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

[Old Collingwood]

Great  work  - really moving  on.

 

OC.

[Keith Black]

 The Pearl is perfect, Glen. This is gonna be a stunning SIB.  

[BANYAN]

Great work on the whirlpool and your miniatures Glen, they all look stunning.  I take a day off an you jump[ so much further into your build - what do they feed those helper penguins of yours - STEAK?

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Canute]

This has turned out so cool. Hope the vessels aren't too much of a pita to arrange.😄

[Glen McGuire]

19 hours ago, BANYAN said:

what do they feed those helper penguins of yours - STEAK?

HAHAHA!  The penguins here in central Texas are on a strict diet of Tex-Mex!  They love nachos in particular.

 

But Pat, you gotta be careful and keep your voice down when mentioning steak.  No all caps allowed or my longhorns might overhear.  Speaking of which, I gave myself an early Christmas present earlier this week and added a yearling bull to the herd.  His name is Big Country.  

   

Edited Friday at 08:16 PM by Glen McGuire

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks really good Glen!  Nice work!

[Paul Le Wol]

Glen, Big Country is a fine looking animal!

[BANYAN]

4 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

gotta be careful and keep your voice down when mentioning steak.

Ha, Ha  Glen - okay, I'll keep it down to a loud whisper or, perhaps talk in code?   Looks like you are establishing a nice little herd there. 

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Ian_Grant]

Glen, nice colours on Big Country; reminds me of a (very large) calico cat. 😏

[vossiewulf]

1 hour ago, Ian_Grant said:

Glen, nice colours on Big Country; reminds me of a (very large) calico cat that will happily stomp your brains out. 

Fixed that for you

 

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

reminds me of a (very large) calico cat. 😏

Indeed!  The colors are very similar.  Quite unique for a longhorn which is what drew me to him.

 

50 minutes ago, vossiewulf said:

reminds me of a (very large) calico cat that will happily stomp your brains out. 

Only if you're like @BANYAN and say "STEAK" around him!!  😃

 

[Glen McGuire]

Thanks to all of you for the well wishes and good karma going into the final battle!  I knew that getting the Flying Dutchman into the bottle with the masts successfully raised was gonna be rough and tumble.  So who better to kick things off than the one and only Michael Buffer.

 

 

 

And a rumble it was.  In fact, it was a solid 4-hours of rumble!  It took every bit of 4 hours from the time I started laying down the masts to the time I snipped the final pull strings from the underside of the bow.  By that time, both sides were bloody and beaten to a pulp, but in the end, it was a narrow decision favoring the old SIB modeler. 

 

 

Here's the final pic of the 2 ships before things got started.  Black Pearl on the left and Flying Dutchman on the right.  The picture makes them appear almost the same color, but looking at them in real life the Pearl is noticeably darker.

 

 

 

I started with the Dutchman.  The first step was laying the masts down.  As mentioned in a previous post, I built the Dutchman too big to fit in the bottle with the standard method of laying all masts down to the stern.  So you can see the fore mast laying down over the bow.  I figured this would cause me lots of difficulty once the ship was in the bottle.  Unfortunately, I was right about that.

 

 

 

Here's the Dutchman going into the bottle.  So far so good.   I was winning the fight easily at this point.  I knew I'd jump out to an early lead and the real battle would start once I tried raising the masts.

 

 

 

Once the Dutchman was in the bottle, my plan was to raise the mizzen and main masts, get them secure (glue the pull threads at the bowsprit and cut off), and then go to work on the fore mast.  The challenge, as we discussed in previous posts was trying to manipulate the masts and threads without the ship locked in place.  The one and only advantage of the ship being loose was I could pull it up close to the neck of the bottle and not have to reach very far with my tools to access the ship.  After much trial and error (mostly error), I realized the most workable position was to slide the ship up partially into the neck, hold it down with one prong, and work the masts and yards and threads with another prong. 

 

The picture below is maybe 3 hours into the melee.  The mizzen and main masts are raised and secured with their shrouds and back stays nice and tight (big win there).  At this point, I had raised the fore mast and pulled the stern-most back stays tight, but they were not secure yet.  If you look close, you can see the forward main back stays (shorter ones) and the lower main shrouds are still drooping.  It took another solid hour to get those remaining lines pulled tight and cut off.  

    

 

     

 

When the 15th and final round of this fight came to an end, the Dutchman was standing upright inside the bottle and I was slumped down in my chair thinking I could sure use an adult beverage or two!  It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but all my shrouds and stays are tight and nothing is broken!  That means victory!  🍹🍹🍹🍹

 

 

 

With the Dutchman successfully vanquished, I took a long break then got back into it with the Black Pearl.  But I knew the Pearl would be a lot easier.  I did a better job of building to my specs and actually made the ship the size it needed to be to glide smoothly into the bottle.  Once inside, I positioned the Pearl close to the neck as I'd done with the Dutchman and had little trouble raising the masts, tightening the lines, and cutting the threads.  It took maybe 30 minutes.

 

 

 

And here's the Dutchman and Pearl facing off inside the bottle on opposite edges of the whirlpool.  I have not epoxied them in place yet.  I'm trying to decide if I like their position or if I want to adjust things.  And once I get the ships locked in place, I'll go back and straighten up the yards and sails.  Some of them got a bit wonky during the long fight.

 

 

 

Regardless, the hard parts of this project are behind me and I could not be more relieved.  I'm rethinking what I might do for the base and presentation so more to come on that.  I'll ponder that and go back to the unfinished ratlines on the Constitution.  Admit it, @Knocklouder, you're green with envy that I have so many ratlines left to do on her!!  

 

    

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Glen McGuire

[Ian_Grant]

First to reply only 17 minutes after the post!

 

It falls on me then to have the honour of congratulating you Glen on a truly spectacular SIB accomplishment. Whirlpool looks great and the final result is uncannily close to the first picture you showed us. Fantastic! Your best yet, and that's saying something....

Edited 19 hours ago by Ian_Grant

[tmj]

Very nice, Glen!

[mtaylor]

Words fail me on this..... beyond impressive, beyond fantastic.   So, I will just wander downstairs and get a glass of brany and toast you and your skills.    

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent  and  beyond  Imagination  -  love it.

 

OC.

[Knocklouder]

Way to go my friend, Pile and I were behind you all the way, Goober had his doubts but he's new .lol. That is so well done. I know it hard enough to put one ship in the bottle, let alone two.

About the ratlines, I just stared mine on the Duchess, I am good lol.

 Great job with this one , it really is fantastic.      

Bob  M.

Pile.

[Baker]

Wow.

An adult drink and a rest break more than deserved.

😇

[Javelin]

So I go out on a day trip and then there's THIS?! 

 

Fantastic result Glen, I had my doubts about raising those masts with the ships being loose, but you sure aced that! 

 

When it comes to composition, I'm not sure... Your last pic looks good, but perhaps get the Dutchman a bit closer and parallel to Pearl? 

 

Once again, congratulations with your work!

 

[gjdale]

Congratulations Glen, absolutely fantastic. But then, I never had any doubt that you would pull this off. 😃

[Paul Le Wol]

Congratulations Glen, well done!

[Canute]

Super job with this build. Whirlpool looks great.

[GrandpaPhil]

Awesome work, Glen!  Looks great!

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  This accomplishment will be hard to top !

 

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you, @Ian_Grant, @Snug Harbor Johnny, @Baker, @GrandpaPhil, @Canute, @Paul Le Wol, @gjdale, @Javelin, @Old Collingwood, @Knocklouder, @mtaylor, @tmj for the kind comments.  Like I said above, the good karma from you and others pulled me through on this one!

 

14 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

the final result is uncannily close to the first picture you showed us.

Thank you, Ian.  That's a huge compliment.  Especially since I thought the goal of recreating the picture was pretty far-fetched going into this.  But you never know till you try, right?

 

12 hours ago, mtaylor said:

So, I will just wander downstairs and get a glass of brany

You are smart to have the brandy before you try to negotiate stairs!

 

10 hours ago, Baker said:

An adult drink and a rest break more than deserved.

Wow, Patrick!  That's quite the variety pack you show a picture of!  And looking at the map on the side of the box, I'm guessing each flavor comes from a different region of Belgium?   

 

8 hours ago, gjdale said:

I never had any doubt that you would pull this off.

Thank you, Grant.  I had enough doubts for both of us, but I appreciate your confidence in me!  

[Glen McGuire]

9 hours ago, Javelin said:

I had my doubts about raising those masts with the ships being loose,

Me too, Roel.  That was particularly difficult to overcome and the main reason the process took so long.  Like trying to catch a greased pig in the barnyard.

 

9 hours ago, Javelin said:

When it comes to composition, I'm not sure... Your last pic looks good, but perhaps get the Dutchman a bit closer and parallel to Pearl? 

I agree with you on getting the ships more parallel.  That's a good suggestion.  As far as closer, I think I have them about as close to each other as possible.  The edge of the whirlpool is not flat - it has a lip in some spots that's not real visible in the picture.  So if I try to get the ships closer to the edge, they would be tilted outwards, which I don't want.  If you look at the Dutchman, the front part of the ship is sitting on a bit of a high spot causing the ship to tilt outwards.  If anything, it should tilt inwards towards the vortex.  But I don't want to move them further inside either and cover up the whirlpool.  So I will likely move them out a hair so they sit flat.  Plus, that will help to visually fill up the inside of the bottle so it doesn't look like everything is jammed up in the center.   That's what I'm thinking now.  I'll move them around a bit and see what looks best.  Thanks for the recommendations.

[Keith Black]

 Glen. congratulations on making the element an equal partner with the ships and for achieving your concept. As I said in an earlier post the Pearl is perfect and now the way she sits at the edge of the whirlpool is also perfect as she's being drawn in keel first. Top shelf stuff right there my friend.  

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

now the way she sits at the edge of the whirlpool is also perfect as she's being drawn in keel first.

So you are saying the Pearl is actually oriented correctly with her tilted to the outside?  Hmmm.

 

That brings up another question I probably need an engineer or someone that knows fluid dynamics to answer.   Paging @Ian_Grant!  As I understand things, the whirlpool would be spinning counterclockwise since it's in the northern hemisphere.  With the ships oriented as I have them, they are moving into the direction of the swirl and fighting to stay out of it (while trying to maintain broadside firing position on the other ship). 

 

So the question is, with all the forces in play, would the bow be closer to the edge of the whirlpool or would the stern be closer to the edge?  Or would both bow and stern be equal distance from the edge?  Or does it depend on the direction and strength of the wind?  My guess would be that swirl would try and push the bow into the whirlpool and the swirl's force would be stronger than any wind effect.  But I don't know.  What I do know is that thinking about it makes my head spin faster than the whirlpool.  

[Ian_Grant]

Glen, sorry to disappoint but I don't know either. 😞 Hey, I'm an electrical guy not an aeronautical fluid dynamics guy........

 

On the subject of the Coriolis effect, when we visited the equator in Ecuador they demonstrated it using a plastic sink on legs.

On the equator, the water simply ran out with no spin.

Four feet north of the equator, the water spun out CCW.

Four feet south, it spun out CW.

I was amazed at this demo and will never forget it.

[Keith Black]

2 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

with all the forces in play, would the bow be closer to the edge of the whirlpool or would the stern be closer to the edge?  Or would both bow and stern be equal distance from the edge?  Or does it depend on the direction and strength of the wind? 

 Wouldn't the Captains be giving commands to the helmsman to counter those forces,, Agent Mulder?