Flying Dutchman/Black Pearl by Glen McGuire - 1/700 - BOTTLE

[Keith Black]

7 hours ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Looking forward to seeing how you get this one in the bottle.

 He'll get it in there, he always does. 

 

 

Edited October 22 by Keith Black

[BANYAN]

6 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

  I think I can...I think I can...I think I can...

I know you can, I know you can, I know ...   Looking good Glen.  That's a mean lookin' little ship.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Javelin]

Great looking Dutchman (At least one on this planet then 🤣)! 

 

So I was recently thinking about your project and I was thinking about the little parasols you get in some drinks. Perhaps that concept could be an idea for the whirlpool. Insert with head first, tilt it with the head down and open it by sliding the mechanism down. 

You'd have to design your own parasol for proper size, shape and material though. 

On the upside, you could make the stick long enough to touch the top of the bottle, so it doesn't float. 

Just another brain fart. 

A solid cone is still preferable, but I just don't see a good solution for the moment. 

I guess this project would be easier with a bottle in upright position (neck on top), but you'd need a low, wide bodied bottle for that (I have one like that, but with an extremely long neck).

 

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, Javelin said:

Great looking Dutchman (At least one on this planet then 🤣)! 

 

So I was recently thinking about your project and I was thinking about the little parasols you get in some drinks.

 

Thanks, Roel.  I hope that dang whirlpool is not keeping you up at nights like it is me!  I agree that it would be much easier with the bottle upright.  But I'm determined to figure out a way to pull this off with the bottle lying sideways.

 

I had a friend over yesterday who is very artistic and we were playing around with some ideas.  DAP makes some UltraClear caulk that I used on the waterfall of my Wa'a Kualua project.  It's workable but holds its shape very well.  We tried coloring it with acrylic paint and it mixed nicely.  My friend's idea was to build the whirlpool in layers outside the bottle - each layer being thin enough (after drying) to roll up, insert into the bottle and place on top of the previous layer.  For a test run, we spread some of the caulk on wax paper, made a few layers, and set aside to dry overnight.  Unfortunately, when I got up this morning and tried to peel the layers off the wax paper, they were completely stuck.  So I will try again using a pane of glass as a working surface. 

 

If it the layering process actually works, I could stack up the whirlpool layers inside the bottle and pour epoxy resin around it.  If I make the epoxy resin with the right amount of translucence, you might actually see the vortex when looking through the side of the bottle.  I think that would be pretty cool.  If IFs and BUTS were candy and nuts...🎄 

Edited October 24 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 How about using a ballon? Place a ballon in the bottle, blow it up to desired size, pour catalyst around the ballon and once set deflate the ballon. You could put lead weights inside the ballon before blowing it up to keep it from lifting. 

Edited October 25 by Keith Black

[Glen McGuire]

14 hours ago, Keith Black said:

How about using a ballon? Place a ballon in the bottle, blow it up to desired size, pour catalyst around the ballon and once set deflate the ballon. You could but lead weights inside the ballon before blowing it up to keep it from lifting. 

That has to be the most creative idea yet, Keith!  I hope you are not losing sleep over this problem either!  😃

 

Back to the Flying Dutchman though, and the sails in particular.  While watching the movie, I loved the eerie look of the Dutchman's sails - kind of a cross between thick cobwebs and varicose veins. 

      

 

 

A couple of days ago while I was throwing a load of clothes in the dryer, I looked down at my hand and realized I was holding something that just might work for the Dutchman's sails - one of those Bounce anti-cling sheets.  I took one and brushed it with a grayish-black wash.  It looked promising at first glance so I cut out all the necessary sails and gave it a go.

 

 

 

 

I attached the sails to the yards.  I liked the coloring and the veiny effect, but the bottom edge was too clean.  So I shredded it a bit and then was satisfied with the look.  I also started adding the lower shrouds and ratlines.

 

 

Here's where she sits now with all sails in place except for the fore stay sails.  The main and mizzen masts are glued into the deck.  The fore mast is dry fit.

 

 

 

Now it's time to do the special rigging on the fore mast that will allow it to lie down over the bow instead of sternward like the other masts.  

 

[JacquesCousteau]

Very inventive use of the dryer sheet, it looks great!

[Keith Black]

 Fantastic sails, Glen! 

 

[BANYAN]

Now there a lightbulb moment for you.  Great idea and well put into practice - looks great Glen.

 

Keith, where do you get these pics - have you got a a private penguin breeding colony?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

On 10/25/2024 at 5:34 PM, BANYAN said:

Keith, where do you get these pics - have you got a a private penguin breeding colony?

I think Keith's unique mind is its own private penguin breeding colony!!

 

The final challenge for my Dutchman is the fore mast shrouds and back stays.  Normally, I will tie off a shroud to the starboard channel, run it through a tiny hole in the mast (just below the mast top), and tie it off on the port channel.  That works great when the masts hinge sternward.  However, as mentioned earlier due to my poor ship design, I am forced to hinge the fore mast forward to get it to fit in the bottle. 

 

So here's the idea I came up with for the fore mast shrouds and backstays that would allow the mast to hinge forward.  I cut a single 18" long thread and tied 3 other (shorter) threads to it. 

  

 

 

 

Then I installed a small eye pin (1.4mm outside diameter) on each side of the mast just below the crow's nest where I normally would have run the shrouds through the mast to the other side.  I tied off each of the shrouds to the channels then ran the single long thread through the eye pin.  The long thread will run out of the bottle and allow the mast to hinge forward.  Once the ship is in the bottle, I'll raise the mast and the eye pin will meet the knot where the top of the shrouds are all tied together.  

 

 

For the back stays, I did basically the same thing except I did not have to tie any together.  The forward back stays run through a small hole I drilled in the mast just above the crow's nest.  The rear back stays run through an eye pin installed near the top of the fore mast.  The last thing I did was install 2 stay sails above the bowsprit.  The lines are a bit loose because nothing is under any tension until it gets inside the bottle.

 

 

 

And here's how she looks folded up, impatiently waiting for me to make a whirlpool in the bottle.

 

 

With the Dutchman complete, it's time to put the bottle down and get some more work done on the Constitution.

 

Edited October 27 by Glen McGuire

[BANYAN]

Tight squeeze Glen - a mm more here and there and you may have been in trouble - great planning and execution.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ian_Grant]

Looks great Glen!

 

Awaiting with bated breath the insertion video!!

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, BANYAN said:

a mm more here and there and you may have been in trouble

You got that right, Pat.  Had the bottle opening been 1mm wider, the ship would have slipped in the normal way with all masts folding to stern.  1mm narrower and I'd be starting the whole thing over!  All of that speaks to my poor planning up front.  From now on, I just need to make my ships 10% smaller than my original design.

 

26 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

Awaiting with bated breath the insertion video!!

Thanks, Ian!  It will be a while though.  I've still got a whole nuther ship to build, not to mention the whirlpool!

[Javelin]

On 10/28/2024 at 3:10 AM, Glen McGuire said:

You got that right, Pat.  Had the bottle opening been 1mm wider, the ship would have slipped in the normal way with all masts folding to stern.  1mm narrower and I'd be starting the whole thing over!  All of that speaks to my poor planning up front.  From now on, I just need to make my ships 10% smaller than my original design.

I don't think that's poor planning at all. It's basically the point of SIB's. If it's not hard or just straightforward, then what's the point?

Adjusting the bottle or the scale just makes it easier and that gives a less brilliant effect. 

Having all those pieces fit nicely would also require so much planning and even construction that you'd already be halfway in the build before you discover all possible issues... That way you'd never really start a build! ( and that's not your style is it? 😋) 

Edited October 30 by Javelin

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Javelin said:

It's basically the point of SIB's. If it's not hard or just straightforward, then what's the point?

Adjusting the bottle or the scale just makes it easier and that gives a less brilliant effect. 

Words of wisdom.  Come to think of it, they do call the SIB genre "Impossible Bottles", don't they?  Thank you for your perspective, Roel!

[FriedClams]

Nice progress!  Tricky figuring for unfolding the Dutchman.  Sails look appropriately tattered - nice.  Only a modeler would look at a dryer sheet and say to himself - "hey now, look at this material".  You got the disease bad, Glen.

 

Gary

[Glen McGuire]

On 11/2/2024 at 1:53 PM, FriedClams said:

Only a modeler would look at a dryer sheet and say to himself - "hey now, look at this material".  You got the disease bad, Glen.

Takes one to know one, Gary!!  

[FriedClams]

22 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Takes one to know one, Gary!!  

 

Very true, Glen.  And as a sufferer myself, I was only offering some friendly intervention before it gets out of hand.

 

Gary

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, FriedClams said:

 

Very true, Glen.  And as a sufferer myself, I was only offering some friendly intervention before it gets out of hand.

 

Gary

 

Model builder's wife, upon viewing [insert name of junk item here]: "I think this needs to go (in the trash / to Goodwill)."

Model builder: "But that could come in handy for a model some day!"

[Ian_Grant]

28 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

 

Model builder's wife, upon viewing [insert name of junk item here]: "I think this needs to go (in the trash / to Goodwill)."

Model builder: "But that could come in handy for a model some day!"

In the case of Glen and his wife, "junk item" could be construed as "a short section of railway track".

[Glen McGuire]

17 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

In the case of Glen and his wife, "junk item" could be construed as "a short section of railway track".

I would be distraught beyond words if I ever found one of those pieces missing!

 

I took a short break from my shift on the Connie to do a little test run on the layered whirlpool idea my artistic friend suggested.  My first thought was to build the whirlpool inside a funnel and slice it into layers after it dried.  I took some of the DAP UltraClear caulk, did some coloring, and layered it into a funnel that was the appropriate size.  I got excited because it looked pretty good at the start as you can see in the pic below.  Unfortunately, my excitement faded as gravity overpowered the thickness of the caulk.  It eventually ran down the sides of the funnel and ended up as a sticky, blob of goo.  The goo was really pretty with its various shades of blue, but a total fail nonetheless. 

 

 

 

On to Plan B.  With the funnel being totally useless, I took the caulk and laid out a bunch of concentric circles with different shades of blue.  The color gradient is supposed to enhance the depth as it moves from light on the top to darker and darker as you descend into the whirlpool.   

 

 

After the caulk dried, I scraped it off the glass with a straight razor.  Even though it was dry, it was still very sticky, clinging to itself almost like bubble gum.  This made it very hard to pull off each circle intact.  So much so that I ended up cutting each circle into quarters to get it off cleanly.  I think that will actually be beneficial when it's time to do this inside the bottle.  The stuff is so sticky that I think I will be able to cut the rings of caulk up into small pieces and add them one at a time inside the bottle.

 

Here's what the test whirlpool looks like after pretty much following that process outside the bottle.

 

 

For the first time I'm starting to think this whole thing might actually work! 

    

 

 

Edited November 5 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

4 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

For the first time I'm starting to think this whole thing might actually work! 

 Was there ever a doubt? 

[Landlubber Mike]

Clever work with the dryer sheets and the concentric circles for the whirlpool!

[tmj]

3 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

For the first time I'm starting to think this whole thing might actually work!

Of course it will work! Endeavor to persevere. The more you try, the more you learn, the closer you get to perfection. An old Japanese proverb once said; "Fall seven times, stand up eight!"  

 

[Glen McGuire]

On 11/5/2024 at 3:07 PM, tmj said:

An old Japanese proverb once said; "Fall seven times, stand up eight!"

Add a zero to that first number, Tom.  Maybe 2 zeroes!

 

I finally quite procrastinating and decided it was time to put up or shut up about the whirlpool.  My small test piece looked ok outside the bottle, but you never know what's going to happen when you try replicating something inside.  Here's the caulk product of choice for this adventure - DAP UltraClear.  It's very sticky but mixes well with acrylic paint and dries glossy clear which makes it very suitable for water effects.  Plus, it takes a loooong time to dry so doesn't put me in any kind of time crunch for a change.

   

 

 

 

Here's the process of building the whirlpool inside the bottle:

 

1.  First, I used the caulk to make a small base layer of the whirlpool.  It's about the size of a quarter and colored dark, navy blue.  I epoxied it to the glass base of the bottle.  To give a visual of depth to the whirlpool, the plan was to start dark and move to lighter shades of blue as I got nearer the top surface.

 

2.  Next, I added a layer of the uncolored caulk to the outer edge of the base of the whirlpool.  This purpose is to glue each layer of the whirlpool together.  I will refer to the uncolored caulk as "glue" going forward to distinguish it from the caulk used to make the whirlpool.  

 

3.  I am "gluing" each layer together because there cannot be any gaps between layers of the whirlpool.  Otherwise, when I add the epoxy resin ocean water surrounding the whirlpool, it will seep into the whirlpool and be a disaster!  

 

4.  Next, I cut the next layer of the whirlpool into small pieces and used very long tweezers to insert them into the bottle.  I positioned each piece of the new whirlpool layer on the "glue" on the outer edge of the existing layer to widen the maw of the whirlpool as it is built higher. 

 

4.  I did this one layer at a time, allowing the "glue" to dry overnight before adding the next layer of glue and pieces of the next layer of the whirlpool.  

 

5.  Rinse and repeat as the whirlpool became taller and wider.    

 

 

 

Base and first 2 layers below:

 

 

Layer #3 in place (you can see layer #4 lying in wait on the right side of the pic):

 

 

 

Layer #4 in place.   Here's where I started running into a problem.  The edges of the top layer were now high enough and extending far enough out so that they began to droop as the glue for top layer dried.  So I ended up having to turn the bottle upside down every few hours until the glue finally set.  Here's where I could have used @Ian_Grant's idea of having some DC gear contraption to spin the bottle for me!

 

 

Here's how I added the glue (clear caulk) to each layer of the whirlpool inside the bottle:

 

 

 

And here is the completed whirlpool with all its layers.

 

 

 

I am very happy (maybe more relieved than happy) about how it turned out.  For scale, the whirlpool is about 3" across from edge to edge.  For comparison, here's the whirlpool shape I was trying to recreate.  I did not try to match the blue color in the pic below.  I wanted a brighter shade of blue to make more of a contrast with the dark colors of the ships.  I will add some thin white streaks to the inside of the whirlpool for highlights to help visualize the rotation.

 

 

 

Now, I'm trying to decide if I should do a leak test with water to see if there are any gaps between the layers, or if I should just go for broke and add the epoxy resin ocean water around the whirlpool.  As Dirty Harry once said, "Do you feel lucky?"

 

 

 

Edited December 4 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 That's amazing, Glen. 

[Ian_Grant]

Looks great Glen!  I'm pulling for it to be leakproof! 🤙👍

[FriedClams]

Creative process, Glen - and convincing as well.

 

Gary

[BANYAN]

Your efforts have turned out very well Glen.  Once you add the streaks that will look very realistic.  

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

Breaking news - the leak test failed spectacularly.  My whirlpool had more holes in it than the S.S. Minnow after its 3-hour tour. 

 

I just patched up everything I could see and more.  I'll give the caulk a day to set and give her another try.