Ghost Ship Jenny by Glen McGuire - FINISHED - 1/400 - BOTTLE

[gsdpic]

Nice!  I too was scheduled for about 3 minutes of totality but looking at the clouds and weather forecast apps, I hit the road and drove up to just north of Llano.  I got there about 25 minutes before totality and it was still cloudy.  But soon a hole in the low clouds opened up leaving just some high, thin clouds, and I took some pictures of the partial eclipse.  Then just a couple minutes before totality the clouds rolled back in.  But fortunately, the atmospheric temperature changes at totality caused those clouds to dissipate so I had a clear-ish view for all of totality (the high thin clouds remained but did not interfere too much).  

 

I see there is an "eclipse madness" thread in Shore Leave.  I'll post a few pictures there so as to not hijack your thread any more.

 

 

[Canute]

Glen, nice shot of the corona. We're too far east and had cloud cover ruining the event.

[Keith Black]

 Great story, Bob. 

 

 Glen, great photos but I think the eclipse was way over hyped. Maggie and I sat on the front steps with our I can't see a bloody thing glasses and observed 98.11% totality in our area. I'm much more impressed by comets. 

[gsdpic]

35 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 Great story, Bob. 

 

 Glen, great photos but I think the eclipse was way over hyped. Maggie and I sat on the front steps with our I can't see a bloody thing glasses and observed 98.11% totality in our area. I'm much more impressed by comets. 

Comets are cool, but the difference between 98.11% totality and 100% totality is like the difference between night and day....almost literally.  

 

From XKCD:

 

[Keith Black]

2 hours ago, gsdpic said:

the difference between 98.11% totality and 100% totality is like the difference between night and day

 And that's why I wasn't impressed. Had it been totality here in out little patch of heaven I may have felt differently.

[Glen McGuire]

@Knocklouder That's a cool story about the Canadian penguins.  Now if you could only teach them to hunt rats!!  

 

 

Edited April 9 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

7 hours ago, gsdpic said:

But fortunately, the atmospheric temperature changes at totality caused those clouds to dissipate so I had a clear-ish view for all of totality (the high thin clouds remained but did not interfere too much).  

Sounds like it was worth the drive to Llano!  I hope you stopped at Cooper's BBQ on the way out or back.  On second thought however, I imagine the line at Cooper's was stretched way down the road!

 

 

57 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

 And that's why I wasn't impressed. Had it been totality here in out little patch of heaven I may have felt differently.

No doubt, Keith.  I've seen partial solar eclipses before but this was my first total and as Gary said, there's a huge difference.  Even though it was only for 5-10 seconds at a time here in my driveway, seeing the corona and the Baily's beads were spectacular.

[Glen McGuire]

OK.  Back to the build!

 

I was not quite satisfied with how the Jenny looked so I decided to cold-weather her a little more.  I added some hanging icicles to the rigging on the martingale along with lumping some additional snow on the gaffs, booms, and yards (small bits of modeling clay).  The I finished it off with some light frosting on the ratlines (thinly brushed on Gesso).  I think I'm good with how cold she looks now.

 

Right before I started this build log, I had added the water (epoxy resin) to the bottle. 

 

 

The next step is to create the icebergs that entomb the ill-fated Jenny.  The plan is to make the icebergs and arrange everything outside the bottle. 

 

I took some wax paper and drew a footprint of the water, then started molding the bergs out of modeling clay.  It's got to be a large collection of small bergs since they have to fit inside the narrow bottle opening.  I made more than I need so I can fit them around the ship like puzzle pieces.

After the clay dries, I'll sharpen some edges and try to get them to look more like icebergs rather than lumps of white clay.

 

  

 

[Glen McGuire]

The air-dry clay takes a few days to fully harden so I decided to take the opportunity to try something new.  I'd been wondering for quite some time if I could fashion a reasonable looking ship's wheel at this scale, but I'd never taken the time to see if I could actually pull it off.  I figured now was the perfect time time give it a whirl.  I played around with some different ideas and here's where I finally landed.        

 

I took a .08" diameter dowel and used a 78 drill to punch 6 equally spaced holes around the edge.  Then I snipped off 6 pieces of .015" music wire and inserted them into the holes to make the spokes.

 

 

Next, I trimmed the spokes to equal lengths and sanded the outer end of the dowel almost flush with the spokes.

 

 

Next, I took some .01" wire, wrapped it around a bamboo skewer (.14" in diameter), and glued it onto the spokes.

 

 

Finally, I cut the wheel off the dowel, sanded the backside almost flush, painted, and affixed to a post.

 

 

 

And voila!  It's certainly not a thing of beauty, but I think it's at least recognizable as a ship's wheel.

 

I don't know yet if I can fit it onto the Jenny's deck.  If not, I'll save it for a future build. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 11 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 Nice wheel, Glen. I hope you can use it on the Jenny.

[Glen McGuire]

OK, Keith.  I managed to fit the wheel onto the Jenny's deck.  A touch large for scale, but I still think it's a good addition.

[Knocklouder]

Awesome work my friend, Gobsmacked !! 

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

A touch large for scale, but I still think it's a good addition.

 It's a lot better than "good", it's a fantastic addition. What kinda pain in the backside would it be to attempt adding icicles hanging off the wheel? 

Edited April 12 by Keith Black

[Knocklouder]

I was going to mention that as well Keith , and a little snow in the Ships boats  as well. You probably were fixen to do that anyway  lol 

[Ian_Grant]

Another great model, Glen!  Did you consider maybe having the fore topmast broken and hanging askew, to add to the abandoned appearance?

[Glen McGuire]

22 hours ago, Keith Black said:

What kinda pain in the backside would it be to attempt adding icicles hanging off the wheel? 

 

21 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

I was going to mention that as well Keith , and a little snow in the Ships boats  as well.

Unfortunately, I do not have Captain Marvin Ship Inspector to guide me thru my builds like Knocklouder does for his.  I've only got Dimples the Surly Cow for help.  And she says no-go on the ship's wheel icicles.  However, she said that adding a touch of "Gesso frost" to the wheel would be ok.  And she did give a nod to adding some snow inside the ship's boats.  So I'll work on that.  Now if I could only keep her from getting those horns tangled up in the rigging.  

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

19 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Did you consider maybe having the fore topmast broken and hanging askew, to add to the abandoned appearance?

I certainly did, Ian.  That was one of my original thoughts.  But when I got her put together, I really liked how those topmast square sails looked on top of the typical schooner sails, so I didn't want to diminish their appearance further than the shredding.    

[Ian_Grant]

 

On 4/13/2024 at 9:18 AM, Glen McGuire said:

I certainly did, Ian.  That was one of my original thoughts.  But when I got her put together, I really liked how those topmast square sails looked on top of the typical schooner sails, so I didn't want to diminish their appearance further than the shredding.    

Yes, topsail schooners are very pretty. When I was making RC boats in high school in the 70's I scratch built one. The fore and aft sails were controlled by my big winch from my large Class M boat; the topsails by a motor drive ripped from a plastic model tank. I added a "bentinck boom" to the foot of the lower topsail because I didn't then know what else to do. My mom sewed the sails for me. On the boat's maiden I had trouble tacking her; decided I had placed the fin keel too far aft. You can see the addition strapped on with meccano for a test, however I then went to university and this ship has gathered dust for decades. I doubt the tank drive would still work. I thought of rejuvenating her with modern gear but as is my habit I built her solid as hell with full bulkheads and there isn't much room to work in her. Maybe someday. And just look at those big ugly bolts sticking out of the lead-filled ballast tube! 🙄

The tank drive. The remainder metal screen was my idea of some form of RF shielding for the small motor's emissions. Guess I had interference issues with the old AM RC set. Wonder what I "grounded" it to? 😏

 

"Reaching woman" figurehead made from a Zulu drummer from the British-Zulu war. I named her "Charlotte Rhodes" after the old "Onedin LIne" PBS series which I loved. I have two DVD's of "Onedin" episodes; wish they'd make a complete set available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14 by Ian_Grant

[Glen McGuire]

25 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

When I was making RC boats in high school in the 70's I scratch built one.

Whoa!  That is amazing work, Ian, especially considering you were in high school!  

[Ian_Grant]

11 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Whoa!  That is amazing work, Ian, especially considering you were in high school!  

Thanks. I was always all about building stuff. Still am. ☺️

[Glen McGuire]

I took care of the suggestions from @Keith Black and @Knocklouder by adding some light frost to the ship's wheel and a glop of snow to the ship's boats.  I like the way it looks, so thanks to Keith and Bob for the good ideas! 

 

I want everything to appear as frozen, but in the process of thawing out.  Of course here in central Texas, I don't have a lot of real life experience seeing things thaw out from snow and ice, so I'm doing the best I can!!      

 

The clay mini-icebergs and floes finally dried.  Again, I made way more than I knew I needed so I could pick and choose which ones fit together better.  I did some filing and shaping to give them sharper edges trying to make them look more like ice than blobs of clay.  Here's the final arrangement.  I still need to hit each piece with some gloss varnish to give them a bit of a shiny, wet look.

    

 

 

Next, I made a footprint of the ship.  The process will be to place the footprint inside the bottle exactly where the ship will go, glue each piece of ice in place around the footprint, remove the footprint, and replace with the ship.

 

 

The good news is that if anything on the ship breaks during the insertion process I will claim I was just following @Ian_Grant's suggestion above and adding to the abandoned appearance!

  

 

Edited April 16 by Glen McGuire

[Knocklouder]

Hey my friend, this ship is shaping up to be another awesome display.  It looks so impressive.  I can't help but ask, what is the name of your new assistant manager  🤔.  

Great work , Glen !!!        

[Scottish Guy]

On 4/3/2024 at 10:07 PM, Glen McGuire said:

Ghost Ship Jenny

 

May I ask where you found the plans / patterns for the boat? I tried to find something about it, except the funny small notation on Google and Wikipedia I can´t really find anything about that ship. Tried to find it in a register of all built ships around that year but still nothing. Sounds like a really good story for a scaled diarama (maybe not that small but a bit bigger ^^

 

Micha

Edited April 16 by Scottish Guy

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Knocklouder said:

I can't help but ask, what is the name of your new assistant manager  🤔. 

That's assistant manager Choco Taco named in memory of one of my favorite freezer treats that was tragically discontinued a few years ago.

 

 

57 minutes ago, Scottish Guy said:

May I ask where you found the plans / patterns for the boat?

Hey Micah!  I was not able to find any plans or any information about the actual ship, other than it was a 3-masted schooner.   I'm not surprised you couldn't find it in a ship register since there's some doubt if it's a real story or urban legend of the sea.  The best write-up that I could find for Jenny's story is here:  https://puzzleboxhorror.com/ghost-ship-jenny-the-frozen-crew/  (although the picture used at the beginning is obviously not a 3-masted schooner).

 

With all that uncertainly, I figured I had plenty of artistic license when creating the ship.  So I ended up making sort of a composite build using pics and plans from three different 3-masted schooners - the sail plan (more or less) from the William Ashburner, the sheer plan from the James Miller, and the deck fittings and rigging from the Oosterschelde.  I agree that it would make an interesting subject for a scaled diorama.  Let me know if you decide to take it on!

 

 

 

 

 

[gsdpic]

Looking good.  I like the way the icebergs in front fit together.

 

Do you plan to add any tinges of color to the icebergs?  Maybe a tiny bit of brown/tan and some blue or blue/green?

 

 

[Keith Black]

 Looks fantastic, Glen, really really cool.

 

 What do you mean you have no experience seeing melting in Texas? There's cars at red lights and pedestrians at crosswalks turned to puddles and billboard signs slumped over like a bad souffle. 

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, gsdpic said:

Do you plan to add any tinges of color to the icebergs?  Maybe a tiny bit of brown/tan and some blue or blue/green?

Yes, Gary.  I'm experimenting with adding a touch of Tamiya clear blue to some gloss varnish to see if I can get a good look.  The Tamiya clear blue is sort of translucent and I'm hoping it will give me just the slightest hint of blue while maintaining the shine of the gloss varnish.   I've got lots of leftover icebergs to play around with!

 

 

22 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

What do you mean you have no experience seeing melting in Texas? There's cars at red lights and pedestrians at crosswalks turned to puddles and billboard signs slumped over like a bad souffle. 

I was talking about snow melt, but you are right, Keith.  My choco taco used to last about 30 seconds in August heat before it was making a puddle on the sidewalk!

 

[Thukydides]

5 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Yes, Gary.  I'm experimenting with adding a touch of Tamiya clear blue to some gloss varnish to see if I can get a good look.  The Tamiya clear blue is sort of translucent and I'm hoping it will give me just the slightest hint of blue while maintaining the shine of the gloss varnish.   I've got lots of leftover icebergs to play around with!

You could also try inks. They give you very vibrant colours with little coverage.

[Glen McGuire]

10 minutes ago, Thukydides said:

You could also try inks.

What kind of inks are you talking about?  Do you have a product name as an example?

[Thukydides]

Just now, Glen McGuire said:

What kind of inks are you talking about?  Do you have a product name as an example?

I use liquitex:

https://www.liquitex.com/en-ca/products/professional-acrylic-ink-cerulean-blue-hue

 

But I know some people also like daler rowney.

 

They are essentially pure pigment, no binder so they go on translucent and are very vibrant. If you have an airbrush they go on really nice through them. But you can also use a brush or mix them with varnish.