Queen Anne's Revenge with Greek Fire by Glen McGuire - 1/400 - BOTTLE

[Knocklouder]

Gobsmacked my friend,  great work on the fire ball, you nailed it,  a Roar of approval from the Penguins on the Astrolabe, this is the fun part . I am moving a lot closer to the edge of my seat. With you all they way, Good luck.

Knocklouder 

[Keith Black]

   She looks perfect, Glen. I'm all clinched up, let the fireball insertion commence!

 

 

 

[Canute]

My gosh, a fire breathing penguin. St Elmo, protect this poor navigator!

[BANYAN]

I have assumed the appropriate level of 'pucker factor' and eagerly awaiting the outcome of your intrepid operation Glen.  perhaps a good dose of the naval rum (medicinal of course) would help steady the hands?

cheers

Pat

 

[SaltyScot]

Well I just sat here and read through the most recent updates. I must confess to the tension mounting too as I saw all the fine work you had put into getting the ship to its current status. That fireball you came up with is incredible, it is going to look great in the bottle. I am sending you moral support for the next "bit" mate 🫡

[Glen McGuire]

Thank you @Paul Le Wol for the good luck wishes, @Knocklouder for hanging on the edge of your seat, @Keith Black for clinching, @BANYAN for puckering, @SaltyScot for the moral support, and @Canute for the St Elmo reference!  

 

It was a long and frustrating day on Saturday, trying to get that dang ship in the bottle (while watching college football games out of the corner of my eye).  Here's the Revenge on the playing field with her back to the opponent, right before kickoff,

  

 

 

Things began ok.  I had to wad things up VERY tight just to get the end of the ship barely in the bottle.  Of course the wires sticking out the base of the ship did not help, but fortunately, they kind of fit in the bottom curvature of the bottle's neck.  I started pushing the ship in, but hit a snag snag right off the bat.  So I pulled her out, mashed her a little tighter, and tried again.  I'd push her in some, pull her out, mash some more, then push her in a little further, pull her out, mash again...  Rinse and repeat.  I kept thinking something had to break, but I didn't hear any cracks or snaps, so I kept working her in.  Finally, after about 45 minutes, the Revenge dropped in.  

 

 

It's always hard to tell at first, if anything got damaged or if lines are tangled beyond hope.  But at least the fireball looked like it survived.  

 

The next major obstacle was securing the ship to the water.  Normally, that's a piece of cake.  But the LED wires presented a problem trying to get the bottom of the ship to lie flat against the surface of the water.  The good news was that the wires allowed me to push the ship upwards and hold it so I could easily get some epoxy in place.  

  

 

 

 

To get the ship to lie flat against the water, I took the whole thing to my table saw and used the gap for the side extensions to run the wires straight down.  Then I attached a large clamp that was just weighty enough to pull the ship flat, but not pull the wires out.  

 

 

 

Once the epoxy set and the ship was secure against the water, it was time to untangle the lines and raise the masts.  That was an hours-long and nerve/patience testing process  After that, I added the stern structure behind and the double-balcony piece in front of the mizzen mast.  That took a couple of hours.  Despite the custom tools I made for the process, I still kept dropping the pieces and having to retrieve them from the bottle and start over.  It was quite a relief to finally get them in place and glued down. 

 

Next was gluing the mizzen channels to the stern structure.  After that, I added the sprit mast and its tiny rigging.  That was pretty easy.  The final part of the ordeal was tightening all the lines and cutting them off.  Here's how she looks resting comfortably inside the bottle.  And the fireball lighting still works!  Whew!

  

 

 

I like how the fireball light reflects off the water.  It will look different after I add waves, but hopefully I will still get a cool reflection.  

 

There's still a ton of work left, but at least the scary part is over!

Edited Monday at 01:02 AM by Glen McGuire

[Knocklouder]

Fantastic  . Knew you could do it. 

Bob   M.

Edited Monday at 01:16 AM by Knocklouder
Guessing typos lol

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nicely done!

[KennyH78]

Wow, I can now let out a breath of relief for you!  She looks great in the bottle. I just showed the admiral the last picture of her in the bottle and she asked “ How’d he get that in there?”  Honestly, I’m still trying to figure that out myself, even after your detailed explanation. 

[GrandpaPhil]

Absolutely incredible work!

[Coyote_6]

That has got to be the coolest thing!!

 

Well done Glen!!!

[Ian_Grant]

Glen, you keep raising the bar with each build!! This is truly amazing, and I really like the wavy flow of the bottle itself, too.

Very, very well done!

[Keith Black]

 Congratulations on getting the Revenge into the bottle, Glen. She's a real corker that one, fantastic execution. 👍 

[Paul Le Wol]

Glen, it is one thing to achieve this feat, it’s another to document it so well. Congratulations!

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  'Don't know how anyone can top this cool project ... you've raised the bar for the rest of us mortals.  Kudos !

[SaltyScot]

I doff my hat to you, sir!

[gjdale]

Whew! I can stop holding my breath now Glen. Well done! As others have said, you continually raise the bar with each build.

[BANYAN]

Well that's a relief Glen, I can ease off on the 'pucker' factor' now   Great job and excellent description on how to get the job done, football distractions aside. lets hope some of those reflections still show once yopu add the waves etc.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

Ahoy, Glen !   After wondering how to (possibly) top or at least equal the feat of you Queen Anne's Revenge spewing fire, I thought of something as a suggestion.  How about a sperm whale striking the Essex?  !!  You might use a somewhat larger bottle and model in a larger scale for effect, so the ship can be at an angle inside and heeled just after the whale strike.  The stove or depression would be just above the water level with the head of the whale also above water in contact with the hull, with waves and spray pushed out on either side of the white whale's head.
  Semi translucent blue water would show the body of the whale still under water, but the flukes of the tail could come out of the water - possibly flicking one of the  whaleboats.  The reason for an angled ship would be to allow the long whale body to be 'fore-and-aft' within the glass container - possibly a half gallon cider jug.  The ship had stopped to harvest whales from a pod, so the sails would be hauled up to the  yards, and there could be a couple more whaleboats watching the scene in horror - with small figures in the boats and also on the ship.  I looked for some period images and pasted them below a imagination starters.  Another option would be to have the ship be the Pequod and the whale Moby Dick.

 

 

 

[Javelin]

I'm with Johny! 

 

 

Brilliant result Glen! It looks even better than I'd imagined when she was still out of the bottle. 

The scale, including flame nicely fills that bottle. It's a perfect fit really!

[gsdpic]

Well done Glen, amazing work!

 

As for Johnny's suggestion.....I think you should model that list picture and have the whale boat glued to the top of the inside of the bottle!

 

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

How about a sperm whale striking the Essex? 

Wow.  That is quite a creative and ambitious idea you got there, Johnny!  I will take in into consideration.  I've often thought about the Pequod and Moby Dick for an SIB subject, as you mention (I actually listened to a 21 hour audio book of Moby Dick while driving from Austin to Boston for the Constitution Museum ship model show early this year).  I am not familiar with the story of the Essex so I will read up on it.    

 

As for Gary, a.k.a. @gsdpic, and his upside down, glue it to the bottle, whaleboat suggestion, I have no words!  At least none that I can type on this forum!  But ask me again after a few bottles of rum!!   

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

38 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

  I am not familiar with the story of the Essex so I will read up on it.    

 

Glen, If you want exposure to the best dramatization of the true Essex story, just watch the movie 'In the Heart of the Sea'.  If you have to pay per view, it is WELL worth it.  I found it a gripping story not just because of the 'main event' - a whale sinking a whaling ship - but the entire milieu of Nantucket whalers and their often precarious and always hard lives.  Then AFTER the main event is a heart rending depiction of those who perished horribly on the whaleboats or on a tiny island waiting to be rescued, and those who survived ... and were evermore haunted by what they had to do to survive.  You can stream it online, but it is far better to watch on a home screen at night.

 

If you watch the trailer, you'll want to watch the film.  And if the film doesn't inspire you to take on the SIB Essex challenge, nothing will.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=in+the+heart+of+the+sea&sca_esv=3d3f4dbf6750febd&rlz=1C5ZNUK_en&ei=ICsBaYacOYesiLMP8KCt0A8&ved=0ahUKEwiGrN2i4ceQAxUHFmIAHXBQC_oQ4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=in+the+heart+of+the+sea&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiF2luIHRoZSBoZWFydCBvZiB0aGUgc2VhMg0QLhiABBixAxhDGIoFMgsQABiABBiRAhiKBTILEC4YgAQYkQIYigUyChAAGIAEGEMYigUyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyHBAuGIAEGLEDGEMYigUYlwUY3AQY3gQY4ATYAQFI_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&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3e6e3650,vid:K-H35Mpj4uk,st:0

[Javelin]

59 minutes ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

And if the film doesn't inspire you to take on the SIB Essex challenge, nothing will.

Yes, something will: group pressure from our crowd, and that includes ALL of the penguins!

@gsdpic solved most of the conceptual issues. If you're not going tu use that idea, I just might...

 

[Ian_Grant]

4 hours ago, Javelin said:

I'm with Johny! 

 

 

Brilliant result Glen! It looks even better than I'd imagined when she was still out of the bottle. 

The scale, including flame nicely fills that bottle. It's a perfect fit really!

Johnny's idea is brilliant!  My only other suggestion might be to do a bottle scene without a ship at all, just a sperm whale and a giant squid battling it out in the depths.

[KennyH78]

As Johnny has mentioned above, the movie "In the Heart of the Sea" is a must watch.  The book by the same title, which also tells the story of the whaler Essex and the plight of the shipwrecked crew is a great read with more information than the movie.

 

Another subject that may be of interest could be Shackelton's Endurance stuck in the Antarctic ice flows with the crew camped on the ice next to the ship, or maybe the longboat James Caird that Shackelton and 4 others sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island, a journey of 1,300 km across stormy open ocean.

[Glen McGuire]

17 hours ago, Snug Harbor Johnny said:

If you watch the trailer, you'll want to watch the film.

Well Johnny, you were right!   I watched the trailer and now I will most certainly watch the film.  Looks epic.  Thanks for the referral.

 

16 hours ago, Javelin said:

Yes, something will: group pressure from our crowd, and that includes ALL of the penguins!

 I am starting to clinch (as @Keith Black would say) already!

 

15 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

My only other suggestion might be to do a bottle scene without a ship at all, just a sperm whale and a giant squid battling it out in the depths.

I think that's more suited for you, Ian!  You could add servo motors and other kinds of engineer magic to add motion to the fight!

 

14 hours ago, KennyH78 said:

Another subject that may be of interest could be Shackelton's Endurance stuck in the Antarctic ice flows with the crew camped on the ice next to the ship

I have always been fascinated by the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration - Shackleton, Falcon, Amundsen, etc, and my personal favorite subject, Sir Douglas Mawson.  The scene you describe, Kenny, has been done masterfully by a professional SIB Modeler named Gabrielle Rogers.  So I would not want to go there.  My second SIB effort ever, 4 years ago, was the steam yacht that Mawson used on his expeditions, the Aurora.  I hate to put a picture of my work next to hers, but you can see the Aurora in the 2nd pic below.

 

 

 

 

I love discussing ideas for future projects, but as I mentioned earlier, there's still a lot of work left on the Revenge.  @Javelin mentioned above that everything was a perfect fit in the bottle.  What Roel did not realize was that I still had one more thing to float on the water - the hapless cook in the longboat rowing frantically trying to escape the fireball.  Here's a screenshot from the movie.  

 

 

I've made mini-longhorns for a previous build (Zheng He Treasure Fleet), but this was my first try at making a very tiny person.  First though, the long boat carved from a bamboo stir stick borrowed from Panera's.

 

 

 

 

Here's the little dude in the boat with a hanging lantern.  His body was made from Play-Doh and arms from brass wire.  His head is a tiny bead. 

 

 

 

And now in the bottle, a moment before he pays the price for all the mutineers.

  

 

 

And with that, I believe I'm done with everything inside the bottle, except for some spot cleaning.  Now I can turn my attention to the presentation.  Still working on ideas for that.

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Glen McGuire

[KennyH78]

Glen, the picture of the Endurance in the bottle is absolutely a work of art.  I don't think that I would want to attempt it either because I would not be able to come anywhere near that level of craftsmanship.  The artist/modeler did a fantastic job.

 

Now, your model of the Queens Ann Revenge is equally a masterful work of art.  I cannot wait to see what you come up with for the display base.

 

On a side note, as per your recommendation, I did pick up the Amati Hannah kit to attempt a SIB build. 

[Keith Black]

 The ship's boat and cook turned out spiffy, Glen.  They look way cool. 👍