IgorSky

Daniel,
 
I think you are encouraging me to start a build log of my 1:1.       I will do just that.  I really have waited to long to build it. Look for a posting of my start this weekend
 
Gwyl

Gwyl,
 
  Even when working from plans, i'll deviate if it suits my notions about what looks good. If there's just too much rigging abaft the mizzen, i'll route some of it forward, don't care if the sailors have to search all night to find where something's belayed!
 
TJ

A quick little build. I got finished up just in time. I've been asked by a local private school to talk to a girl interested in pirates and ships in bottles. This is the second time this school has asked me to do this. Last time I built a little Bermuda Sloop for the boy I taught to demonstrate a ship that was very popular among pirates and opposite of what the movies show us. This time I built a junk. Since I'm teaching a middle school age girl I thought she might be very interested to know that the most successful pirate in history was a woman by the name of Ching Shih from China. It's possible one of the 300 ships in her fleet might have looked like this.
 


 
I had to build fast because I'm teaching tomorrow.  Some notes on this build.  The mast and spars are paint brush bristles.  Wood is cherry with paper bulwarks glued on then hardened with clear nail polish.  The bottle is a flu shot vile I got from work.  I like to think I put it to better use.  
 
 

No Gwyl, I did not do anything different to the glass before you applied the epoxy?  This bottle is the small and I don't think that will any problem. I  heated epoxy resin a little  before mix it with pigment and hardener. I put it in a bottle with a syringe. Its volume less than 2 cm3.
But I made a mistake with the amount of pigment and the sea is too dark
 

Well. not the kind of boat you might be thinking of.  
 
After a day of sanding, today was the day for new bottom paint.  Glad that is now done,  I can get back inside to my workshop.
 
Gwyl
 

 

Over the years people often ask if this is a dying art and if there are fewer of us out there doing it.  People writing into Bottle Shipwright often said they thought they were the only one left!  Experience has certainly shown this is not the case.  Here I want to introduce two ship in bottlers I have known and worked with for years. 
First is Gerry Ross, who lives on Cape Cod and regular teaches ship in bottling classes at the Woods Hole Museum.  He and I see each other only during the Woods Hole Boat Show when we set up a table together and regale visitors with tales of glory and adventure as ship in bottlers.  One of the things great about working with Gerry is he never grows tired of answering, "How do you get them in there."  Here he is demonstrating to a family at the Woods Hole Show last weekend.
 

 
For the past two shows we have been joined by Tony Colton, a ship in bottler from Quincy, Mass.  Tony and I have known each other for years through the ship model club at the USS Constitution Museum.  Tony is also active with the Fletcher Class destroyer in the Boston Navy Yard,  Cassin Young.
 

My first attempt of making sea. I used the tinted epoxy resin, the white acrylic paint and the clear acrylic gel.

Greetings,
 
Forgot to add the photos at first, added them as an edited post, but the text that I typed for each photo did not go through.
 
So, here is the text:
 

This one shows a 3" globe bulb after opening the end. As you can see, there is some slight damage to the edge of the remains of the metal cap, but I attempt to leave as much of it undamaged as possible. In this bulb the  hard glue is a brown color, sometimes like the following photo, it is a sort of bluish green in color. The openins are usually not completely round, but I usually take a circle template and measure the largest full round dimension as my working opening. Usually this leaves just a bit of wiggle room.
 

This one shows one of my earlier Bounty models being inserted through an opened globe bulb. This bulb had the blueish green colored hard glue stuff.
 

Here is one of the larger street light bulbs, with the epoxy saturated fiberglass tape wrapped around. Believe this migh have been 2" wide tape, just don't remember for sure.
 

This one shows the same bulb after cutting off the end. After cutting through, I sand down the edge of the glass and wrapping, to make them smooth.
 

 

These last two show how I close off the bulb in the previous two photos. I make a wooden ring to fit loosely over the opened bulb end, then line it with a thick strip of felt, glued to the inside surface of the wood. I usually add a name/date tage to the center. The outside of the cap is an etched brass plate, attached to the wooden ring with small brass nails. The cap fits tightly enough not to fall off, but can breath a little through the felt and the cap can be removed easily.
 
Anchor's  A Weigh!
John Fox III
Ladysmith, WI

Thanks Dave, John,
 
Here are two Eastport pinkys in round containers, one a 1 liter Florence boiling flask and one in a 4 1/2" light.  Please forgive my limits as a photographer.  I hope the "haze" of the light bulb glass shows in comparison with the harder borosilicate glass.  In this case, both were pretty inexpensive, having been given to me.   The mark on the flask, just ahead of the bowsprit, is there, but in this case, too subtle to be much of a concern
 

I was wondering why it took you so long to get over here... Ha Ha!
I am glad you made it. How is the Kraken coming along?
Jeff

Hi JCFrankie,
 
Glad to have you aboard.  By the sounds of it, you have surrounded yourself with a very pleasant lifestyle.  Everything nautical is a fun thing to be immersed in.  We would welcome any photos, of your static, SIB's as well as the actual historic ships you work on.  Sounds intriguing! 
Gwyl

New member introducing myself.
I love ships, ship models and ships in bottles. I build static sailing ship models and bottled models, and I work on actual historic ships in New York City. Love everything to do with nautical history.

After looking over the miniature bottles and such at the Etsy site I posted above, I made a purchase.
 

Mini Erlenmeyer flask made from borosilicate glass - about 2 inch / 50 mm tall, 1.25 inch / 32 mm diameter.
 
I have acquired more than enough bottles without having a specific project in mind for any of them, but I had to have this, just in case.
 
Dave

Some of us have sort of hijacked a build log with a discussion of bottles so I decided to re-start the discussion as its own topic.
 
I was looking at boiling flasks and came across this photo. I'm sure the micro-miniaturist in all of us will be intrigued by it.
 

3/4 inch / 19 mm diameter, 1 1/4 inch / 32 mm tall boiling flask.
 
I found this on Etsy:    https://www.etsy.com/listing/61977606/miniature-boiling-flask-hand-blown-glass
 
This seller specializes in miniature glassware and I suspect he can custom blow whatever miniature pieces we might want. This piece sold for about US$ 38 based on his price for a same sized Erlenmeyer flask. I found all his miniature work in glass delightful. As miniaturists ourselves I suspect we have a greater than average appreciation for miniature work in any medium.
 
Dave

For about six months I have been on a quest for the best sail material and technique. Things get really dicey when you get into the smaller scales with the desire to remain true to scale. I have heard of resume paper, cigarette paper, fine linen etc.
I am hoping our members would provide their best material choice and technique here on this thread. I am anticipating a good discussion here as there is always someone who stumbles upon a new material and technique whether by accident or experimentation. If you can please post pictures of your best work even better!
I look forward to your replies ... Jeff

I like cigarette paper on smaller models where the largest sail is small enough to cut from one paper. I like the papers that have a lined watermark that replicates the seams without overdoing them by drawing them in. Take careful note of the watermarks - almost all cigarette papers have them.
 
I've used high quality, acid-free, standard weight printer paper with all the sail details printed on both sides successfully.
 
I'm planning to experiment with acid-free, archival tissue for sails to see if I can wet it and let it dry over some kind of form to get compound curves in a sail. I want to keep my sails as thin as possible in order to keep that thickness close to scale. I find a noticeable thickness at a sail's edge objectionable.

For most of my models, I use parchment paper.  It has a slight translucent look to it, it holds its shape really well, and has a crispness to it.  
 
For ships that have furled sails, I have used a tissue paper.  It flakes well when lashed to the yards.  I built a small jig with which I furl the sails prior to lashing to the yard.
This image is elsewhere on the site, but it is also relevant here.

 
I have never used cigarette paper but it sounds like a good paper to use.
 
Gwyl

Hi Daniel,
Very good and usefull topic!
 
Igor.

Isaac Asimov once said, "Catastrophe is a wonderful teacher".  Nothing teaches us as much as our mistakes, so if we never make them, are we really learning?  Not that I specifically go out of my way to screw up, but there's a project on my desk that's been there since last July that may wind up being my biggest mistake yet.  There's a reason there have been no pictures yet.
 
Alex

Excellent topic DS! My first couple of models were pathetic things, they looked more like diseased chickens than ships. Fortunately a family member showed me a few tricks and i advanced to making sailor models using the umbrella method. Four years went by and i was raising the masts on a three master when the stay broke, and wrecked the whole thing in an ocean of sticky oil putty. Only time in my life i ever took the bottle by the neck and threw it against the wall; delighted to see it smash to smithereens!
  I dunno about others, but in my experience something always goes wrong, but 99 percent of the time it's fixable, even thoug it means hours of wiggling a piece of wire around inside the bottle trying to tighten a slack line, re-slinging a yard that's come adrift, or actually dragging the model back out of the bottle to replace a broken topmast.
  Finally though, i've come up against that fatal 1 percent. I've got a lovely little model that's been sitting on my rigging stand for years. It began to get dusty, so i put a plastic bag over the thing, and found other hobbies to occupy my time. The problem with this model is that when it goes through the neck, it's going to scrape its shrouds and damage the deadeyes and ratlines beyond anything i'll be able to repair inside the tight confines of a 375 ml. bottle.
  Hey, i screwed up. For years i've been cutting it too close with the beam; damaging a line here and there or knocking the barrel off a gun. Now i've really gone and done it, because this model is gonna sustain major damage on its trip down the neck.
  Letting the thing just sit for a few years seemed the best course of action. Eventually i went bottle shopping to find something with a slightly wider neck than the McGillicuddy's 375 i'd intended, and discovered to my horror that times had changed and 375's are almost all made of plastic these days!  In the interests of making a scientific survey i snuck behind the counter of the liquor store while the clerk was showing a saintly looking old granny where the Mad Dog 20-20 was shelved, and went to tapping the half pints, to see which ones were still made from glass. Next thing i know im out back next to the dumpster with a sore noggin and trouble getting my eyes to focus. I'm working the eyes, looking up at a couple of pole lights trying to make a single light out of the two of them, when i notice the bulbs. The thought of the climb and trying to unscrew a hot halogen bulb convinced me to stick with bottles though, so i limped home considering ways to make the model fit into a bottle it obviously didn't fit.
  Rasping out the enck of the bottle with a carbide tile rasp seemed the most hopeful solution. I didn't feel good about it though. Memories of tourists pointing out the mold seam and accusing me of cutting bottles came to mind. If cutting a bottle is cheating, what's reaming out the neck? I stuck to it though. Polishing the neck after rasping it was difficult, but i felt vaguely criminal, and was intent on covering my tracks. Luckily the neck broke when i tried to go too fast with the polishing, and i was back to having a clean conscience and a model that wouldn't fit the bottle.
  Yep, there's nothing left for it but to strip the model for usable parts, carve a new hull, and go back at it again, which i suppose is one of the basic lessons of bottling.
 
TJ

Hi DS,
 
Nice examples of wrecks. Although I don't consider your first one a true wreck.  It is true, we all start somewhere.  It reminds  me of a saying that a fellow wood carver uses on his site. WoodBee Wood Carvers.  He says, Wood Bee Carvers, Wood Bee Carvers, If they would just carve wood.  We all are beginners at some point, we just need to start! 
 
These photos are of my first SIB, from 1985.  It was straight out of Peter Thorne's book on  SIB's.  I was attempting to put this in a light build and that is when the wreck started to happen.  It was not all at once, but became a wreck over time.  first off, I used the wrong type of putty, the oily film on the inside of the bottle is evidence of that. Second,  I didn't use a very good plastic lining for the bottom of the bulb so when I went to turn the sea it became a real mess.  Thirdly,  I tried to use some red type of wax/putty to create the setting of the sun.  Maybe the sun was the best part or this build!     Lastly, while it was on my bench, the neck of the build was broken.  So this one sits in my shop as a reminder of the fact that Wrecks do happen!  
 
Gwyl

 

 

 

 

When I first joined the Rocky Mountain Shipwrights it was generally announced that I build ships in bottles.  The first reply came from some guy in the back who said, "Better you than me!"  There is some apprehension to this craft in general so to help with some of that I thought it might be fun to post our first ships in bottles, wrecks and the like.  It's been said you've never really sailed until you run aground.  We all start some where and we all have bumps a long the way.  
 
I say it a lot but really your first sib can't be worse than mine.
 
 
 
 
One of my worst wrecks.  I tried a new technique and it failed miserably.  
 

 
Also another line I modified from how to train your dragon.  "We're ship in bottle builders, it's an occupational hazard."  Good luck and happy building.  

Welcome Daniel!

A great choice Gwyl!
Yea!
Jeff

Please welcome DSiemens  (Daniel) to our moderator staff.  Daniel has been active in building SIB's for many years and has a very strong passion for ships in bottles.  
 
Daniel will also be working on a project of moving conversations from Yahoo SIB group to a special forum set up for those archives.
 
Again we welcome Daniel to the moderator staff. 
 
Gwyl