Dave Fellingham

You'll find that the cost per bottle will go down quite a bit if you consider more like 6 or 8 bottles the same.

Decided to do a little experiment to see how difficult it really is to do some of the more complex items in the mining bottles. For the first experiment I tried a version of the wheel in the Buchinger bottle. The bottle used for the experiment is 5 inches / 127 mm, outside diameter, with a neck ID of 1.060 inches / 27 mm. The wheel is six spoked, 4 inches / 102 mm OD, made in three segments. Components for the wheel ready to go into the bottle. I dug up a digital stop-watch to time their assembly inside the bottle. Time starts after I move the camera and tripod aside and put the bottle on the work bench. Time stops when the wheel is assembled and hanging by a thread. Assembled wheel hanging by a thread. I was surprised at how quick the assembly went. I photo-shopped the stop watch showing the elapsed time into this photo. Although I have made spoked wheels to go into a bottle - they were small enough to pass through the neck whole - I have never assembled one inside a bottle and had no idea how to do it. While digitally sketching the wheel, I had an idea, sketched it out and saw it would work, at least in theory. I think the technique is self-explanatory.

I did find W Price & Co (or William Price & Co, which I assume is the same company) in Quebec in the 1820's and 30's frequently in reports of the dockside comings and goings of shipping. The name Mary (a brig) was frequently reported in connection with W[illiam] Price & Co. Smeaton Tower was moved from the Eddystone, where it looked like it was jutting up out of the sea, to Plymouth Hoe in 1882, so the scene in the bottle dates later than that. W Price & Co may have acquired a three masted barque named Mary at a later date. I would assume the model is Mary until some evidence turns up that she couldn't have been there after 1882. I have yet to find anything regarding W Price & Co much after the beginning of WW1.

I don't do much else in the way of modeling but I do have another hobby. I have a friend who is having me build five AR configuration rifles for him. Years ago, I teased him hard for not being able to hit the broad side of a barn (I set 14 National Records in competition some years ago of which two still stand) and now that he's getting old and losing his vision, I ride him for not being able to even see the barn. But I'll build, test fire and sight them in for him - and all on his dime. Lucky me. Dave

It's primarily a supplier of navigation charts. Seems like a service that could survive for over 175 years. One angle you might look at is that Price might have been a successful ship captain who saved enough money to buy a sound vessel nearing the end of its useful life and made a go as an owner/operator similar to what a lot of truck drivers do. I have read enough ship and ship's captain biographies to know it wasn't un-heard of. If so you may find it hard to find anything on the company. I can't tell much more from the model than it's a three-masted barque with courses, double topsails, topgallants and royals. A black hull doesn't help much for identification. Many full-rigged ships were converted to barques to reduce the manning cost. Dozens of vessels like this were sunk by German subs in WW1. I found a W Price & Co, Liverpool at 17 Tower Buildings North, Water Street, Liverpool in Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Vol. 2, 1901-2. And the three-masted iron barque of 984 tons, James Gamble, (1875) registered in Workington, Cumbria, UK, was becalmed and ran aground near Tahiti bound for New Zealand from Peru with a cargo of sugar on May 24, 1902, Captain J. Rosie and 18 crew seemingly stranded there. Sessional Papers of Parliament 1902. She may have been named for the James Gamble who co-founded Procter & Gamble in 1837. T Boyden & Co, Liverpool, for W. Price & Co, launched the Primrose Hill, a four masted iron barque of about 2500 tons, in February 1886. She had a fantastic rig with courses, double topsails and topgallants, royals and skysails (seven sails tall!). She was lost with 1 survivor while under tow near Holyhead on Christmas Eve, 1899. Clearly not the barque in the bottle but it tosses my guess of an independent owner/operator out the window. Post card of Primrose Hill of Liverpool at Bristol. Sister four masted barques built by W H Potter & Son, Liverpool, for W Price & Co, Holt Hill (1884) and Marlborough Hill (1885) [do you see a pattern here?] both very similar to Primrose Hill but only 6 sails tall (no skysails) but with one piece lower and top masts. After Holt Hill was wrecked in 1889, W Price & Co built another four mast barque with the same name in 1890. And then there's Bidston Hill a four masted ship built by T Boyden & Co in 1886 converted to a barque in 1893-4. Both of these photos shows a black (or other very dark color) hull with a narrow white stripe and white bulwark cap rail. Glenholm (1896) a three masted ship sunk by a German sub in 1915. The sub U27 surfaced and allowed the crew to escape before sinking her with the deck gun. On Aug. 19, 1915, less than three months later, U-27 was sunk by the Q-ship HMS Baralong. And there's Liverpool, launched in 1882 and lost in 1883. Liverpool It appears that James Gamble (1875) is the only candidate so far for the barque in the bottle. Wikimedia Commons has almost 1300 files of photos for Three Masted Ships but I don't feel inclined to go through them one by one looking for barques owned by W Price & Co. Few of those photos have even that much detail associated with them. There were several other ships with "Hill" in the name owned by a Glasgow shipping company in that same period and that's as far as I got with that list. Dave

Daniel: Here's a bit of information from the website you cited that you may have overlooked: 1867 First regenerative glass furnace was patented in Germany by Siemens brothers, Freiderich, Karl, Hans, Werner and WilhelmThe reason the Biondo bottles have been overlooked is that they were virtually unknown until David Luna de Carvalho found them and brought them to the attention of the world on his blog O Mar das Garrafas within the last five years, at most. [He is a Professor and Researcher of Contemporary History for the Portuguese Ministry of Education in Lisbon and has published two books on early 20th century Portuguese History and co-edited a third. He is also a big SiB enthusiast. His blog's title translates to "The Sea of Bottles".] As I pointed out when I posted the photos of them, none are publicly displayed. If you recall, I pointed out that David found the 1792 bottle in a dusty storage area of a Lisbon Maritime Museum, packed in straw and uncatalogued (the museum didn't even know they had it), just two or three years ago. I think the notion that the Biondo bottles were easy to create by comparing them to spheres and demijohns oversimplifies the difficulty. They are not spheres. Even the two rounds ones are round only in the plane perpendicular to the camera's line of sight. In the horizontal and other vertical plane they are ovoid (ignoring the neck) with convex front and back surfaces. I have touched on the subject of the difficulty of reproducing something similar to the round ones with the glass blower I have used to make my custom bottles. He told me they would be difficult at the size suggested in the photo with a size reference - perhaps 15 inches across. The greatest difficulty arises with keeping the glass thickness uniform for minimal distortion. By his demeanor during our conversation he did not seem to relish the thought of making such a bottle the way he did when I initially talked to him about the bottles I was picking up. A demijohn is a large glass container with a relatively small neck usually enclosed in wickerwork (in the period we're discussing) and used as a fermentation vessel. As such, color, clarity, surface finish and uniformity of thickness have little or no bearing in their production. It seems to me analogous to comparing apples and oranges. Just the knowledge that the Murano glass makers had developed colorless transparent glass would prompt other glass makers to duplicate the results. One way is to experiment to find a way to make it, which seems likely by the Bohemian glass makers. The other way is to steal it and experiment further as Ravenscroft did. A Murano glass maker "stole" the Bohemian secret in 1737 in order to compete against them in the cut glass market. In general, cristallo did not stand up well to the carving and faceting done on English and Bohemian crystal. Conversely, English and Bohemian crystal was not useful with the long times at working temperature needed in traditional Murano glass types and techniques. The three types of glass mentioned are chemically very different. I came across the website for the Museo del Vetro in Murano which was established in 1861. There is more there on the history of glass making than anywhere else I've found. This museum has the 1806 Biondo bottle. "Murano's glasssmakers were soon the island’s most prominent citizens. By the 14th century, glassmakers were allowed to wear swords, enjoyed immunity from prosecution by the Venetian state, and their daughters permitted to marry into Venice’s most affluent families. Marriage between glass master and the daughter of the nobleman wasn't regarded as misalliance. However glassmakers were not allowed to leave the Republic. Exportation of professional secret was punished by death. Many craftsmen took this risk and set up glass furnaces in surrounding cities and as far afield as England and the Netherlands. By the end of the 16th century, three thousand of Murano island's seven thousand inhabitants were involved in some way in the glassmaking industry. French revolutionary armies occupied Murano in 1797." Wikipedia, "Murano glass"

McNarry also used French polish for gluing the intersections of his wire shrouds and ratlines. I substituted an artist grade acrylic matte varnish for the same purpose on my thread shrouds and ratlines with excellent results and now use it for most of my clear finish needs and for gluing of rigging. Point being that substitutes for obsolete products used by McNarry and others 50 years ago are available. We also have to adapt many of the static ship model miniaturist techniques to our needs. I like the end result of using the correct planking technique for the period, purpose and standard practice. Many ship bottlers shoot themselves in the foot with inadequate research. I remember doing research in the pre-internet, pre-photocopier days when it could be a project in itself just finding a library within driving distance that has a particular book which isn't loaned out, arranging inter-library loans, taking copious notes, etc. Now, research that took over a year back then can be done in an afternoon with Google, and many modelers won't even use it to answer their questions. I hated the tedium of research in those days but today it's one of my favorite parts of this craft.

Francesco = Francis in English. About the title of Captain associated with Giovanni Biondo, I'm reminded of the Royal Navy practice of giving the title of "Colonel of Marines" to Navy captains who had distinguished themselves in battle or through other outstanding service to the Crown as a sinecure (a paycheck with no responsibilities or duties attached). These Colonels of Marines were never listed on the roster of active Royal Marine officers. It seems possible that Giovanni Biondo may have had something similar happen to him as compensation for making these bottle ships for Venice. I also notice that the reference you linked to for translation help is for Capitan of Venice Francesco Biondo. I also noted that the reference is a book titled Piccola Guida di Murano (Small Guide to Murano). Notice Murano, not Milan. Angelo Emo very strongly supported reforms in the Venetian Navy in imitation of the British Royal Navy and it seems possible that he brought in Giovanni to produce models for the Venetian version of the British Admiralty. All four of the Biondo bottles are of new warships - the 1786 and 1792 ships have the same number of guns but appear to be different vessels because of differences in the fancy work at the beakheads and bows. There were no warships in Emo's 1784-85 Tunisian campaign as heavily armed (except La Fama) so possibly did not exist then. They also carry fewer guns than the 1784 La Fama, perhaps smaller and lighter armed versions. It has also occurred to me that the dates on the bottles aren't the date the model was made but are the dates the ships were commissioned in the Venetian Navy. Given that rich civilians would be less likely to commission an expensive model of a new warship than its first captain - or the government - I must put the Venetian "ministry of marine" at the head of the list of possible buyers or patrons. I find it unlikely that Giovanni could have produced a model of La Fama in the same year it was built unless he had access to La Fama as it was being built. Even in the late 1700's techniques for accurately drawing all the structure and details of a ship were still in their infancy. Models were still very useful into that period to show what a proposed vessel looked like to those not familiar with the drafting techniques. As an example, the first three big US frigates, Constitution, President, and United States were all different even though they were built to the same plan and specifications, partly because the shipbuilders and the US Navy captains overseeing their construction did not all interpret the drawings in the same way. Today, reading a three view line drawing of a ship's hull can be bewildering to someone who hasn't studied hull drafting conventions. In general, the history of glass pretty much begins with the invention of heat sources (such as charcoal with forced air from bellows) hot enough to smelt iron or copper from ore - and melt glass. Until the 14th century, impurities prevented the making of colorless, transparent glass (btw, those words have specific meanings in glass-making). Glass-makers in Murano (a community on an island near Venice, essentially a suburb in today's terminology) developed refining processes to produce such glass, called cristallo. The glass-makers of Murano were very highly paid for their skills but were not allowed to leave Murano, ever, in order to protect Venice's monopoly and keep the technology of this highly sought after product secret. In the mid 17th century George Ravescroft managed to hire and smuggle from Venice a Murano glass-maker and took him to England. This quickly led to his development of lead crystal. England was so protective of its emerging glass industry that the importation of glass containers was strictly prohibited. From the standpoint of making glass display cases for ship models, colorless transparent sheet glass of sufficient uniformity to allow viewing of a ship model in a glass display case with minimal distortion was not available until no earlier than the late 19th century as anyone who has seen or toured old buildings from the mid 19th century or before that still have original glass can attest.. If you have ever built a conventional static ship model and didn't put it in a display case you known that man has never invented a worse dust collector than a model of a sailing ship. Giovanni's choice of a bottle seems entirely logical and practical, and the "wonder bottle" aspect may have been given little, if any, consideration. Given his choices, it was the best way available to protect and display his models especially when the foremost glass makers and blowers in the world worked just down the street - er, canal. It seems obvious to me that all forms of wonder bottles are closely linked to the technological advances in the production of colorless transparent bottles. The earliest documentation of a wonder bottle - specifically a mining bottle - is in a list of items in an English noble's personal collection of extraordinary objects dated 1669. The mining bottle was dated about 20 years earlier but no longer exists. As for how the Biondo bottles were dispersed, we need to look at European and Venetian history around the year 1800 for clues. By 1796 the Venetian Republic, which was comprised of much of northern Italy from a bit east of Milan and eastward as far as the coast and islands of what is now Croatia to Dubrovnik, was unable to defend its neutrality in the War of the First Coalition between the French Republic and primarily Austria. Most of the western portion was quickly occupied by both belligerents. In 1797, Napoleon (the general of the French Army) forced Venice's surrender. Venice and its territory to the east was given to the Austrians in a peace treaty ending the war while the western territories came under French control. I can't confirm my suspicion that the 1784 Biondo bottle was sent back to Austria and eventually Germany at that time. Peace broke down in 1799 into the War of the Second Coalition in which Austria lost the rest of the former Venetian territories which came under French control along with more territory in northern Italy (and elsewhere). The Italian territories held by France became the Republic of Italy and, after the War of the Third Coalition and the conquest of more of the independent states on the Italian peninsula, became the Kingdom of Italy with Napoleon as the head of state in both versions. After Napoleon's abdication as Emperor of France and King of Italy in 1814, northern Italy underwent a further series of political upheavals until Austria moved in and took control. This is another period in which the 1784 bottle might have been seen and sent back to Austria. All this war and political upheaval could account for the lack or loss of records from this time. I don't even have a wild guess as to how the 1792 bottle got to Lisbon. The 1786 bottle is somewhere in Italy, but the 1806 bottle is nearly certain to have never left Venice. Daniel, I encourage you to do your own research on the history of colorless transparent bottles to see if you come to similar or much different conclusions. I'm very interested either way. I saw the photo of Japanese beverage bottles with the ball in the neck that you posted. You will find that the first bottled beer was in bottles with a near identical ball valve system. Dave

Drilling holes and paint adhesion have kept me from using brass rod for spars and masts. Cleaning with acetone and washing with vinegar (acetic acid, to micro-etch the brass) helped somewhat on the few photo-etch parts I've used. I hate bamboo for its objectionable properties but still use it when its excellent properties are needed. The cow hitch works well for hanging spars and duplicates the usual practice on the real thing on topgallant yards and above, and is close enough for course and topsail yards. I've tried thread blocks once or twice but generally view them as a last resort. Instead I make little eye bolts from 40 gauge copper wire wrapped part way around a .010 inch / 0.25 mm diameter bug pin then twist the two tails until the eye is snug. I epoxy these into holes drilled in the spars. I figure the epoxy reinforces the spar enough to make up for the loss of strength from the drilled hole. Eyebolt ready to install. I must have used close to 40 on a recent build and find them to be easier and faster to make and significantly smaller than a thread block. Eyebolts installed in a topsail yard and crossjack on a recent topsail schooner. Do you use hair bristles or synthetic bristles, Daniel? Although I keep craft sticks in two sizes and craft dowels, tooth picks and long and short swabs for a multitude of reasons, I won't use any of them for structural purposes on my models, occasionally for painted deck details. The wood is rarely as good as basswood, frequently punky and generally next to useless for fine model work - but I am very picky about what I use. I located a source for milled boxwood, pear and some holly where strips can be had in packs of up to 10 pieces, 24 inches in length for US$10, quantity depending on strip dimensions. Link: Crown Timberyard I'd much rather spend 10 bucks on the best wood available for my purposes than on something of much inferior quality. [btw, I have no connection to Crown, I'm just reporting on a source for milled lumber for ship modelling.] I'm looking for a source of degama (aka lemonwood and lancewood) for use in masts and spars. It's described as "brittle and inflexible" and is recommended for spars by Lloyd McCaffery in his book. As suggested by one of its names it was used to make battle lances and was used through the early 20th century in the front portion of pool cues.

It was Donald McNarry in Shipbuilding in Miniature. After cutting several shavings with a block plane he moistens and uncurls them then glues archival tissue to the side that was the outside of the curl and lets it dry flat. He slices the shavings to width, paper side up. The paper helps to prevent the blade from following the grain rather than the straight edge. He glues the planks, paper side down onto a backer of archival tissue. He rarely does anything to simulate the tarred seams. When he has prepared enough deck for its intended location he scraps and sands the deck, then finishes it with the palest french polish which slightly darkens the plank edges. He sands the deck surface lightly with very fine sandpaper and installs it. One problem that occurs with trying to follow McNarry's methods is his book was written in 1955 and he uses glues and finishes that are either no longer available or are extremely rare. The french polish mentioned above is a perfect example. French polish is made from the carapaces of a specific species of beetle dissolved in wood alcohol, filtered and allowed to evaporate leaving flakes. The flakes are sold by the gram (at a price comparable to that of gold), re-dissolved in wood alcohol and applied. It's use today is limited primarily to restoration of very high end antique furniture by the few craftsmen who know the very labor intensive process required. In 1955 it was available in several grades based on color which varied from almost clear to a deep transparent reddish brown.Today it's only available in one grade and the craftsmen will hand select individual flakes for color. Between the cost and working with a material that requires the use of a respirator (not just a filter mask) I don't find it practical in my work. Lloyd McCaffery in Ships in Miniature cuts his planks using a model makers table saw and proceeds in a similar way to McNarry. He lays out the butt joints and treenails the planks in alignment with the deck beams of the model. He tapers the planks on models of vessels that used them on the deck(s) and nibs them into the border planks when called for. [i'll leaving nibbing for another day.] I adapted the techniques of both to suit my tools (no miniature block plane or table saw) which I posted under another topic. Link: deck planking In that post the model was rather large scale (1/96) at a large size (4 inch / 100 mm length on deck) so the planks were wider than might be considered normal in a SiB. The black backing paper described doubles as seam tarring but can be adapted for smaller sizes at smaller scales by using glassine or archival tissue as backing then removing this backing after the planks are cut. 91% rubbing alcohol will soften pva and allow removal of the backing. As mentioned here and in the linked post, the backing paper aids in cutting uniform planks and is worth the extra step. Some black or dark brown acrylic paint can be used to dye the glue to simulate the tarred seams on smaller scale and/or size models. It just occurred to me that dyed pva could be used to glue a glassine backer, which may be just right without removing the backing, to simulate the tarred seam at appropriate scales. Dave

Jeff: That massive block on the fore stay is very like a deadeye but with 6 or more holes and is rigged essentially the same way. It later evolved into the heart. A pair of hearts rigged with a lanyard. At bottom is a fore stay and fore stay preventer, both with a pair of hearts, rigged to a bowsprit. The hearts don't show well because they are edge-on to the viewer. You will find the same arrangement on the main and mizzen stays and preventers. It's not surprising that you see hints of the steam age and Napoleonic Europe because two of the three bottles I posted were made in the 19th century - specifically sometime in the first half and in 1869. Those three were the only images of mining bottles I found on the web. Daniel: The 13th century artist was named Giovanni del Biondo and the 15th century author was named Flavio Biondo. The latter was an historian and is widely regarded as one of the first archaeologists for his three encyclopedic books documenting the ruins and topology of ancient Rome based on his explorations of the overgrown and partially buried ruins. Good find on the poon and the image - pretty much what I envisioned from the model. I eventually figured out that the "straughtenjacht" you referred to was a statenjacht which evolved from the poon into a state yacht, frequently with a square topsail and a more conventionally shaped schooner main sail. Statenjacht Utrecht.

The Cat will display very nicely in the lamp. Are you considering neck down? Dave

We know who it was - Giovanni Biondo in Venice in 1784.

I feel the same way about the Fimo polymer based modeling compound I've used since my first project - there's no need to fix what ain't broken - just that reflectivity thing that isn't quite right.

Unfortunately, there are no SiBs in existence that predate the Biondo bottles and until one is found a conjectural leap from mining bottles to ships in bottles is nothing but speculation with no evidence to support it. At least my hypothesis is based on facts like the documented history of the development of colorless, transparent bottles, photos of signed and dated ships in bottles and a well researched understanding of the historical context in which those bottled ships were created. I see no logical reason to make a leap from mining bottles to bottled ships because each type uses very different techniques. Mining bottles are essentially simple collections of numerous small objects placed in a bottle, while a ship in a bottle is an order of magnitude more complicated and requires techniques that are much more complex than merely placing numerous small objects in a bottle. From left: Matthias Buchinger mining bottle of 1719; Mining bottle from Kremnitz, Slovakia, first half of the 19th century; mining bottle from Gottesberg, Vogtland, 1869. As you can see these bottles are cluttered with small objects that will fit through the neck, with a few exceptions like the wheel in the Buchinger bottle. I see nothing in these to suggest they are an evolutionary step to ship bottling, other than a bottle. I have done considerable research on the origins of SiBs and am familiar with the only example of bottle art by Matthias Buchinger. I know two web sites state that Buchinger made ships in bottles but both fail to cite their sources. One of those goes so far as to state that Buchinger's ships in bottles are highly sought after as if it was known there were any to seek. However, none are known to exist and I have seen no evidence that any ever existed. I have also researched mining bottles but not very thoroughly. I'm familiar with the research by Peter Huber and the monograph he write in 1995 with Otto Fritz but haven't found it on the web. I have also studied the information posted by S. D. Jones. (I don't consider Jones reliable because he makes numerous assertions without substantiation, such as that only one woman has ever created bottled folk art, which we all know is ridiculous.) I learned from that study that the six oldest mining bottles are dated 1719, 1725 (or 1775 as stated by Jones contrary to Huber even though Jones's info on mining bottles mirrors Huber and this date is probably a typo, but it's further evidence of Jones's unreliability), 1737, 1744, 1745 and 1751. I can find no other reference to 18th century mining bottles on the web that contributes anything of value. The only photo on the web of any of those six bottles is the Buckinger bottle.

White lead and zinc oxide are just pigments in your putty mix, correct? Then why not just use blue pigment in your mix? My biggest objection to putty for a sea is that I have rarely seen it much darker than sky blue while deep water ocean is dark blue on a sunny day and black on an overcast day. I've never seen a baby blue ocean. Sunny day, dark blue ocean. Overcast day, black ocean. I'm finding that the reflectivity of water is the hardest part to model and haven't found a good solution, yet. Dave

After seeing the four Biondo bottles a couple years ago I realized that building ships in bottles did not begin as folk art but began with master modelers working in bottles that were masterpieces of the glassblower's art. Current conjecture is that the first three may have been commissioned by Angelo Emo, the last Grand Admiral of the Republic of Venice. In 1784 he led the Venetian fleet of 24 vessels on board his newly completed flagship La Fama against the Barbary pirates operating out of Tunis. (The 1784 ship is identified as La Fama.) The Bey of Tunis agreed to Venetian demands in 1785. The third bottle is dated the year of Emo's death. Angelo Emo was a member of one of the most powerful and richest families in Venice. It is also possible that one or more of these could have been commissioned by the Doge of Venice in Emo's honor. It's also possible that these were the Venetian version of British "Admiralty Models". Portrait of Angelo Emo to commemorate his command of the Venetian Grand Fleet in 1785-86. A ship in the background close to his leg looks like La Fama. Mass production techniques and advances in glass technology itself, which together allowed for inexpensive, transparent, colorless glass containers that could be considered single use, did not make their appearance until about 1880. It was these bottles that gives us the beginning of what could be called the "Golden Age of Ship Bottling." I am not aware of any other SiBs in existence from the years between the Biondo bottles and the beginning of this Golden Age. I think it's fair to say that folk artists revived (accidentally?) an art form that may have been too expensive to continue to produce after it was first developed and was temporarily lost.

The description that was with the 1795 bottle says it was a poon but I could find no description of a poon so didn't mention it. Same with straughtenjacht. The side boards (I assume there's one on the opposite side) very strongly suggests Dutch origin. I suspect from the mast and gaff that it carried a sail somewhat similar to that on a cat boat. Perhaps four sided with one edge attached to the mast and the gaff spreading the other top corner. The hull looks distorted in length to get it to fit in the bottle and the rudder looks way oversize. The photo is from an article on bottle art history that is on Greg Alvey's site. Link to his site: http://www.folkartinbottles.com/ While I'm at it I must mention that the photos of the Biondo bottles and the information about them is from David Luna de Carvalho's blog. He apparently has some kind of connection to the Lisbon Maritime Museum because he found the 1792 bottle stuck away in a dusty corner of the Museum's store rooms, uncatalogued.

Although this is a little bit off topic as started by Daniel, I think it is appropriate. These four SiBs are four of the five oldest SiBs in existence. The first three were made by Giovanni Biondo of Venice, the fourth is by Fransesco Biondo who is assumed to be Giovanni's son. The dates shown are those recorded from inside the bottles. The 1784 bottle is in a museum in Germany, not on display. The 1786 bottle is in a private collection in Italy. The 1792 bottle is in a Lisbon, Portugal museum, not on display. The 1806 bottle is not on display in a glass art museum in Murano, Italy. The 1792 bottle with a human viewer for size comparison. Clearly these bottles are very large and were made specifically for this purpose. They must have been extraordinarily expensive in a time when an Italian cristallo or an English lead crystal wine decanter and glasses cost the equivalent of a year's pay for a skilled craftsman. The fifth bottle dates to 1795 by an unknown builder, and is in a Rotterdam, Netherlands museum, not on display. Time has obviously not been kind to this model. Admin Note: The photographs of the Biando ships in bottles are from David Luna De Carvalho's website. To see his original post on these bottles please follow the link. http://mardasgarrafas.blogspot.pt/search?updated-max=2015-08-09T23:34:00%2B01:00&max-results=7&start=14&by-date=false   The photo of the Rotterdam bottle was also from David's website. See the original post here. http://mardasgarrafas.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

I did much the same - once. I had the bottle when I started but was over-confident in my calculations and never did a trial fit with bare poles and minimal rigging. My result was about the same as yours. I never forgot that incident. Failure is a merciless teacher, but the lessons learned are never forgotten.

The width of deck planks in general also depends on historic period, size of the vessel, its intended use, the fabrication materials and even national origin. While researching the Royal Navy's Cruizer-class brig-sloops I came across a very interesting drawing. Bellette was built in 1814 and when she was brought in for a refit in the mid 1820's someone detailed the deck planking as it was on that date onto the original construction deck plan. I've seen several similar deck framing drawings of other Cruizers but none with the decking detailed. This is an exceedingly rare occurrence that I have not seen anywhere else for any vessel. This may be the only contemporary drawing in existence of a Napoleonic era warship that shows as-built deck planking. Original construction drawing of Bellette (and sister Ganette) with decking disposition as recorded in 1824. Same drawing enhanced and with redrawn decking lines. I enhanced the drawing by reversing the colors and tinkering with brightness and contrast and other settings to bring out the lines of the planks. I then traced the planking lines in green and added a centerline and an approximate beam line in red. You may notice that all the butt joints of the planks are shown over a full span deck beam and you will find that the longest planks scale to about 26 feet long. Here we have 14 planks plus a border plank between the deck openings and the bulwark with 8 planks in the band of deck openings. The thickness of bulwark framing appears to be about the same as a deck plank width. Bellette had a beam of 30 ft. 6 in. divided by 40 [2x(14+1+1)+8=40] gives a plank width of 9.15 in. including a tarred seam, perhaps 8.5 in. for the plank itself. This is consistent with my visual impression of deck plank widths from photos of Constitution, Victory and other warships of the period still in existence which appear to have slightly wider planks, perhaps 10 in. which isn't surprising since they are much larger than this 100 ft brig. Deck planks here were 3" to 3.5" thick while on Constitution they were 4" to 4.5" (if memory serves) on the spar deck and even thicker on the gun deck. Deck planking changed considerably on iron and steel hulled vessels since the planking was no longer a structural part of the ship but was retained as a working surface for the sailors laid down over the iron or steel structural deck. Star of India, the first iron framed and hulled commercial vessel, and the much later Balclutha have narrower (and much thinner) deck planking consistent with Alex's observation of 4 or 5 inches. The 20th century Esmeralda also has this narrower planking. The tarred seams got narrower and eventually all but disappeared on steel hulled vessels. This drawing is very interesting in that the upper half shows all the deck beams and also the scarph joints in the waterway. You may also notice that the deck planks taper in width (to about 5 in.) as they run aft and to a lesser extent forward. This strongly suggests that such tapering was standard practice on Royal Navy vessels in this general period and may have been the practice on US Navy ships since American shipbuilding was strongly influenced by British merchant and Royal Navy methods. Spanish, French and Dutch shipbuilders handled some of the finer points of deck and hull planking in different ways from the British. Many early American merchant vessels reflect the norm in the immigrant shipbuilder's home country. Sorry, I know I'm a detail freak and I get off on all these nit-picking little nautical details even if I can never make use of them in my work. If I ever build a large SiB of a Cruizer-class vessel I may try to duplicate the tapered deck planking shown in this drawing but I can't even guess how much longer it would take than straight planking. If I try tapering deck planks I might feel compelled to secure them with treenails. Doing that will take me much further down the road to insanity than I already am - and I'm not sure (yet?) that I want to go there. Dave

That depends on the scale of the model and the width of the planking on the real America. I found plans that show the deck planks on 7.21" centers, divide that by 1/32" equals 230, so the scale of 1/230 would be the ideal scale for the scribed wood to be to scale. America was 101 ft 3 in OAL, divide that by 230 gives a model length of 5.283". That's the OAL of the model of America that would have 1/32" deck planking. The height is 3.900" keel to masthead, 3.537" waterline to masthead. If the model is smaller than these dimensions then the 1/32" planking gets more oversize as you get smaller. The plans I found were free for a 1/66 scale model and have all the detail you can handle. I added a hull line drawing to carve a solid hull, or you can build a smaller version of the plank on bulkhead hull in the plans, but that may be more of a challenge than you want. Hollow hulls can be difficult in a SiB. AmericaSail Yacht.pdf Dave

Usually, I try to prepare my sails as near to the end of building as possible to prevent damage to them. Sometimes it's more practical to attach sails to yards, booms and gaffs when working on a mast assembly off the vessel. Staysails are usually near the last to go on before the model goes in the bottle but sometimes this rule gets bent with the lowest staysails between the masts. On small models, I glue them to the spar or thread with thinned pva (about 1 part water to 2 parts pva) but intend to try very lightly thinned artists acrylic matte varnish for this light gluing task. Reason for this is that pva does not glue to cured pva well while the varnish does to itself. By lightly thinned I mean a moist brush dipped into the varnish and worked until I have the right consistency just a little thinner than the varnish alone. I experimented with the varnish as a glue on the rigging knots on a recent build and liked it - it holds as well as thinned pva, it sticks to itself well and is better than ca which dries brittle and doesn't always wick into the fibers. Ca often dries white where it builds up instead of wicking into the fibers and pva can cure milky, while the varnish always dries clear. On larger models, I sew my sails on. My finest fly tie thread is about .002 inch / 0.05 mm in diameter which works out to be about 3/8 inch / 1 mm at 1/200 scale so I limit the sewing of sails to about 1/250 and larger scales to keep my rope close to scale. Poking holes with a needle point tears the paper usually out to the edge so I drill holes (.010 inch / 0.25 mm) in the sails. Drilling the holes allows them to be closer to the edge without tearing. I space the holes at about 1 scale foot / 30 scale cm and use a light gray fly thread that is somewhat translucent and takes on some of the color of the spar, sail or stay behind it which keeps the stitching subtle. I dip the end of the thread in ca to make it into a needle of sorts to pass it through the hole. I use a spiraling stitch around the spar or stay through each hole. In most cases this is only a simulation of the method used for real but is much easier to do and looks good with scale 3/8 inch or 1/2 inch rope on spars. Because the spiral stitch on staysails is least like the real method, I use fine fly thread on them even at 1/100 scale and larger. Detail of recent project with scale spiral stitch securing the fore topsail to the yard. The sail is also glued with varnish. Detail of the mainsail boom. I also glued the edge of the sail to the boom after it was stitched in place Jib sail with fine gray fly thread. This sail is glued to the stay so I can twist the stay inside the bottle to make the sail look like it's full of wind. These sails were drawn digitally and printed on both sides of high quality, standard weight copy paper (20 pound). Dave

I noticed that the transom is a bit different in each of the three images (drawings, painting and photo) of a Catalina 30. If one had bow and stern views it should be a fairly easy bit of drafting to extrapolate the hull shape at each station and the curve of a plan view line at some point between waterline and deck line, at least close enough that only an expert in the hull shape would notice. Deriving lines below the waterline would probably be a bit more difficult but obviously wouldn't be needed for a waterline model. I can't get over how tubby the Cat 30 hull (with a length to beam ration of about 3:1) looks compared to a sleek little daysailer/racer but that's only to be expected.