Wa’a Kaulua by Glen McGuire – FINISHED - 1/100 - BOTTLE - Traditional Hawaiian Ocean Voyager

[Glen McGuire]

I just added another word added to my Aussie vocab – “gobsmacked”  Thank you, @Louie da fly!

 

Time for what I expected to be a relatively easy insertion process with my main concern being whether or not the pineapple leaves for sails would survive undamaged.  My plan was to insert the hull assembly and glue in place.  Then attach both masts/sails to the deck and insert the deck/mast/sail assembly as a single piece.  I made a couple of practice runs with a dry-fitted deck/mast/sail assembly.  It was tight and would require me to scrunch up the pineapple leaves more than I was comfortable doing.  So I decided it would be safer to insert the deck by itself into the bottle, then add the mast/sails afterwards.  So a 3-step insertion process – hull assembly, deck, and mast/sail assembly.

 

I’ve got pictures and descriptions of the process in the next post.  But if you want to see videos of how the sausage was made, here’s a couple of short ones.  The first is about 5 minutes and covers the hull, deck and mast/sail installation.  The second is about 10 minutes and covers the rigging.  

 

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

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HdLKyqNNMo

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

Here’s how the whole operation transpired:

Step 1 – Insert the hull assembly.  I made some red Sharpie markings on the bottle to help me figure out where to dab the epoxy on the water.  Then I slid the hull assembly inside, straightened it out, and lined it up on top of the epoxy.  The main concern was getting the 2 hulls squarely aligned.  No real difficulty encountered with this step.

 

Step 2 – Add the deck.  After the step 1 epoxy was set and the hull assembly securely in place, I put a touch of epoxy on the hull assembly’s connecting ribs and dropped the deck on top.  Very easy.

 

Step 3 – Insert the 2 mast/sail assemblies and drop them in their respective mast steps.  This is where things got a bit tricky because of a small blunder.  Since my original plan was to insert the deck and masts as 1 piece, I had put a hinge near the bottom of each mast.  And that became problematic.  I got the aft mast/sail inside the bottle ok.  But when I tried to insert the base of the mast into its mast step hole, the hinge kept folding on me.  Once folded, the angle made it dang near impossible to get enough leverage to push it down firmly into the hole.  At one point, I even considered trying to pull the mast/sail back out of the bottle, but fortunately I came to my senses and abandoned that dodo idea.  After maybe 45 minutes of frustration, I finally got that dang thing in place.  

 

Now it was a matter of orienting the mast/sail properly and securing it in place.  I angled the sail forward at maybe 50 degrees (similar to some of the paintings), made sure the mast was vertical, then worked up a brass wire jig to hold the mast/sail in place while the epoxy dried.   

 

 

The last step was tying off the rigging.  My standing rigging consisted of 2 shrouds on each side of each mast.  The running rigging was simply a line on the starboard side attached to a loop of thread tied to the curved spar. All lines were tied off to the small spindles or studs protruding along the gunwale.  This was a tedious process, but not very difficult.  The pic below shows the aft mast/sail with all the rigging tied off and threads cut.  

 

Here’s the completed wa’a kualua fully assembled inside its new home.

 

And with that, the easy part of this project is over.  Now it’s time to figure out how to build a Hawaiian waterfall.  YIKES!!

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

Great YT videos and the results in the final photos is truly fantastic, Glen.

[Tomculb]

Glen, I just stumbled upon your build, and it is truly amazing.  It also brings back some wonderful memories.

 

My parents spent their last few decades living in Hawaii, and as a young adult I lived there 18 of those years.  At some point, my dad, a life-long sailor and a great admirer of the Polynesian voyagers, bought the completed model pictured below.  I think he found it in Hawaii, but it might have been in French Polynesia.  In any event, I was lucky enough to inherit it, and it now sits right beside my work bench.

 

My years in Hawaii included the initial voyages of Hokulea, the first modern replica of these amazing vessels.  One of the greatest thrills of my many sailing adventures was sailing several miles offshore on my Hobie 16 (along with maybe another hundred other boats) to greet Hokulea on her return to Kaneohe Bay, at the end of her initial voyage to French Polynesia and the island of Tahiti.  That was in the mid-70s, and I still remember it almost like it was yesterday.

 

Again, congratulations on a great build.

[Knocklouder]

Yes my friend, people around the world are truly  " gobsmacked" ,truly an amazing  build.  Waiting to see the waterfall, the trees the water coming down and a few Feral chickens along the shoreline.

 Great job my friend    🐓🐤

[gsdpic]

Great result.  Thanks for the videos, I was wondering how on earth you attach the threads to the hull.
 

And yes I noticed the lurking penguin at the end of the first video

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by gsdpic

[BANYAN]

10 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

And with that, the easy part of this project is over. 

Easy for you to say Glen, me thinks this is more experience and good skills coming to the fore.  You will really have to look outside-the-box to find a real challenge for your next hull build    

 

... and BTW, the craft looks great in its setting - very nice work indeed.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

Beautiful work, Glen.  That model and surroundings inside look fantastic.

[Glen McGuire]

@Tomculb Hey Tom!  Thank you for reviewing my work (so far) and for your comments.  What an interesting story about your parents and your time in Hawaii!  Thank you so much for sharing.  As I did my research and learned more about the culture surrounding these ocean voyagers, I was fascinated at how the vessels were held in such high esteem by native Hawaiians as well as those like you and your parents who spent part of their lives on the islands and understood the history.  I have been doing my best to do justice to this special reverence, which is one reason I tried to make my wa'a kualua out of as many native Hawaiian materials as possible.   

 

I absolutely love that model that your father found and you inherited.  What a lovely tribute to him to have that model sit close by while you work on your models.  As for sailing out on a Hobie to welcome the Hokulea on her return from her maiden voyage.  Whoa!!  What a cool thing to do!!  While I did not try to build a copy of the Hokulea, I did use her plans as a baseline for some of my boat (like the relative hull and mast dimensions).  She is an amazing vessel with an amazing story.

 

I'm really glad you found this build log and shared your story!               

Edited December 18, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

8 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

and a few Feral chickens along the shoreline.

Well Bob, there are definitely no penguins in Hawaii so I guess you are right!  Here they come 🐔🐔🐔!!    

 

 

8 hours ago, gsdpic said:

And yes I noticed the lurking penguin at the end of the first video

That little penguin did sneak in!  But according to Bob, he's apparently out of a job and I've got to find some chickens.

 

 

1 hour ago, BANYAN said:

Easy for you to say Glen, me thinks this is more experience and good skills coming to the fore.  You will really have to look outside-the-box to find a real challenge for your next hull build    

Thank you, Pat.  I agree with you about the hull.  It was definitely a challenge for me and I have no idea what the next one might be!

 

 

10 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Great YT videos and the results in the final photos is truly fantastic, Glen.

Thank you, Keith!!

 

 

38 minutes ago, mtaylor said:

Beautiful work, Glen.  That model and surroundings inside look fantastic.

Thank you, Mark!

Edited December 18, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Louie da fly]

On 12/18/2023 at 12:20 AM, Glen McGuire said:

I just added another word added to my Aussie vocab – “gobsmacked”  

Just a bit of context - your gob is your mouth, your cakehole, your north-and-south. So it means being smacked in the gob - pollaxed, blown away . . .

 

Steven

 

(Better than  a poke in the eye with a burnt stick).

 

Steven

Edited December 21, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Boccherini]

Glen,

that is a well presented model, congratulations.

Looking forward to seeing the completed project.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

 

Regards,

Grant.

[Boccherini]

I nearly forgot to add:

may your Christmas fowl be seasoned and cooked to perfection.

[BANYAN]

Ditto, happy Christmas to you and your family Glen

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Keith Black]

 A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Glen.

[GrandpaPhil]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Glen!

[Knocklouder]

 Me too Merry Christmas and Happy New Year  my friend. 

[Glen McGuire]

@Boccherini, @BANYAN, @Keith Black, @GrandpaPhil, @Knocklouder - Thanks for the Christmas greetings!  Merry Christmas to all of y'all and your families and everyone else in this amazing MSW community!

[Javelin]

15 hours ago, Boccherini said:

I nearly forgot to add:

may your Christmas fowl be seasoned and cooked to perfection.

.....and flightless.

 

Great to see her bottled.

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[Glen McGuire]

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and got to spend a lot of time with family and friends.

 

I've been watching a bunch of youtube videos trying to figure out how to approach the second half of this project, which is making the rock wall and waterfall.  In between videos, I decided to go ahead and make the base so I could at least feel like I was getting something done.  Nothing too elaborate.  It's 14" wide by 9" deep with the front beveled for a nameplate.  I added a 3/16" rim around the perimeter which will hold in the epoxy resin that makes up the waterfall pool.

 

 

On to the rock wall.  From the youtube videos, I got several ideas for how to make the wall, like stacking polystyrene and scoring with a knife, wadding up newspaper and covering with plaster of paris, making rock molds and casting rocks, or even buying plastic rocks and pushing them into modeling clay.  I did some trial and error on a few of these methods which ended up being a lot more error than trial.  I just could not get anything to look like I wanted.  

 

The video using cast rocks from rock molds seemed to give the best look for my purposes.  I was about to pursue that route when I thought why not use real rocks instead of fake ones?  There are places at my ranch that have these thin, flat reddish rocks with good texture (no idea what kind of rocks they actually are).  So on my next trip out there, I gathered up a few handfuls to try them out.  I decided to use some packing foam for the basic shape of my rock wall.  I took a small piece of foam and a few rocks to test things out.  

 

 

As you can see, it was kind of like putting a puzzle together.  But the next question was how to adhere to the rocks to the foam.  Because some of the best looking rocks did not have a real flat or smooth surface, I did not think gluing them on would be very secure.  So I decided to try something a little different - melting them on.  I took a small butane torch, heated the back of the rock, then pressed it into the foam.  This actually worked great because it allowed me to push rocks into the foam at different depths so I could make the outer surface as smooth or blocky as necessary.

 

 

I tested the melting method on one of the rocks and it adhered to the foam quite securely.  So I continued with melting the rest of the rocks onto my test piece.  Next, I mixed up a small amount of plaster and filled in the gaps.  After that, I put a thin layer of gesso over the whole thing to seal it for painting.  And finally, I mixed up some gray and white paint with plenty of water to make a thin wash.  I covered the rocks with the wash, then added some darker grays in places for shading.  Here's how the final test piece came out.  The second pic is the basic color and rock texture I was trying to match.

 

I think my coloring is not too bad.  But I think I need to have a few more sharp edges on areas of the wall to give it more of a blocky look like in the picture.  For a test run, however, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

  

Edited December 30, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Knocklouder]

You are an amazing modeler, the color is very realistic. You are right about a few shape edges. A little green moss and it will look exactly like the picture. Amazing work.

Have a  Happy New Year and all the best for you and yours  

[Keith Black]

 One can't tell manufactured from the real thing. Before reading the text, just looking at the photo, I thought I was looking at some rock you found which would have been astonishing enough on as it's a perfect fit for the project. But then reading that you made the bloody thing is amazing!  

[Glen McGuire]

7 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

You are right about a few shape edges.

Thanks, Bob.  Always good to get confirmation that someone else sees the same thing I do!

 

5 hours ago, Keith Black said:

I thought I was looking at some rock you found

Thanks, Keith.  Funny you say that.  A friend was over yesterday and asked "why do you have a big rock on your kitchen counter?"  😃  

 

[kgstakes]

I’m pulling up a chair for this build!!!  Can’t wait to see that waterfall go into the bottle.

 

 Your can do it!!

[Louie da fly]

Wonderful work - again! And of course rocks look like rocks!

 

Looking forward to seeing more as you make progress, Glen.

 

Steven

[Glen McGuire]

12 hours ago, kgstakes said:

Can’t wait to see that waterfall go into the bottle.   Your can do it!!

Thank you, KG!  I appreciate your confidence and encouragement!

 

3 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

And of course rocks look like rocks!

You know, when you put it like that, it should be really hard for me to mess this one up, shouldn't it!  😃    

[Javelin]

15 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Thanks, Bob.  Always good to get confirmation that someone else sees the same thing I do!

That's right. I also believe you need ridges. It looks  somewhat out of scale at this moment. The small ridges will scale it down I believe. 

 

Apart from that, gorgeous work so far! Even without the rock, the bottled ship looks awesome.

[Glen McGuire]

29 minutes ago, Javelin said:

I also believe you need ridges.

Hey Javelin, are you talking about something like these circled below?  Or can you find a picture of what you have in mind?  

[Canute]

A stair stepping would look better, like your last picture. You're looking for a nice waterfall in a stream, not Niagara Falls. 😄

[Keith Black]

 Something like this?    Happy New Year!