Kentoshi-sen by Glen McGuire - 1/400 - Bottle

[Glen McGuire]

23 hours ago, Javelin said:

Having a bit of a Z-cut along the hull in the vertical direction also makes it easier to line up the hull halves. It also prevents the loss of width created by the sawing and loss of saw dust. 

Thanks for the comment, Roel.  That's an interesting idea to do a vertical Z-cut.  I may play around with that before my next split-hull SIB.  I've always used tapered locating pins (toothpicks) to help guide things in place when joining the hull inside the bottle.   That Yi Soon Shin series looks like it would be worth watching.

 

 

 

On 4/20/2025 at 9:14 AM, Knocklouder said:

There is a white out in Manitoba that we are hoping it last to med June

Thanks for reminding me why I live in Texas, Bob!

 

 

 

20 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Cutting that hull in half is like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

Good analogy, Keith! 

 

And on that note, I'm going to jump out of this Kentoshi-sen airplane for a few weeks.  I'm heading up to New London, CT for the Northeast Ship Modelers Show and when I get back, I'm going to dive back into the Constitution and see if I can finish her up.

Edited April 21 by Glen McGuire

[BANYAN]

A belated Happy Easter Glen; looks like you have been busy.  That is looking really good mate.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[FriedClams]

Another interesting subject for a SIB build, Glen.  And you're off to a great start.  I'm amazed you were able to split that hull through the keel so cleanly!  Well done and nerve wracking, no doubt.  I once built a model that I was so unhappy with that I wanted to cut it half, but in the end decided using it for kindling was easier.

 

Gary

 

  

[Keith Black]

35 minutes ago, FriedClams said:

using it for kindling was easier.

 LOL 🤣

[Glen McGuire]

Slight change of plans.  I got back from Connecticut earlier in the week and decided to get a little more work done here before running back over to the Constitution.  With the hull finished and split, it was time to go to work on the deck fittings which mostly consist of 3 houses and a tiller.  Nothing too complicated.  Once again, the biggest challenge for me was soldering the tiny rails on top of 2 of the houses.

 

 

Here's the tiller in process.

 

 

And all 4 items complete with the exception of a little touch-up painting that I need to do.

 

 

I also put together the large ornamental carving on the bow along the the windlass and anchor.  I deviated a bit from the pictures.  The pictures have the windlass situated beyond the bow and the anchor resting on the deck just inside the bow's bulwark.  I decided to reverse things and have the windlass inside the bow and the anchor hanging just over it.  I did this because this whole sub-assembly will be installed after the ship is in the bottle and I'm using the windlass as another guide to help me get the whole thing in the exact location.  The ends of it will rest against the top of the bulwark.

 

 

 

And here she is with all those things dry-fitted including the oars and 2 masts.

 

Edited May 3 by Glen McGuire

[Paul Le Wol]

Glen, the deck houses are exceptional, especially the rails!

[Keith Black]

 Man that's nice looking, Glen. Will a Yokai be lurking in the path of the Kentoshi?  

[Glen McGuire]

6 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Will a Yokai be lurking in the path of the Kentoshi?  

Dang, I had to look that one up, Keith!  Never heard of a Yokai before.  Interesting, but unlikely that one of those will cross paths with this Kentoshi.  At least I hope not! 

Edited May 3 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

4 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Dang, I had to look that one up, Keith!  Never heard of a Yokai before. 

 Glen, I hadn't either till I Googled Japanese evil spirts. I thought you might have a surprise hiding in the weeds. 

[Glen McGuire]

Sails are the last thing to make before she's ready to hit the bottle.  The Kenoshi sails are similar to Chinese junk ship sails with the usage of numerous horizontal battens.  When I first made those type of sails for my Zheng-he Treasure Fleet project 3 years ago, I just glued the battens to the back of a single square of fabric for each sail.  In studying my reference picture for the Kenoshi, I realized that the sail is not a single piece of material.  The sail actually consists of small, horizontal panels connected to and separated by the battens.

 

That certainly added a new level of complexity to the build just when I thought I had things under control.  But what the heck, we're all here for a challenge aren't we!   So I started by penciling the outline of the sail on some light tan shirt cloth, drawing lines for the individual panels, and gluing a bolt rope on each of the vertical sides.  I also made a small jig to help line up the panels and battens for assembly.

 

 

 

Here are the cut panels and battens ready for assembly.

 

 

To assemble the sail, I put the first batten down and just touched it in a few spots with a tiny amount of CA glue.  Then I slid the cloth panel into place ensuring it made contact with each spot of glue.  Rinse and repeat.  Even though I was using the tiniest amount of glue that you could imagine, the bond seemed to be holding up ok.  I had to be very sparing with the glue usage because of how much it darkened to cloth.  In the pic below, it is quite obvious where I used a tad too much glue and it bled.   But that was ok because I had a plan to cover up most of the bleeding.

 

 

And here was the plan.  I went on the inside of each batten and used fabric glue to lay down another line of thread that would sort of look like a bolt rope for the horizontal sides of each panel.  This had the dual benefits of hiding most of the glue bleeding as well as offering more adhesion of the panel to the batten.    

 

 

 

Here's the completed fore and main sails secured to their respective masts.  There are a few spots where the CA glue bleed was a little too much to cover up, but for the most part it worked out well.  The main objective was for the sail to look pretty much the same (i.e. battens showing equally) whether you are looking at it from the front or back. 

 

 

 

Here's a couple of shots with all the deck stuff dry-fit in place along with the reference picture for comparison.

  

 

 

The ship is pretty much ready for insertion into the bottle.  However, I have not quite figured out the rigging yet.  So I'm going to go back to work on the Constitution now while I try to figure out the rigging portion here.

 

 

Edited May 5 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 The sails turned out exceptionally well, Glen. Great visual interest. 

[BANYAN]

That looks so good Glen; I think you should celebrate this one with a nip or two of SAKI (well Bundy will do too)

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

35 minutes ago, BANYAN said:

I think you should celebrate this one with a nip or two of SAKI (well Bundy will do too)

Bundy for the win!!  Great idea, Pat!!    

[lraymo]

Glen, this is a fantastic ship!  It looks so amazing!  Thanks to your very kind comment on my build, I had to come over to see what you were building.  I am awestuck, and will follow to see it installed in its bottle!

[Glen McGuire]

@lraymo - Thank you for the kind words!

 

Almost time for the moment of truth!  But how to manage the rigging was driving me nuts.  The problem being that, because of the 3 large deck houses, the masts/sails had to be installed after the hull was in the bottle - meaning that the rigging could not be tied off to the ship in advance.  The masts/sails would have to have their rigging attached before insertion.  After insertion, all the lines would have to be tensioned and tied off inside the bottle. 

 

So the plan I came up with was to put a series of eye pins on each half of the deck just inside the bulwark.  One end of the rigging lines would be attached to the masts/sails.  The lines would then run thru the eye pins on each half of the hull and back out the bow.  I would insert the 2 halves of the hull into the bottle with the rigging lines running thru the eye pins and then join the hull halves inside the bottle (careful to keep the rigging lines from falling in between the halves of the hull).  To insert the mast/sail assembly, I would push it into the bottle while simultaneously pulling the other ends of the rigging lines thru the eye pins trying not to tangle things up during the process.  If everything went well, I would be able to drop the end of the mast into it's hole in the deck, raise the mast, tension all the rigging lines, then cut them off.  Arnold says...

 

 

Before I got started, I figured I'd better take some pics of the ship with everything dry-fit in place.

 

 

 

In the next post, I'll show how the insertion process went.

[Thukydides]

The ship is looking so good Glenn. Though I think what I find most interesting about these builds is the creative ways you go about splitting them into sub assemblies to fit them into the bottle.

 

Looking forward to seeing her in the bottle.

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you @Thukydides!  

 

The insertion process was a doozy.  It took me 8 or 9 hours to get the ship assembled inside the bottle and another 3 or 4 to get the water effects finished up (not counting drying time).  There were quite a few self-inflicted wounds that caused the process to take so long.  But it the end, we got er done!  I took some videos of much of the ordeal.  So if anyone wants to see how the sausage was made, here's the 12 hour process condensed down to three 8 - 9 minute videos.

 

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NnI9r-tPeQ

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_T9eUPj0f0

Part 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXudxchH3-Y

 

 

 

Here's the picture version of the process, starting with the 2 halves of the hull ready for insertion.  You can see the rigging lines as described in the post above - attached to the sails/masts, running thru the eye pins on the hull halves, then back out of the bow where the ends will remain outside the bottle after hull insertion.

 

 

Here's the 2 halves of the hull joined up inside the bottle.  Rigging lines are nice and tidy.  You may notice that I actually textured the water behind the ship BEFORE insertion.  Wow!  What a concept!  It only took me 3 years of doing this stuff to figure that out.

 

 

Tiller and first deck house installed.

 

 

 

Now the real first test - installing the main mast and tensioning the rigging.  Lines still nice and tidy.

 

 

 

I got the main mast installed ok, and without tangling the rigging lines, but managed to detach the top of the sail from the top of the mast.  Ugh. 

 

 

 

However, using a new tool in the tool box (a barbecue skewer), I was able to push the sail into place and glue it to the top of the mast.  It's not tied on, but I globbed enough CA glue on it to keep it secure.

 

 

Then I realized I'd made another unforced error.  I was so anxious to try and get that first mast/sail assembly in place that I forgot to install the little Monopoly house that goes in front of the larger house (Monopoly hotel?) already in place.  So I had to thread the needle and fit the little house between the rigging lines and into place.  Quite a bit of difficulty doing that (as you can see in the video), but I eventually got there.  

 

 

 

I got the 2nd Monopoly hotel into place with no difficulty.  Then the horror show began.  It took me 2 long tries to get the fore mast into place.  At one point, I ended up pulling it back out of the bottle, untangling the lines, and re-inserting.  On the second try, I finally managed to get the mast in the deck hole, but made a gawd-awful mess of the rigging lines.

 

 

 

It took 3 or 4 hours to get the rigging lines for the fore mast/sail untangled, tensioned, and tied off.  Ugh.  But in the end, the mule finally won out.  That ended day 1 of the process.

 

 

 

Moving to day 2 of the process and smooth sailing the rest of the way!  Day 2 was spent completing the water effects and adding the ornamental carving on the bow.  I had textured the water behind the boat before insertion.  Now it was just a matter of adding the texture around the sides and in the front.  I wanted to texture the water first so I wouldn't have to mess with reaching underneath the ornamental carving and risk knocking it off or damaging it. 

 

For texturing, I dabbed on some clear acrylic medium gloss gel to make gentle waves.  After it dried, I added some touches of white paint to many of the wave tops for whitecaps.  After that dried, I went back over many of the whitecaps with Tamiya clear blue paint.  It has a transparent quality and is a shade lighter than my epoxy resin base.  It had the dual effect of softening the whitecaps and adding a lighter blue color to the tops of the waves giving a layered effect of blue coloring, much like real waves (although kind of hard to see thru the camera lens).

 

 

 

And with that, the insertion process was complete!  Only one thing left to do - celebrate with a tipple of Bundaberg courtesy of Pat (a.k.a @BANYAN).   Mini-Dimples heard me busting out the Bundaberg and decided to make an appearance.  She rates the ship and the rum 2 horns up!

 

Edited Tuesday at 01:15 PM by Glen McGuire

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nicely done! The ingenuity it takes to get a ship into a bottle really is something else.

[Keith Black]

After watching the three YouTube vids I'm emotionally spent! I don't know how in the world you manage this SIB business, Glen. I'd either be dead from a heart attack or at the very least have that bottle and model smashed into a million pieces. 

 

 Congratulations on getting the Kentoshi-sen successfully inserted. What a story, thank you. 

[Knocklouder]

Congratulations  Glen, your an amazing builder, this ship is awesome.  Thanks for posting it, I enjoyed every  minute of those utube videos.  Just awesome  

Bob M.

[FriedClams]

Nice job, Glen.  She's in the bottle and looking good!

 

Gary

[GrandpaPhil]

Nicely done Glen!  Looking good!

[gjdale]

Just WOW! Glen - another masterclass in ingenuity! 

[BANYAN]

That build looks great Glen and I am happy to hear Dimples approves (two horns up) - you may have to splash a little on her molasses block ). Seriously, some very nice detail in such a small model.

 

cheers

 

Pat