Columbia 1835 by Glen McGuire - 1/400 - BOTTLE - Steam Packet

[Glen McGuire]

13 minutes ago, Paul Le Wol said:

I couldn’t find if you mentioned it but what did you use for the lettering on the wheel covers?

What, you don't think I free-handed that lettering?  LOL.  I laser printed them on paper and mod-podged the paper to the wheel cover.  The letters for "STEAM PACKET" are font 4 which is .06" tall.  The "COLUMBIA" letters are font 5.

[Paul Le Wol]

Hahaha! They look so good.

[Glen McGuire]

4 hours ago, BANYAN said:

you never know what those pesky penguins are planning.

NOOOOO!!  DO NOT wake up the penguins from their winter nap!!  

[SaltyScot]

Wow, that was some intricate work, Glen and you pulled it off with alacrity, sir  It is actually quite exciting seeing this come together.

[Glen McGuire]

On 1/27/2026 at 3:05 PM, SaltyScot said:

that was some intricate work, Glen and you pulled it off with alacrity

Thanks, Mark.  I've been thinking about asking @Keith Black if I could subcontract some of that intricate work to him since he is doing some amazing small-scale stuff on his riverboat collection.  I think he's a closet SIB builder!

 

For this build there's one thing that's certain - it will require some (or maybe a lot of) assembly that must be done inside the bottle, starting with the funnel and main cabin structure.  The main cabin structure will straddle the split in the hull but not be as wide as the deck.  I see people in the painting standing between the windows of the main cabin and the bulwark, so I know there's a walkway.  Their looks to be a deck on top of the main cabin (again, more people walking around in the painting) and the funnel appears to go straight thru that deck.

 

So to pull that off, once the hull is in the bottle I will install the main cabin structure first and then install the funnel into it.  The funnel has guy wires which are a distinctive look that I don't want to omit.  I don't think I could add them inside the bottle.  The only thing I could think of is to cut out a small portion of the main cabin deck and add it to the funnel now, along with the guy wires, and add that subassembly to the rest of the main cabin deck inside the bottle.  That probably makes no sense.  Hopefully the pictures below help!

 

Here are the pieces.  From left to right - Artwox decking sheet, toothpick for funnel guide pin, deck cutout for the funnel, brass funnel (it's brass despite its appearance in the pic), guy wire (.015" music wire), and the main cabin structure.  

 

 

 

 

Here's the funnel subassembly with guy wires, vent pipe, and guide pin dowel.  The main cabin structure has the windows added.  The windows added a complication that I did not think about beforehand.  Below the funnel, the deck cutout would split the windows horizontally.  So I added the side pieces which make a nice slot for the funnel/deck cutout to fit into.  

 

 

Here's how the main cabin structure looks with the funnel in place.

 

 

Here's how everything looks dry fit:

 

        

 

       

Edited Thursday at 04:09 PM by Glen McGuire

[Knocklouder]

Fantastic work  Glen, don't worry about the Penguins,  they have all gone home to the Artic, where it is warmer, lol.

 

Knocklouder 😁 

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

I think he's a closet SIB builder!

 And he ain't comin' out! 

 

 That's nice work, Glen. 

[BANYAN]

Nice work yet again Glen.  I will be most interested to see how you get that funnel into the bottle (and don't tell me its 'magic' .

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

38 minutes ago, BANYAN said:

I will be most interested to see how you get that funnel into the bottle (and don't tell me its 'magic' .

The funnel will fit quite easily into the bottle.  Now getting it in place on that main cabin deck?  I'm borrowing an empty swear jar from @Knocklouder for that exercise!

[Javelin]

Pretty sure you've tackled worse challenges.... I remember watching the movies of you other famous PIB (paddlewheeler in bottle). 

 

The only other way to solve this issue that I can think of, would be to drill a hole in the funnel, connect the stays to the ship, insert the ship with long rope ends staying outside of the bottle. Then slide the funnel over the ropes to its position. Once glued, you tighten the ropes and cut off the long ends close to the funnel. 

This is a technique I used on the Scheldt River build. I do believe you chose the easier option 😄

 

In any case, marvellous paddles. Love the way you did that text on the sides. I don't think my printer would manage something that small. 

[Glen McGuire]

6 hours ago, Javelin said:

The only other way to solve this issue that I can think of, would be to drill a hole in the funnel, connect the stays to the ship, insert the ship with long rope ends staying outside of the bottle. Then slide the funnel over the ropes to its position. Once glued, you tighten the ropes and cut off the long ends close to the funnel. 

This is a technique I used on the Scheldt River build. I do believe you chose the easier option 😄

I agree that your method is more difficult, but you pulled it off nicely on Scheldt River as I recall.

 

I used a yet another method for the funnel on the SY Aurora.  It was my 2nd scratch-built SIB, so I was still trying to figure a lot of things out.  I put a wire hinge thru the funnel near the base and used pull threads for the forward guy wires to raise the funnel once inside the bottle.  It worked ok, but I decided later that I liked using metal wire for the guy wires a lot better.  Plus, I've gotten a lot more comfortable doing assembly inside the bottle.

[SaltyScot]

Building something like this (and on this scale AND in a bottle) certainly requires some grey matter let me tell you (and that swear jar  ). I am excited to see how the funnel fitting comes along, Glen. Fingers crossed mate.

[Glen McGuire]

On 1/31/2026 at 10:31 AM, SaltyScot said:

Building something like this (and on this scale AND in a bottle) certainly requires some grey matter

Unfortunately, I'm getting more grey matter on top of my head and less inside my head these days.  Might have something to do with this hobby!

 

Now we're in the two steps forward and one back phase of the project.  Although in this case, it's more like 2 steps backward and 1 step forward.  @Keith Black made a comment that the guy wires for my funnel needed more distinction from the funnel's vent pipe and suggested painting them grey.  I liked the idea.  But rather than repainting them, I just scraped off the black paint that I had applied and left them with their natural steel grey color.  The distinction is not as apparent in the picture, but is definitely more noticeable in real life.  Thanks for the suggestion, Keith!

 

 

 

That was a baby step backwards.  The next one was more of a leap backwards.  I kept going over the process in my mind for getting the ship inserted and assembled in the bottle.  I finally came to the realization that the split hull was going to cause too many problems with masts, rigging, and that main deck cabin.  Inserting a solid hull into the bottle and then installing the side wheels afterwards would be the far lesser of 2 evils.  That would allow me to do the standard process with the masts and rigging. 

Going back to a solid hull shouldn't be too bad, right?  I could just glue the split hull back together and remove the side wheels that I had already glued in place.  Piece of cake.  Unfortunately, the side wheels did not come off cleanly.  I was really careful with them because I did NOT want to have to rebuild them, but I made a mess of the bulwarks and part of the hull.  After assessing the damage, I decided the hull was totaled and it would be just as easy to build a new one vs repairing it.  Ugh.  However, there were some minor things I did like like about the original hull, so this would give me a chance to correct them. 

 

Building the hull, there's a lot of time available waiting for glue and paint to dry.  So I took the opportunity to get some other work done.  First, I added rails to the main cabin deck.

 

 

 

 

Next, I had do some reassembly and touch-up work on the side wheels as they did not come off perfectly clean when I pried them off the hull.

 

 

 

I also began work on the distinctive crosshead (A-frame) engine that sits on the main cabin deck between the paddle wheels.  For the tiny A-frame pieces, I whittled down some bamboo toothpicks to 1/64" diameter.  Previously, I would use my electric drill for a lathe.  Now I use a Dremel.  Huge improvement!  It's about 10 times faster and the various collet sizes make it easy to hold dowels of different diameters. 

 

 

 

I also worked on the masts, ship's boats, and the piston and rod for the crosshead engine.

 

 

 

So here's the new and improved hull after the total rebuild and then how she looks with the everything dry-fit into place.

 

 

Onward thru the fog! 

     

    

Edited yesterday at 02:08 PM by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

From fire and ash the Phoenix arose..... what a great recovery, Glen. That last photo is fantastic. 

[Knocklouder]

I agree with Keith, it's  looking awsome, 

Knocklouder 😁 

[JacquesCousteau]

Very nice! Despite the setback, it's really looking great.

[gjdale]

I see no backward steps there Glen, only a huge leap forward. Fabulous work, as always!

[SaltyScot]

5 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Previously, I would use my electric drill for a lathe.  Now I use a Dremel.  Huge improvement!  It's about 10 times faster and the various collet sizes make it easy to hold dowels of different diameters. 

 

Great idea, Glen. I have a couple of older Dremels laying around the wood shop. I may just mount one as a mini lathe here in the shipyard. Thanks for the inspiration! As far as your redo goes, she looks amazing, as others have rightly noted. Look at it this way, it gave you the opportunity to correct some minor things that you were not happy with. That's a win right there, right?

[BANYAN]

A lot of crisp detail for such a small model Glen, looking great! (and you have done well herding those pesky penguins, not one to be seen ---- yet  )

 

cheers

 

Pat