Landlubber Mike

A few more photos and steps.  
Mark out where you want the gun ports.  I eyeballed it.  Probably not the best method but it was a quick way of doing it.  

 
After that its time to make the bulwark.  I used a 1mm or 1/8th inch piece of bass wood for the bulwarks.  Hold them up to the plans and mark the width.  At this point the cuts are straight even though the bulwark will be curved.  Cut the pice to be a little longer than the ship.  Remember the length of the bulwarks curves around the ship so its a little longer than the length on the plans.    


From here place the piece in a cup of hot water and let it soak for five minutes.  This will help the wood bend.  From here cut out the sections of the bulwark in between the gun ports.  This way you don't have to bend the wood vertically just horizontially along the edge of the deck.  It also makes nice square gun ports.

For bending I use a technique called breaking the grain.  You soak the wood then bend it with tweezers until you get a crease on the inside of the bulwark.  Do this along the bulwark piece and it will bend where you want it.  The crease will be on the inside edge so no one will see it.  Also glue oneside of the wood and let that dry then apply glue and bend the wood around gluing down the other side.  The already glued edge will help it stay in place.  
Give the bulwark a good sanding then it's time for the cap rail.  
I cut this piece to be a little longer than the bulwarks are wide.  In this case 1.5 mm.  
I soaked it and used the same bending techniques only this time going along the top of the bulwarks.  Also note I didn't go all the way to the front.  The bow bulwark have the tightest bend so I did a separate piece for this section.  




Also note the 1mm high bulwark are big for the plans.  This falls into one of my rules for building.  Cut big then sand small.  Now that the rail is on the bulwarks it can be sanded thinner.  
I cut another 1mm pice to act as a channel amd used the same technique to glue it right along the line where the bulwark meet the hull.  This does a great job hiding the lines between the bulwarks and the hull.  Its now starting to look like a bermuda sloop.  

The first place to start in building a ship in bottle is the bottle itself.  For this build I'm using a clear bottle.  I wanted to pick a bottle that people would have easy access to or at the very least was a common shape and size.  I found this particular one at Hobby Lobby for around $8.  If you get one from Hobby Lobby I suggest you go in person.  The clarity of the glass differs so you will want to inspect it before you purchase it.  Clarity is important in a ship in bottle.  You want to be able to see the model once it's in the bottle.  To many distortions or bubbles can block or distort the view.   
  
 

The next step is sizing the plans.  For this I copy my rigging plan to a software that will allow it to be resized.  Personally I use Microsoft Word.  It's easy to put things in and prints the same size consistently.  Photoshop might work.  You might try Pixlr which is a free online photo editing software.  I think Google docs would work as well.  What you need though is a program that will allow you to print a photo at variable sizes.  
I copied the photo into word twice and gave each photo two different sizes.  One a little larger and one a little smaller but both about the size of what I think will fit in the bottle.  I adjusted the paper to landscape and moved the photo's to the left side of the page.  Then I cut out the plans with a long narrow strip going to the end of the page.  What this does is allows me to put the plans into the bottle with the narrow strip sticking out.  This narrow strip helps pull the plans out of the bottle.  Cut the plans to the water line and to the top of that mast and close to the back of the ship.  That way you can see if the ship will fit in the bottle.   
    
 
This is the smaller of the two plans.  It turned out to be a bit to small.  I pulled it toward the front of the bottle to point out the different aspects of sizing a ship in bottle.  To get philosophical I personally think ship in bottle building is part modeling and part painting a picture.  The bottle is the canvass that this painting will be on.  When someone paints a picture they don't paint on one side of the canvass and leave the other side blank.  They fill up the canvas.  One aspect of a good ship in bottle is one that fills up the bottle. With the bottle laying down I will mostly be worrying about the height of the ship.  The closer I can get the mast to the top of the bottle the more space the length of the ship will fill up.  Going back to these particular plans notice that the ship will easily fit in this bottle but, there is a lot of extra space.  I pulled the ship forward to point out that about a third of the bottle is empty.  I have plenty of room to go up so I will need to make the plans bigger.  Technically I could add a lighthouse or another ship to fill in that space.  For this build though I'm just doing the ship.  
    
 
The bigger of the two plans has the opposite problem.  The plans are too big.  You can see the top mast curling around the top of the bottle.  Notice lengthwise this ship really fills up the bottle.  The trick is getting height length and width to work.  There's another part to be careful about in sizing and it's a mistake I've made several times.  Be mindful that you will also put sea into this bottle.  I have carefully sized ships and got them to fit just perfectly but forgot to add a few millimeters for the sea and ended up with a ship that doesn't quiet fit.  Every millimeter counts!  Add a few for the sea going into the bottle.    
(Also a note on measurement.  I'm not going to leave a lot of measurements in this log.  It's going to take time to type out a detailed process let alone all the measurements that go with it.  That said even though I am American when I do leave measurements I will use the metric system.  There's a couple reasons for this.  One, it's easier than the imperial system.  Millimeters are just easier than 1/32 or 1/64th's of an inch.  Two the ship in bottle community is very international.  I've met people in Germany, France, Great Britain, Ukraine, the Philippines and many, many other countries.  The metric system is more universal so I find it's easier for more people to understand.)

 
I did a final resize and got the height right where I want it. I've accounted for the sea and left some room and the ship is filling up the bottle nicely.  I did pull this forward as well to show the difference.  The ship leaves about a fourth of the bottle empty.  When it's centered it will be an eighth on each side which is pretty nominal.  I put my other plans on word and adjusted them to the same size as my rigging plan.  I then checked the width.  

 
The width of the plans is 9 cm.  This is of coarse half the width of the hull.  So the hull width will be 1.8 cm.  The bottle opening is 2 cm.  I have 2 mm to spare.  I will need these additional millimeters because the cannons will protrude from the side of the hull.  A long with that the main sail will need to wrap around the ship so I will need some space for the sail.  2 mm will be enough space for that cannons and the sail though so size of the plans are good to go.  I then printed a few copies.  I will be cutting them so I'll need more than one.  I did pick this bottle specifically because I think it's a good beginner bottle.  The standard U.S. size bottle opening is 1/2 an inch or 1.27 centimeters.  This bottle has about a 3/4 inch opening or 2 cm making it slightly wider than standard bottles.It's not so wide as to take away from the magic of putting the ship into the bottle though.  
The next step will be carving the hull.  Let me know f you have any questions so far.     
      

A very fiddly shroud fitting session. Glued to mast, but loose at bottom to be glued to hull once in bottle, hopefully! ?

So far it is officially the largest ship I’ve ever built!? next to the smallest.
long ways to go yet. Not looking forward to carving the figurehead.

So here is an update on the HMS Wivern
Located what I could find off of the Internet regarding a deck plan view and couldn’t find anything on a half breadth plan nor sheer.  Next, the best thing was to make an actual half hull model of the ship. I had to scale down and then cut each sheer (starting with the bow) to gather appropriate templates to carve the hull out of some red cedar. I also rebuilt the end of the socket. I turned latter on my mini-lathe out of some cherry hardwood I had kicking around. The last picture shows the socket on the light bulb and it fits perfectly.
Pictures of the process…!

 
 

 

Continuation
Artur

Continuation
Artur

Continuation
Artur

Continuation
Artur
 
 

Good choice, Artur!
Some time ago I was looking for drawings of this ship, but I found only the photos of the model from the museum in Bergen.

I am starting construction of the Norwegian ship Constitutinen.
Artur

Coming along slowly but surely. Must have subconsciously chosen this ship because of the painting in the background.

Finally, I set up on places the Old Man himself, the paddles and the basket with a pair of fish.

Then I put the mast and pulled the rigging.

Then I made a ripple on the water, using a transparent acrylic gel.

So as the bottling draws near I find myself with the decision ; sails or no sails?
The cutty sark has very little evidence, ie pictures of it with any sails! I really like the look of it moored and only photos I can find are either it moored or being pulled by tugboat.
So I wonder what everyone else thinks??

Thats a good method to use.  When I started out I had a list of ship in bottle builders that I thought did great in each aspect of the ship and sea.  I had a person for decks, a person for hulls, a person for sails a person for seas.  When I got to those part I'd pour through photographs trying to find what made that part unique compared to other builders.  If needed I asked the builder their method directly.  Most ship in bottle builders are happy to share.  
Also as a hint on seas look up Heather Rogers build of the Kalmar Nykel and Fogel Grip.  The sea in that bottle doesn't seem to stop moving.  

I have a fairly eclectic collection of SIBs. Many are very old, some are very intricate, many different styles and types, but for some reason one of my favorites is also one of the more simple ones. Perhaps it's the scale of a small boat that is different but I like this one.

Welcome Jeff. One way of preventing toothpicks from splitting is to place them in a jar of water overnight and then try drilling them. Another helpful way is to paint or varnish them first, they are less likely to split or break but I must admit that I am usually impatient and drill them straight from the box!

So I found this forum many moons ago. Signed up, didn't save it and lost track. Found it!!!!
Im on my 3rd SIB. The first 2 never made it out of the shipyard. They were "scrapped". The first 40 yrs ago. The second 30 yrs later. Those were kits. 
This one by golly... I'm gonna finish. Bob Browns "Simple Simon" 3 masted schooner from scratch. Only, it ain't so simple. I've only had to remake 2 mast, so I'm getting pretty good at drilling holes through toothpicks without blowing them apart. The mast are on, the side stays too. She's screwed to the work table. Painted her to look like "Atlantic,"
I'm halfway up Mt.Pocono. Retired 8 years ago to become a Stay at home Dad for an infant (that's work) and wound up Homeschooling. Schools out for summer. So it's relax week or 2

And finally I filled the first portion of the "sea"

Then I cut out a couple of oars and a little tinted the face, neck and arms of the Old Man.

Then I placed a shark in the bottle, fixing it with a transparent sealant.

Then I checked the rest parts of the model.

Then I made the bottle stand