IgorSky

Dropped by the local trophy shop this afternoon.  They’re buried with all the high school graduations and all, but said they’d fit in my brass nameplate.  I mocked it up on paper to make sure it would fit.  Should look nice.
I also made a little gusset for the neck support.  That’ll strengthen that butt joint a lot.
Dan
 

Greetings Dan,
Here are a few photos of what I do when making models with more "control" rigging lines that have to be pulled from outside the bottle/light bulb. I've made several of these, each one designed for specific models, so the openings are in the right place to apply  glue to the lines once tightened. Simple wire hoops keep the lines contained to the desired angles to make gluing easier. The "head" end has a rubber pad, then a thin wood slab, with rubber underneath. The arrangement keeps tension on the lines as they are tightened, and allows tension release if a mistake is made. There is a brass 90 degree angle with holes drilled to keep lines separated into groups, to make it easier to label lines.




Anchor's A Weigh!
John Fox III
 

Thanks for the nice comments on the build so far! I finally got the chance to come back and finish this model but it turns out I made a fatal error in its construction. The width of the hull was a tight fit into the bottle initially and when I put the pins into the sides to tie off the rat lines it increased the width just a fraction of a millimetre too much and it wouldn’t fit. I tried using a dremel to slightly widen the neck of the bottle but overheated it and gave it a small crack. The crack is hardly visible so I think I will still use the bottle but gave up on widening it and switched instead to building a near replica of the first ship but about 3 millimetres thinner and with a couple other small design changes that would help it fit in the bottle better. 

as you can see it’s mostly the same but the aft deck is much lower, the hinges have a lower rotation point, the bow sprit points slightly more up, I tied the sails to the spars with thread instead of glueing them directly, I added topsails and, changed the shapes of the triangular sails at the front to better match my reference image. I have tested it and this one fits in the bottle with ease. 
 
I also started some test batches of the resin that I intend to use for the water in the bottle trying to get the colour right and learn how to work with it as I have never used epoxy resin before. 

I think I’m going to try to match the colour in the bottom test in the image. It will appear a little darker when poured thicker in the bottle. 
I also made a funnel and tube assembly as well as a temporary wooden holder for the bottle to cleanly get the resin inside. 

Unfortunately due to the time it took to build the second ship I once again ran out of time to pour resin and place the ship in its final position so it will have to wait a couple more weeks until I’m in town again. I’m planning to either use mod podge or dab in some clear silicone to make waves once the resin has set. Has anyone else used that method or have any other tips and tricks for making waves? 

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This perticular model took part of 2021 and almost all of 2022 to finish. To be exact, a year and week. I probably could have finished her earlier, but in the end, the time I spent was well worth it. 
The model was made entirely from boxwood and brass, fully planked. The rigging is copper wire and the sails and flags are made from silkspan. The base is made from spalted tamarind and the sea is carved and painted boxwood. The model was built from original drawings made by the RN. I’ve chosen to depict the ship coasting into Tahiti in happier times. Most folks don’t realize that the weather was pretty poor through the time Bounty was in Tahiti, and I’ve chosen a moody sea. The paint scheme, I believe, is far more accurate than the blue and yellow we see in later paintings. The contemporary paintings we have of the ship were painted by artists who never actually saw the ship in person. The rest are done much later, and we do some some artistic flair with the colors. Bligh himself comes tantalizing close to the paint colors used, but he leaves us high and dry in the end. We know for a fact she was left in her civilian colors, her hull was coppered, and her fittings changed to bronze from iron. Also new masts were stepped, in the RN fashion, on which Bligh comments he’s not satisfied with how this was done. As for the colors, I think she would have been at least partially, if not fully painted black. The interior facing portions would have been red, as was the style of the day, but I just can’t see such a working vessel being painted anything fancier than black. Sadly we’ll never know. 
The model contains several thousand pieces and was built to a scale of 28’ to 1” or 1/336. The hull is carved boxwood with individual planks are held to the hull with approximately 1,500 tree nails which were inserted into predrilled holes. Paint, as always, is from ScaleColors. 
HMAV Bounty was a small collier purchased by the Royal Navy in 1787 for a botanical mission to Tahiti. Bounty, originally named Bethia, was built by Blaydes Yard, Kingston-upon-Hull, England and modified for her mission by the RN at Deptford Yard. 
The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island.
I have spent years reading about and studying Bounty, her crew, and her mission, and I’ve even been fortunate enough to acquire pieces of the real ship herself. If you’d like to see more of my work, I keep all of the model photos here: www.josephlavender.com
 




 
 
 

Managed to finish it in time.

Greetings All,
Here's the latest on my 1813 Lawrence/Niagara model at 1:200 scale. Added the fife and pin rails, and their nearly 100 belaying pins. Also started adding the cap rail netting, last photos show how they were made on a jib I constructed. The catheads have also been added to the model.
Anchor's  A Weigh!
John Fox III

Hello all,
This is an unusual request but I came across this forum when looking for information on the 4 masted barque Archibald Russell.Going back many years, my father got me interested in the grain ships as he was. He told me he used to visit Falmouth on occasions to see the ships coming in for orders and he would get to know some of the captains through frequenting the Chain Locker on custom house quay and on one occasion he,my mother and my sister (I wasnt born then but my sister is still alive) were invited on the Lawhill by the captain at that time Arthur Soderlund.(I have photos of the invitation onboard).Anyway, my dad is long gone by 50years and about 5 years ago I successfully bid on a beautiful model of Archibald Russell at a local auction.Now the reason for this post is that I am trying to locate someone who had a personal connection with the ship as one day, hopefully not yet,  I will be gone,we have no children or  relatives alive and I just dread the thought of a sad future for the model.who knows where it might end up and my wife would not have idea of how to move it on,should she wish to.
It would make my day to find someone with a genuine love of these ships or at best maybe  a relative that sailed with the ship,so that I could pass it on and I would be content knowing the model would be in safe hands after me.
The model measures 22 inches (incl bowsprit) and is very detailed and accurate for its size.It is in a glass case.The name of the maker is on the brass plaque and have tried to trace him but to no ovail.For practical purposes,I guess the benefactor needs to be here  in UK.

I forgot to upload this pic of an old lightship sailor made model,I received this model  many years ago,I have no idea of its age it has a pennant on the mizen mast with a red outline and the  word ROSARIO printed in pencil also on fore and main masts are flags but are so faded I am unable to be sure of the colours,the ship has come loose from its bed of what looks like the old horses hoof made glue and the hull is lamp black on the outside and inside the hull is matt paint which was called brown adma. I would be grateful if anyone could throw some light on this model,it has a cork in the neck which at one time had been covered in red sealing wax which has now become very discoloured wih age

Hi, my Grandson wanted a “Battleship in a bottle “ for his tenth birthday next month,so I am building him ’Grober Kurfurst’ from the 1st ww era. Hope to finish it in time but still rigging,painting to do,plus to actually get it in the bottle. Hope that he’s going to like it when it’s finished!

Hello all, here is my first ever attempt at a ship in a bottle, or a model ship in any form at all for that matter! It began when my father and I finished a bottle of Dos Maderas rum and were admiring the logo of a ship embossed on the bottle. This of course brought up the topic of ships in bottles and I decided quite spontaneously that I needed to build one right away. I was only going to be at my parents house for a couple days so I needed to work fast and all the work pictured below took place over just 2 days wherein I obsessed over this project all day stopping only to eat and sleep. I started by watching a couple instructional YouTube videos by ACutAbove Woodworking and then jumped right in to designing a ship; The Bottle Boat I. I know, very creative name.

With the design phase complete I roughly cut out the hull on the band saw.
Next was lots of sanding with various grits of sand paper to make it a little more pleasant to look at. I cut out the deck with a linoleum carving tool. Once it was faired I slid it into the bottle to make sure it fit.
I decided to add some little hatches made of chopped up popsicle sticks and a lifeboat that I carved from a piece of old pencil.
I worked for some time without taking any pictures but the result is here. Initially I tried making the masts from bamboo BBQ skewers but they were a nightmare to work with due to bamboo being very hard to drill through and also its tendency to splinter so I went to the hardware store and got 1/8” dowel for the masts and I think 1/16” or 3/32” dowel for the spars. I also folded up an anchor out of 22 gauge steel wire and painted and stained the hull and masts.

I decided to go for even more detail and made these railings by drilling and bending lots of wires into the deck.

Next I put the masts on the deck using the simple wire hinge method. I don’t know why the image is upside down or why my text is suddenly underlined. Oh well 🤷🏻‍♂️


Next I started work on the rigging lines. This was the part I was most concerned about doing with all the very small strings but it turned out to be not hard at all.
here I put in the main lines and tested the lowering/raising of the masts mechanism which seemed to work alright, there was a little interference with the rear mast and the lifeboat but with a little wiggling it would go up okay.

All that remained for the ship itself was to put on the sails! For this purpose I used some thin blank paper which I stained with coffee and this was the final result. (Please excuse upside down images)
I then had to drive back home before I got around to putting it in the bottle so it remains at my parents’ house for a few weeks until I can get back there to finish it.
 
I’d love to hear the thoughts and tips of some more experienced builders so let me know what you think! 
 
Blue skies and tail winds,
Ezra

Hello! I’m Ezra. I’m a 22 year old pilot who flies planes for a living and builds them for fun. I mostly build scale model airplanes (some pictured below) but I recently started my first ever ship in a bottle which I posted over in the build logs. I have been enjoying the project a lot and look forward to soaking up all the advice from more experienced members of the community and making more ships!

Blue skies and tailwinds,
Ezra

Happy New Year All!
I'm hoping someone can help me value my late father's ship in bottle, please? 
Thank you!

I’m not sure what the ship model is but it’s beautiful and especially valuable to you as it was made by your late father. Enjoy it rather than thinking of selling it. The value is only what one person would be prepared to pay for it but priceless to you.Hope this helps. 
Happy New Year.
Onni.

Hi Onni,
Thank you for your comment. My father actually purchased it at an auction years ago. I'm really just trying to gather info about it. I think it may be from the 1930s but I'm not sure.
 

Okay, your guess for the age could be about right, sometimes it’s easier to judge the age from the bottle itself, does it look old with bubbles in the glass or more of a modern mass produced bottle? It also depends on the size of the bottle but saying that I don’t think value could be more than 100€ and probably a lot lower but I’m no expert. It can be helpful sometimes to compare other examples on online auctions to get a rough estimate.
Perhaps someone else on the forum can offer their opinion. 
PS love the mermaid modelled underneath the ship.

Hi Shipbuilder,
Yes, I can see the resemblance to your drawing- very cool drawing by the way. Thanks for the info on the ship and sharing your pictures. Your model is impressive!

It is probably meant to be Germany's Flying P Line five masted barque Potosi, but these big five masters do not lend themselves to putting in bottles on account of their complexity -
This is what the Potosi should look like:   Drawing by me!
 

Hi Onni,
Thank you for your suggestions- I really appreciate them. I tried to do some research on the bottle too using a link that another member had shared. I guessed on the date of the ship by the flag that is in the rear of it. Looking at comparable bottles, I think you're right on value. And the mermaid, isn't that great? It makes me smile every time I turn the bottle over!

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