IgorSky

Its summer, so the garden and other outdoor type of work comes first, however I'm planning ahead. I'm going to attempt a Black Pearl for my daughter who is very much into Pirates of the Caribbean, especially as she is now training in special effects for the film industry. Hopefully as a Xmas present. At the moment drawing up a (to me) decent set of plans as their is precious little out there to work from. So far I've started from this 
 
 
 
 
to this
 

 
basically tracing it and using information from photographs. One of the troubles is that it was not a 'proper ship' but a 'set' on a barge. It also changed in some of the deck layout between films, so I have to try and keep to the first. The rigging I will draw from a generic style - having the captstan centred on the mainmast must have made belaying fun. Lots of hours work so far, mainly later on in the evening, not finished yet and the profiles are not to scale  - that's the next step.
 
I hope to start within a few weeks - the rum bottle should be empty by then.
 
Regards
 
Alan

Looking good Igorsky!   You sure have a way with very tiny detail.  Very nice.
 
Gwyl

Hi Jeff!
Try to pay attention to the bamboo for the making of masts for SIB. It is possible that the mast with the top part thickness of 0.5 mm with 0.3 mm aperture still retains sufficient strength.
Igor.

RS 1

 

 
and boat Mediterranean Sea
 

 

Nice work Bob.  It is amazing to see the range of talent and techniques used by small ship builders.  Thanks for this picture.  It show how much detail one can put in small craft.
 
Gwyl

Vacuum-formed lifeboats for RMS Carmania.
Bob
 

My home-made miniature vacuum box and a tiny lifeboat.
Bob
 

The model of the Minnie is now complete.    The total building time came to 16.6 hours, spread over 9 days – an average of 1.84 hours per day.       I still have to build the display case and carrying case, although that does not take very long in actual work.    A lot of the time is used up waiting for glue and French Polish to dry.
Bob
 

Nearly fiinshed now.   All I have to do is make and fit the boat, and rig the braces on the four yards.
Bob
 

The ratlines are 38swg tinned copper wire wound around a frame.   The shrouds are also tinned copper wire soldered across them.     The whole process takes about 15 minutes.   I then spray them with red oxide primer and then satin black.   The deadeyes are slices of thin resin cored solder stuck on before painting.    The rest of the rigging is also copper wire, but it is just glued on.   The block are blobs of white wood glue mixed with black paint.      This method of rigging is totally unsuitable for SIBs!
Bob

I got in 3.4 hours work today, and completed the standing rigging.     The next task is to fit the furled fore-and-aft sails, and then fit and rig the four yards.    Finally, make & fit the boat.    Then it will be complete - not long to go now.    Then, I will need to make the display case and carrying case.
Bob
 

I am now 11 hours into the build.   I made and painted the masts and spars this morning.     I have fitted and rigged the furled foresail between the boom and gaff, and also rigged the bowsprit/jibboom.       Not long to go to completion now.
Bob
 

I have now completed the hull, apart from the boat.     The masting and rigging will not take very long on something this simple.
I am now just over 8 hours into the build, spread over four days.     This little ship, although completed in 1878, was still in the Lloyds Register in 1931/32!
Bob
 

I started this today, 17th June.    It is 2.8 inches long on the waterline, and is a 79 ton two-masted topsail schooner.    Length 84.2 feet and beam of 21.3 feet, completed at Peterhead in  1878.     Scale 32 feet to 1 inch.      It has taken me 1.5 (1 1/2) hours to get so far.     It will not be going in a bottle, but I suppose this size is very suitable if you have the necessary skills to do it (which I don't ).        It is just a "quickie" because I haven't done anything for ages.     The hull is completed, and I have just started "fitting out"  with deck details etc.   
Bob

Sandpaper is my favourite tool. I spend a lot of time sanding to achieve the exact shape I want. I never throw sandpaper away. When it is worn down to nothing it can be used to burnish paintwork and varnishing before the final coat. 

Thank you Dave.  I think the lines out the top of the masts is a variation of the "Japanese technique".  I once tried to raise the jigger mast of a yawl by a forestay leading down to the deck ahead and NOTHING would induce this little stick to rise.  Ever since I always make sure the highest line leading to the mast on a vertical model raises that mast as well.

Gwyl,
 
The plank bending is very basic.  The wood is pine and I just hold it under a hot water tap for a couple minutes before bending and clamping it to the form.  Bass wood has also worked pretty well for this, and holly is supposed to be the best.  It does hold the shape well.  Marks left by the clamps usually swell back out in a while.
 
Alex

Dave,
 
I attempted to reply directly to your post but got a message saying the "image wasn't authorized for this community" or something like that.
 
You raise a good question on USS Constitution’s skysails and I admit not having done all I might have to confirm whether they are plausible or not.  It’s good not to get complacent about things long taken for granted.  My primary authority is Chapelle’s sail plan for USS President, which carries the caption, “Drawn from the spar dimensions and a sail plan of the Constitution shortly after the War of 1812”.  There are other sources and I was certainly influenced by models by craftsmen I admire, but perhaps we’d all been taken in by an inaccurate idea of the ship.  It would not be the first time a couple of generations of model makers and marine artists fell in love with a feature that did not have sufficient justification.
 
Huinphreys’ lists shows the sail plans of these large ships were changing.  Instead of considering the absence of mention of skysail yards proof they weren’t there on one of the sisters, might not the mention of them on one ship, the President, make it more likely they might have been carried on her sister at times?  There are other instances when contemporary accounts contradict.  Duncan MacLean lists no fore or mizzen skysail yards in his Boston Atlas account of McKay’s clipper Lightning yet they are clearly there in a sail plan published by John Griffiths in the US Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal.  Ironically Griffiths published a sail plan of the brigantine Newsboy with a very specific form of double topsail, but both contemporary ship portraits of Newsboy show her with a single topsail. 
 
I admit I have never seen the actual ship carrying skysails, nor am I ever likely to.  As light weather sails, they are likely to only be up in very specific conditions, and only with a highly skilled, active crew to manage them.  It is unlikely the Navy will ever take the risk with this national treasure.  But their absence would not be conclusive.   Similarly, the ship today has no stuns’l booms or irons on the yards to support them.  I doubt anyone would conclude from this she never set stuns’ls.
 
But to be sure, I wrote to Marhgherita Desy, former curator at the Constitution Museum and current historian for the Navy at Boston Navy Yard, and here is my note and her reply:
 
From: alex_chris@comcast.net [mailto:alex_chris@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2015 11:38 AM
To: Desy, Margherita M CIV NAVHISTCEN Det Boston
Subject: Constitution skysails?
 
Good Morning Margherita,
 
 
Based on Chapelle's well known sail plan of President, I have built models of Constitution with skysails.  Chapelle notes the President sail plan was "from spar dimensions and a sail plan of the Constitution made shortly after the War of 1812".  A friend just wrote questioning my choice, citing two notes made by Humphreys in 1803 and 1815, listing her spars without any mention of skysail yards.  I always assumed these were light weather sails set as circumstances, such as escaping the British squadron, required and were probably set on skysail poles.  Now I realize all my sources are 20th Century and may have more to do happy imagination.   Can you let us know if there is any contemporary information to justify this decision?
 
Thanking you in advance for your trouble,
 
Sincerely,
 
Alex Bellinger
 
 
 
Hi, Alex:

Thanks for your query.

Yes, USSC did carry skysails, at least close to the W/1812 & afterwards - she may not have carried them in her very early years.  Here's what we know - a lot of this info comes from research conducted by CDR Tyrone G. Martin:
1.  First attachment is a very poor copy of a sketch of USSC in a notebook kept by Commodore John Rogers, dated c.1809 (sadly the original of the image is possibly lost, after it was photographed for TGM's A MOST FORTUNATE SHIP) - note the triangular skysails

2.  Charles Ware's 1817 USSC sail plan is held by the National Archives/DC - you can access a high-quality image that can be downloaded at this link:
http://preservearchives.tumblr.com/post/12788994116/the-uss-constitution-sails-again
It is this image that was re-drawn many times in the 20th century and likely what Chapelle was using for President - note the sky sails

3.  TGM notes the first log book mention of sky sails 18 July 1812; the 4th Auditor's Settled Accounts, 24 Sept. 1812 notes masts and spars repairs which included: "Three Skysail masts 39 - 36 - & 30/ $11.25" - translated this means 3 sky sail masts, at 39', 36', & 30' - so one for each of the 3 masts on the ship.

On 12 March 1821, the log notes: "...fitted skysail stays..."
6 May 1822, the log notes: "Carpenters scaffing [scarfing] skysail mast on the royal mast..."
2 October 1823, the log notes that the main skysail mast was blown away in a heavy squall; it was replaced on 5 October with the note of sending up new "skypoles".

4.  The 2nd attachment is the list that I put together of all the sails for USSC as we know them at this point - between 46 and 48 sails, depending upon one set of studding sails - for a total sail area of over 44,000 square feet of canvas - more than 1 acre in total.

I hope this information helps.  
Take care!

Ciao,
Margherita
 
 
I will be happy to send you the attachments she included if you’d like to see them. 
 
Again thank you for your attention to detail and for spurring me on to doing more careful research.  As above, things should really not be taken for granted.
 
Have you tackled a Constitution or are you considering it?  I certainly hope so.  Now she is in drydock it is an excellent time to see her and really appreciate her lines.  I’ve made 4 models of her and this refit is making me consider starting a 5th. .   What if we were to start such a project at the same time?  Now that would be an interesting Building Log!
 
Sincerely,
 
Alex Bellinger

I just joined this group, although I've been a member of different "miniatures" groups on Yahoo for a few years, as well as a member of the SIBAA. I made my first SIB several years ago and worked steadily since then to make better and better models. I now have a fully equipped studio for making reasonably detailed SIBS as fun and efficiently as possible. Here is a recent (and very short) video made about me and my work by a college student who was taking a Documentary Video course. She found out about me on the internet and asked me to be the subject for her project:
 
http://portfolios.salt.edu/gallery/hinterland#prettyPhoto[6614]/0/
 
--Dana

Hopefully, now that the work of painting to bottom of our C30 is done, and she was finally launched for the season late last week,  I can have some time for SIB's!
 
Two photos.  First one, as she is going down the ramp, and the second one, as we are heading to our slip.
 
Gwyl
 

 

The internet. Research is a very important part of our work (to me it's the most important part). A lot of ship bottlers shoot themselves in the foot with only superficial research. I remember what research was like in the pre-internet days 40 years ago. In a year of letter writing, arranging inter-library loans, visiting nearby University libraries, etc. it was next to impossible to find the information that can be collected in an afternoon on the web.

Yes, I am using the similar magnifying glasses also. But the tool that I use most often for many years is a scalpel with interchangeable blades.But in fact, I found that  now I am using a lot of different tools
 

It always seems remarkable when people ask how a traditional ship in bottle gets in there, because to us doing this for a while the story is so well known.  I hope the following will not be too much of a repeat of the familiar tale to those reading this.
 

 
This is the beginning of the usual collapse. 
 

 
Next it must come off the stand.  I usually attach the hull to the stand by gluing it to strips of brown paper, as from a grocery store bag, to the stand.  It will hold it firmly enough while working on it and gives it up without too much trouble when the time comes.
 

 
As ever, this is when plenty can go wrong and usually something does.  Then it is a matter of what and how bad.  The crucial question is whether it’s bad enough to require a return journey through the neck, never a good idea, or whether all can be set right inside. 
 

 
This a good trip and the masts are starting to come back up. 
 

 
Finally all is up and done and this completed lady joins an older completed job. 
 

 
Here is also a close up of the deck with features mentioned above, but rather briefly.
 

 
For a sense of size, this is a shot of this 1 liter schooner with a 10 liter model of Constitution at the same scale.  They may be the same scale but here are years apart.  Eagle was launched in 1847 and this is how Constitution would have looked in 1812.  However, the fact both are in bottles on my dining room table further challenges any possible relevance in seeing them together.

We all have favorite moments in the process and this is one of mine.  All the basic woodwork is done and something of the full potential of the model can be seen.  Masts and spars are turned hatches and deck cabin are made, and for the hull, channels and the transom have been added and the tricky head rails are done.  This will all be stained, sealed with gesso, and then the miserable business of painting begins.  As can be seen, the other hulls are lagging behind.
 

 
This is a good example of when building in multiples can be an advantage.  Here are all the masts, spars and hatches for two schooners.  As usual, masts and spars are bamboo.   Mast and bowsprit caps are made up of a thin strip of paper wrapped around the mast and topmast, or bowsprit and jibboom, where they are joined.   The hatches are thin pieces of pine scribed to represent the hatch sections and then surrounded by thin stock to represent the coamings.  All this material is stained a darker stain than that used for the decks.
 

 
This is a hull now stained and fitted with the stained masts and hatches.  The windlass has been added as well as the quarterdeck rail.  The railing is thin stock taped to the quarterdeck rail and marked with a pencil where the railing posts will be placed.  Holes are drilled with a #80 drill through the taped railing into the rail and the posts, made of copper wire unbraided from an extension cord.  The tape is carefully removed and the railing is gently raised over the rail to the correct height.  Then all is given a good coat of fresh superglue, allowing the glue to soak into the railing completely.  When dry the excess lengths of the posts can be cut off with nail clippers and the railing carefully sanded and filed to as light a weight as possible.  Often a fine model’s appearance is spoiled by railings that look too heavy.
 

 
When the stains are dry all the surfaces to be painted get a few thin coats of gesso.   The quarterdeck railing is not given a coat yet because it will still need further sanding and filing.   As this model progress her sisters fall further and further behind.
 

 
As often happens, I lose interest in photography between completing a hull and finishing the rigging.  Here the standing and running rigging are done, awaiting the sails and just a few details before bottling.  Unfortunately, this is when a number of features likely to create interest in the vessel are added.  These would include the quarterdeck steps, the wheel, pump, water barrel and stove chimneys forward near the bow and aft on the cabin roof.  I hope these all will be visible enough in a later picture.  The copper sheathing is made up of strips of painted paper the right height for each plate, which had been made up of strips the right length of each plate, glued together.  The paper was pained with Iridescent Copper and Green Oxide acrylics, only slightly mixed to allow for plenty of variation in color and tone.  On old paper cutter is very helpful with this job.  Please note the mast hoops, made of slightly flattened copper wire, on the lower masts of each mast.
 

 
Here the mast hoops are getting straightened out and set in position.  By tipping the model back each hoop can be slid into position and glued with epoxy.  I wish I could say my desk is not often this messy, but that wouldn’t be true.  This rigging stand was from a design by Jack Hinkley.  Bill Howatt was taking one of my classes at the Custom House Museum and brought in a rigging stand he’d made from Jack’s design.  Sol Bobroff was also in the class and kindly made me a copy of Bill’s, which is the stand here.  In the past 25 years I have launched something like 65 models off this stand. 
 

 
Sail material is ordinary light weight printer paper colored with warm gray magic marker and scribed to represent the seams or “clothes” making up the sails.  Since it is some trouble to make up this stuff, I used scrap paper to make up templates for each sail before cutting out the prepared materials.  Cutting three mainsails too small could make serious inroads into the supply.
 

 
This is the finished model ready to make the trip through the neck.  Three weights of thread are used for the standing rigging.  Ordinary sewing thread, J & P Coates, is used for the lower shrouds and forestay.  A light weight, or fine sewing thread, again J & P Coates, makes up all the remaining standing rigging, backstays, main and fore top stays, bobstays and sheet, brace and vang pendants.  J & P Coats used to call this stuff embroidery or lingerie thread.  I got over my intimidation about asking for the stuff years ago.  Men is sewing shops are always viewed with suspicion.  The ratlines are fly tying silk.  All the running rigging is the same fine Coats thread, stained with Miniwax stain.  All threads are drawn through beeswax, but this is unnecessary for fly tying silk.
 

After years of building ships, SIB's and other things,  I have come to really appreciate certain tools. Sandpaper, Dremel type rotary tools,  carving gouges etc.  But as I get along in years, the one tool that I appreciate more than any other is my magnifying glasses.  These are this ones I use.  
 

 
What is your favorite (or can't live without) tool to have in the shop?
 
Gwyl