a 15 round title fight that carried on throughout the weekend.  The model put the man on the deck a few times and had him on the ropes thinking about throwing in the towel.  Against better judgment, the man kept crawling back up and staggering his way back into the fight.  After the fracas was over, it was a tense moment waiting for the judges, but in the end, the man squeaked out a narrow, split decision.  Whoa!

 

Following this post, I will do a couple with pictures and descriptions of the process.  Actually, most of it went ok, but I made a historic mess of the rigging lines and that's where the real hours-long battle took place.  I took 3 fairly short videos of the process (7-10 minutes each) if anyone wants a front row seat.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm8UEENgyj4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ4hzk_aKkU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF5HEW64x-c&t=2s

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

Here's the ship, mast/sail, and attached rigging lined up ready for the insertion process to begin.

 

 

Starboard side of the hull getting dropped into place.  The long tweezers have serrated ends so I wrap the tips in painters tape to keep from marring the surface of the ship.

 

 

Both halves are in. as well as the brackets that will be used to push the halves together.

 

 

The 2 halves of the hull successfully pushed together and brackets removed.

 

 

Stepping the mast.  I grab the lower end with tweezers and use a prong to pull the top towards the front to get it upright enough to slip into the hole in the deck.  

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Landlubber Mike]

Wow Glen!  Nice work on the insertion and stepping the mast!

[Knocklouder]

Yet another  amazing display of talent. Nicey done, and we get to watch the insertion on ytube, I watch every one lol.

 Great work my,       

 Two adult size beavages of your choice are in order, amazing.

[Glen McGuire]

It was a good, solid start for the man at this point.  But the model was about to get angry and start fighting back with a vengeance.

 

The man's last triumphant moment for many hours was getting the mast stepped into the hull.  But in doing so, you can see what a tangled, jumbled mess I had made of the rigging lines.  The 2 lines of black thread are the stays, one for the starboard side and one for the port.  Both are tied off at a sternward eyebolt, run thru a hole in the top of the mast, back down thru an eyebolt between the forward ballistas, out the bow and out the front of the bottle.  The tan threads are 2 braces and 2 clew lines.  Neither are tied off.  I ran them thru eyebolts and out of the bottle so I could adjust the yard and sail afterwards (in theory anyway).  The plan was to pull the threads and take slack out of the lines as I pushed the mast/sail into the bottle.  Unfortunately, that turned out way harder than I thought and resulted in the hot mess seen below.

 

Trying to sort out the lines and untangle everything inside the bottle was a disaster.  The more I tried, the worse things got.  And every time I adjusted a thread, it would drop and get tangled up in the oars.  UGH!!!  So I decided I needed to pull the mast/sail out of the hull and out of the bottle and try the whole thing again.  Getting the mast/sail back out of the bottle was ridiculous but I did manage to pull it off.  Speaking of pulling it off, I also pulled off a bow/bowstring from the middle ballista on the port side of the ship.  UGH again.  

 

Back at square one, I reinserted the mast/sail, this time being super careful to try and keep the lines organized.  Big fail.  So I carefully extracted the mast/sail from the bottle again.  Ugh.  Try again.  This time, I was super-DUPER careful not to tangle up the lines.  Even bigger fail (if that was even possible).

 

At this point, the model had put the man on the canvas 3 times.  The man was woozy, couldn't see straight, and about to give this thing up and find something better to do with his time.  The only thing left I could think of was a Roger Staubach Hail Mary.  So I decided to unthread all the lines from the eyebolts and hole in the bow, leaving the back stays tied off and running thru the hole in the top of the mast.  The braces and clewlines remained tied to the yard and sail, but I pulled their lines straight out of the bottle.  From there, I separated everything and cut the lines down to a manageable length. 

 

Then I reinserted the lines 1 at a time and did something I did not think was possible.  I re-threaded them back thru the tiny eyebolts that run along the inside of the bulwarks.  If I had thought that was even possible, I would have done it originally.  Now I know I can do it, so I won't go thru this nightmare again!  The downside of doing this was that I could not get the braces and clewlines very tight.  So they look like they are flapping in the breeze.  But at least they are in place.  However, the stays are nice and tight.          

 

 

So the man was back on his feet.  Still staggering and a bit woozy, but still in the ring.  

 

Now it was time to revisit that bow/bowstring I'd separated from its ballista.  A small dilemma - I needed long tweezers to reach the ballista since it was in the middle of the ship.  But the ends of my long tweezers were too fat to pick up the tiny piece.  So I found yet another use for duct tape by affixing my fine point tweezers to the ends of my long tweezers.  It worked perfectly and allowed my to drop the tiny piece right in place.

 

 

After that, it was a matter of adding the forward grating and corvus which was pretty easy.  

 

And suddenly, the fight was over.  Shortly thereafter, the judges rendered their verdict - a controversial, split decision going in favor of the man.  Whew!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[GrandpaPhil]

Nice work!

[Keith Black]

 Amazing ordeal and the completed process is even more amazing.  You've been awarded the seal of approval.......

 

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

43 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

You've been awarded the seal of approval.......

OMG!  I am dying!!!   I am soooo not worthy.

[gjdale]

WOW! Just watched all the videos Glen. Either you did some serious editing, or the fight wasn’t as close as you say - looks to me like you had this under control pretty much all the way and had a counter move for everything the model tried! Well played Sir!

 

My advice to you now is…..SDH (Start Drinking Heavily)….after all, you need more empty bottles for your next projects.

[Glen McGuire]

23 minutes ago, gjdale said:

Either you did some serious editing, or the fight wasn’t as close as you say

Your are correct Grant, I did some serious editing.  The video would have been 6+ hours long and R-rated for language had I posted the entire hideous event!  😬😬😬

 

SDH commences in 3...2...1...

[mtaylor]

Just wow.   Beyond amazing and beyond just pure stubbornness.  Definitely requires adult beverages and a happy dance....  

[BANYAN]

Wow Glen what an effort, and the result is well worth the prolonged 'fight' you endured - it looks great in its new home.  I admire your persistence and 'never give up' attitude.  👋

 

I also liked your boxing match analogy, very appropriate in this instance.  Now Rocky Balboa, slap some ice on those bruises and have a good rest

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

3 hours ago, BANYAN said:

Now Rocky Balboa, slap some ice on those bruises and have a good rest

Loved those Rocky movies!!

[Louie da fly]

I want to be you when I grow up . . .

 

Steven