Landlubber Mike

Years ago I restored a model of a schooner rigged like this, with mostly a continuous line.  The forwardmost shroud from one mast would continue as the sheet for the sail of the mast ahead, then topping lift, gaff halyard, etc..  Eventually it led to the foremast where a couple more forestays completed the job.  That rig was no where nearly as complex as M. Bardot's restoration, which is most impressive.
In general, I try to use a variety of weights of thread and line to better represent the variety of line in a ship's rigging.

I was looking at some photo's on line of some very old ship in bottle's and found something interesting.  Below is a photo from Michel Bardet's website.  This is a sib from 1900 to 1915 that he restored.  Does it look like the running rigging is one continuous line?  
 

 
I've seen and used that technique on the back stays and it works very well at keeping the lines equally tight.  I had never seen it used for the running rigging though.  I think it's an interesting idea.      

I just recently responded to a non related question that, bluenose, presented me and realized that I had forgot to mention this oops issue I had in my recent builds discourse. There were so many of these that it's just a blur now.
I'm laughing inside right now cause I know we've all been there. Anyway, hopefully the lesson learned here will save some others from heading into the same disastrous conundrum.
That issue is, basically, if you are going to build for inside a PINCH bottle, remember there is very little wiggle room inside at the bottle's top. Ordinarily this is never a problem in most bottles, but because the pinch is a pyramid inside your top sails are going to be effected by the narrowness of the glass inside on top. In my scenario as you can see in the picture I had healed my hull too far before the masts were fully erected when I glued the hull in place. Once the epoxy had hardened and I fully erected the masts, my topsails crashed into the glass. POOPS! Needless to say I couldn't have a continuity in my ships trim. I guess most people don't see it but a sailor would for sure.
Because I wanted a reaching tack set up on my ship, I should have glued my hull down off center on the bottom, a bitt,  in order to have things work out for that point of sail. So basically what I'm saying here, as with any build,  MEASURE MEASURE MEASURE your widths especially inside these critters.
Thank's,
Bruce

As I have been posting, I have been collecting ship in the bottle kits lately. Most of these escaped me in my youth since they came during my hiatus from modeling. At a certain age, one’s interests mature and things of youth are left behind. It takes a certain amount of curiosity to become interested in the less superficial aspects of modeling and requires a certain maturity to appreciate historical significance and fine craftsmanship.

I’ve encountered a variety of different compositions of these kits. All the ones I’ve reported on so far are some variation of materials to be placed inside a glass bottle. The tradition of the activity has been building a model from wood and placing it inside a glass bottle with a sea made of putty since these are the materials that a person at sea may have had available to the them. To make the activity more accessible to the common person, lately more modern materials have been incorporated and some techniques have been improved and modified. Our seafaring predecessors may have appreciated some of these materials, such as CA “super glue” and tools such as small spiral drills and pin vises - not to mention accurate plans. And maybe they would have been repulsed by some other ideas. I like to stay as close to a traditional build as possible, but I do appreciate some modern conveniences such as my tiny drill bits and CA.

This kit deviates from the tradition in that it is a plastic model of a ship to be placed into a glass bottle. It actually has a very nice glass bottle and a neat little stand for it. The introduction on the instruction sheet states: “In this kit, modern methods and materials have been used to allow you to re-create this fascinating craft and learn age-old skills. None of the original ingenuity has been lost!” But in reality I’m gluing together a pre-fabricated plastic hull and parts to be placed inside a glass bottle. How much ingenuity is that?

So here I present the kit made by Airfix (Humbrol limited) “Cutty Sark” # 6003. There were also two other kits in this series: the “Mayflower” and “Charles W. Morgan”. These are all well know historical ships with the “Cutty Sark” and the “C.W.Morgan” still preserved for observation so there should be some expectation of detailed accuracy.

The kit is well presented in very nice packaging and a very elaborate instruction sheet with various language interpretations. But it contains no historical information about the ship. My first impression when I received the box was how large the kit is. The box measures 12”x 14.5”. The kit contains a very nice large rectangular flask type bottle that measures 8.5” x 4.5” (from the tip of the neck). The neck opening is so large I can put my thumb into it. Also included is the only wooden part, a nice stand to place the bottle on complete with plastic whale carvings. A long with the plastic parts for the hull, masts and spars and a sheet of plasticized paper sails are a set of paints with small brush, tubes of glue for paper and plastic, rigging thread and cordage for neck decoration, a metal tool for model insertion and a cork for the neck - and of course the completely hardened by now white and blue modeling clay. There is also a plastic rigging stand that doesn’t look like it could be repurposed for use with a wooden model. Also included are little plastic dolphins and a small light house for embellishments to be placed in the putty sea.

One of the reasons I bought this kit was for my preparation to build a “Cutty Sark” model which is the final model in the Jack Needham book. I didn’t have a bottle large enough for his dimensions and I wanted a sail plan. So my initial plan is to repurpose the bottle and some materials perhaps to build a wooden model using the dimensions from the plastic one and repurpose the sails. It just seems like a shame to put a plastic ship into such a nice bottle.

I haven’t built a plastic model since my pre-teen years and I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it then. I think it does require some sophistication to build a convincing plastic model and that it is a legitimate modeling hobby but it strays a bit far from the tradition of putting a ship in a bottle. But the kit is a nice kit for what it is.


 

As I have been posting, I’ve been collecting SIB kits lately. In my last post I reported about a non- traditional build of a paper model placed into a glass bottle. In this post I’m returning to a more traditional model type which is actually my favorite kit I’ve found to date.

The kit is for a model of the 1851 Boston Clipper “Flying Cloud”, a historical ship which was well documented. The scale size is 1” = 70’ which produces a ship model of 4 ½” long – 10 ¾” overall with bottle. The kit was made by a company called “Shipyard Crafts” located in San Lorenzo, California, copyright 1976 D.R. La Field, Ship Model Kit #100. The kit contains high quality materials, a clear 4/5 Quart bottle (commonly called a “fifth” which is about 750ml), and well written and complete instructions. The only other kit I’ve seen from this company is for an 1889 Essex built fishing schooner “Fredonia” Ship Model #200 which looks of the same quality.

The model seems to be accurately proportioned and not modified to fit a bottle. Instructions for building with or without sails are included. There are also materials and instructions for making a “carved sea” instead of messing with putty. This is something I have not tried to do yet although I have a fondness for putty seas which I believe to be more traditional.

The wooden materials are of sugar pine, birch, spruce and mahogany for the stand. A press board rigging stand is included. The materials look generous and provide a duplicate hull in case one blunders the first try. The kit even has a nice spool of ATCO CS-33 “G” size nylon thread.

The kit came to me in what looks like completely unused condition. The only thing I don’t see included in the kit is a cork stopper which is easily obtained. The kit also contains a somewhat hokey gold braid facsimile of a “Turk’s Head” knot which I am ambivalent about.

This kit looks like a fun build and I’m eager to try my hand at the carved sea. I think this kit will help build my skills and fits all my requirements for a first rate build.


 

As I last reported, I’ve been collecting ship in the bottle kits. I reviewed a nice kit from Authentic Models that I found to be of high quality and worth building in the traditional sense. In this review I’d like to present a kit that gives opportunity to all, but just not in a traditional building method.
At first I wanted to be unkind and snarky about this kit, but I reflected and found some merits to it. I had to realize that I have been blessed with average manual dexterity and my hands are still fairly steady and my eyesight is good for my age. I am also good at problem solving and sequencing tasks. I would assume that most readers of this website are also similarly blessed. However, I am personally acquainted with people who aren’t so blessed and who would find the construction of this kit to be challenging and who would be quite please with this accomplishment.
Now a description of what this kit is: This kit is of a ship model of the USS Constitution constructed totally of folded paper, to be glued to a paper sea inside a glass bottle which is mounted on a stand made of paper with a real cork inserted in its neck which is decorated with a paper image of a cord and seal. The only wood included in the kit is a tapered stick provided as an insertion tool (which may as well end up in my gadget box). There is also a small spool of thread provided for the ersatz rigging which consist of one stay for erecting the masts. The glass bottle is a nicely shaped “Dutch Flask” design but isn’t of the highest of quality glass. Even the cork looks cheap. At least it is a real glass bottle and not plastic.
However, the kit does include a very nice reference booklet containing the description and history of various tall ships. And I like the packaging which I may reuse for a more authentic build. I was hoping that at least I could use the sail pattern or cut the sails out and reuse them but I doubt their authenticity. They aren’t individual sails; they are actually part of the paper masts.
I think this kit might be mildly entertaining for an averagely intelligent eight year old. Of course there are people who are not able to or who should not be using sharp implements like razor blades and woodworking tools and none are required here. I believe scissors are only required to cut the thread for the rigging since the paper pieces are pre-cut and pop out. The rigging is cut outside the bottle after being trapped by the cork so there is no need for a razor blade.
So now there is no excuse why anyone should not be able to build a ship in a real glass bottle. We live in an age of inclusivity and now that extends to ship in the bottle building.

While I'm not new to building ships in bottles I stopped 32 years ago with the birth of my first son. It was difficult in a small home to raise a family and participate in the hobby.  From 1977 - 1987 I built about 15 models of various ships but fell in love with the Baltimore Clipper and built several examples which included crew members on the deck.  During that time I was a member of SIBAA and still have many of the paper newsletter volumes I received as a member along with cards from some of those early members.  The highlight of that time was sending two ships to the 2nd Japanese International Ships In Bottles Exhibition.
Recently some friends who knew I once built ships in bottles asked if I would consider building a few more as they were interested in having one.  So I'm coming out of the retirement to build at least three maybe 4 more.  Wish me luck as I now have the time to try this again even if my hands are not as steady as they once were. I moved on to furniture and box making after those days and have a shop where I can set up my projects which wasn't the case the 1970s and 80s.

Built this ship in a bottle when I was in the AF in 1965. Now I am replacing some of the rigging that broke and also some of the parts that I broke trying the replace rigging. 

A museum in Hartford, CT contacted me about doing a sib demonstration.  Since I am in the Carolinas, it is not feasible.  So I am sending an inquiry to any bottle shipwrights in the New England area to see if there would be interested in doing a demonstration.  Though the museum's budget is limited, they do have funds for local travel and demonstration fee.  Time/date for the demo is fexible.  If you are interested, please personal message me and I will forward your contact info to the museum's coordinator.    

Hi Bruce,
I apologize for taking so long to respond. Attached are pictures of my jig and an application on a Great Lakes 1812-1815 circa Warship.
 Thread goes into the spring at top with spacing required depending on diameter of the mast. Bottom piece where the screw goes into the jig is wood and slots are cut according to the spacing required on the hull. Start at the top with a piece of thread, then slip it into the spring, and then pull down into a location on the bottom piece of the wood both sides. The beauty of the wood is you can pick number of shrouds/lines, spacing etc. Then start glueing your lines in place according to the scale required.
 Jig is built from brass square tubing. Holes are drilled to allow for different SIB scales. Just remove the brass screw each side and adjust accordingly. Rod is soldered at the bottom so it can fit into my fly tying pin vice.
 Here is a picture of the rat lines installed on a British Warship.

Made the local newspaper today. It's was really about trying to get new members to join our hobby club (we need more money!) My model of Vasa with the text roughly translated " a ship in the bottle opens a door to history";true enough. Large ship in a bottle is made by another member and shows the club in the background. Last picture is some naval ships that I made in a scale of 1:96 some years ago. Before anyone asks, the text is in Swedish not Finnish. Some parts of Finland are bilingual and the area where I live this is one of them.

Thank you for the explanation Igor!

Another great work from a true master.  Thanks very much for sharing!
Can I ask how you install your masts?  It doesn't look like you are using a hinge.  Are you running a string from the bottom of the mast through a hole in the deck to set the mast in position?  If so, with the split hull that you are using, where does the line go through and terminate?  I'm trying to figure out something similar on my SIB build where I am using a split hull like you, and I'm hoping to avoid using a hinge for the mast.
Thanks in advance my friend!  And again, amazing work!

Well I had my first opportunity at ship in bottle repair.  It was entirely different than I expected I'd do with a ship in bottle repair but I got it back together.  

 
I should have got a picture before I got it back together but when the gentlemen brought it over the mizzen main sail was floating around the bottle totally detached.  I had to maneuver it in place and glue it down.  Took two hours but I did it.  Funny thing with glass ships.  There no wiggle room.   

I’ve been continuing to follow the examples in Jack Needham’s “Modeling Ships in Bottles”. I had already finished the first example “A Simple Model for Beginners”. Although I am more experienced than a basic beginner, I found making the basic model to be a good refresher. I don’t follow Needham’s method of rigging; I don’t use as many control lines as he suggests and I rig the shrouds in to holes in the gunnels instead of rigging them through the underside of the hull.
Here I progressed to his second model, a four masted lumber schooner. I had the dilemma of trying to find an appropriate bottle for it since the model is long but not very tall. I also had a uniquely shaped bottle that my father had saved for me many years ago with the thought that “maybe you could put a ship in it someday”. It’s a long tapered triangle shaped bottle that once contained Sicilian Gold Marsala. So as a tribute to my Sicilian ancestry I wanted to use the bottle.
I switched over from the clay-dough modeling clay I had previously used and instead purchased some plumber’s putty that I colored with water-soluble artist grade oil paints mixing Ultramarine Blue with some Viridian Green for the sea, using the base neutral color for the wave tops. I also switched back to cloth sails which I seem to prefer. Once I placed the lumber schooner into the back end of the bottle, I realized it looked a little lonely so I repeated Needham’s “Exercise One” and made a basic two masted fishing schooner to keep it company. Once I added the fishing schooner, I still had some “dead space” in the neck to fill so I added a small headland background with a few buildings and put a small skipjack sailboat in front of that to give the illusion of all three running into port. I finished the neck with a “Turk’s Head” knot that I built a special jig for so I could get it right this time. It’s still tough to make, even with a jig.
So here is my diorama “fleet” heading into port. This is the first time I put multiple ships in a bottle and I’m encouraged enough to use this method again on some of my longer bottles.

 

 

Since I decided to revive my interest in ship in the bottle builds, I revisited my original first kit builds from the “Ships A Sailin’” line from the 1970’s. My first ever build was their “Lively Lady” and my second ever build was another of their kits. I pulled out the instruction sheet that I still have from this series which has no identification for the ship on it. For many years I was under the impression that this build was their “Skeeter” but after finding an old kit for sale I realized that I had actually built their “Goja”.
I first started to perfunctorily build this ship accordingly to the dimensions I had on the instruction sheet when I remembered that I was never quite pleased with my first result. I had given this build away as a gift so I no longer had it for reference. I looked at the squat dimensions of the whole ship on the instruction sheet and the cautionary words that the model had been modified to adapt it to the bottle when I wondered if this was actually a historical representation. At the time I had no idea what the “Goja” was, my “Lively Lady” certainly wasn’t a historically accurate ship so I assumed that this was another fanciful creation. After a cursory investigation, I was hooked.
The “Goja” is the ship that Norwegian Explorer Roald Amundsen sailed to make the first successful voyage across the North West Passage in 1906. The ship still exists today in a museum in Fram, Norway and previously had spent many years in a park in San Francisco, Ca so it is well documented and photographed. I managed to find a sail and rigging plan and pulled up a few photos to help me get as historically close to the ship as possible. I even watched a video documentary about the Arctic Explorers and the quest to find the North West Passage. After Amundsen completed the passage, he landed in Alaska and had to Nordic ski 500 miles just to send a telegraph to announce his completion. I was so impressed with this story I decided I had to do this model due diligence and effort. I didn’t want to end up with a “bottle with a ship model in it” I wanted a “ship model that happened to be encased in a glass bottle” instead.
I found a nice bottle in my collection that complemented the dimensions of the plan although it was a bit challenging to work in. I tried to match the color scheme of the hull, I made a nice suit of sails from cloth instead of paper (I really prefer the cloth sails to paper now), I took some care with trying to make a flat Arctic sea with ice floes and an Arctic tundra backdrop and I sealed the bottle with a Scandinavian coin (OK, it’s Swedish, not Norwegian and it isn’t from 1906 but it looks cool) and made another “decorative braid” knot for the neck. I even tried my hand at a miniature Norwegian flag to fly from its ensign line. Had I had the presence of mind, I would have made a Norwegian flag of the banner but the flag was an afterthought.
Most of these details are not visible in the photograph. After it was completed it struck me how the bottle mounted on its side mimics the silhouette of the ship with the neck being its prow.
So here it is, my homage to Roald Amundsen, my eighth ever SIB.

I had not built a ship in the bottle model since some time in the early eighties. All my scratch built models were given away as gifts and the only model I had in my possession was the first model I had built, a kit build from the 1970’s. Through a series of circumstances I once again came back to building ship models. I was surprised that my eyes have actually improved for close work with my age and I can take my glasses off to work small. And my hands are still steady enough, hopefully having been practiced from years of fly-tying and art drawing.
In a fit of clearing out possessions I found a partially built Model Shipways “Elsie” 1/8” scale  Gloucester Fishing Ship model and a box with my old ship in the bottle collection of materials, books and the instruction sheets from my old kits. I sat down and finished the “Elsie” model which probably took me over 150 hrs of work to complete - I even added sails. I learned a lot about modeling and ships by doing this and I also learned the value of having good plans to work from. So now I wanted to reprise my first SIB kit build, “the Lively Lady” that I clumsily cracked the foremast on when mounting the ship in the bottle.
I still had the “Ship’s A Sailin’” instruction sheet and the first thing I noticed was that not all the drawings were to scale or even the same scale so I first set up a “canon” to work to. I did a little research and surmised that the “Lively Lady” was not a historical model so without exact plans it’s hard to hold to any degree accuracy or feel too constricted. However, I did apply some of my ship knowledge acquired from building my “Elsie”. I even had some left over kit materials that I could use and I had a large quantity of sail cloth left over from my “Elsie” build but I had to carve the hull from scratch and make all the masts and spars from dowels. I even had a small collection of liquor bottles my dad had saved for me from his bar-tending days and I picked a bottle that is a bit long for the model but I just wanted the practice of doing an SIB again.
I remembered from my other builds that I had first made putty seas from some old plumber’s putty colored with some artist grade oil paint but switched over to “Plasticine” which was available in the 1980’s. Now all I could find in the local craft store was a kid’s modeling clay something like “Play –Dough”  which is a bit too cool of a blue for a sea but that’s what I could find.
The bottled model didn’t photograph as well as I’d like, maybe due to the curvature of the glass playing with the lens elements of my camera. I have to say the model looks more impressive in life. But I did take a “before launch” shot of just the ship. I even attempted a “Turk’s Head” knot on the bottle neck but only accomplished a “decorative braid”.
I just had one small mishap which probably only I can detect but I consider that a general hazard of putting a ship in a bottle. Overall, I was encouraged by my attempt and have decided on a course progress to continue building.

 

My personal SIB collection remained at three for a long time: one I found, one that was a gift and one I built from a kit. One day about ten years ago I was on a fishing trip on Cape Cod when I wandered into a gas station cum tackle store to buy some hooks. I don’t remember how I ended up in a back room of the store but in this room was a large collection of ship models in various states of repair. Some of them were in cases, some were in pieces and some had price tags on them. I could tell that this was a collection from a serious builder who apparently was some relationship to the couple who owned the store. I remember picking up a business card but it has long been lost. I think the builder was located in Newport, Mass. but I’ve lost the name. Among this collection was a lone SIB that I recognized in to be inside a real Haig & Haig bottle. Without hesitation I purchased the model for an uncontested ask of $15.00. At the time I thought it was very neatly done but now that I look at it closely I see a lot of machine-made prefabrication: printed sails and a paper appliqué type siding on the hull. It has a neat obliviously machine made “Bluenose” name plate inside. It still has a nice look to it and doesn’t look as cheap as the “overseas” manufactured plastic bottle things. It almost looks like somebody took a kit model ship and put it in an authentic Haig & Haig bottle. I never found that shop again or any online information about the name I had. I think the builder is deceased and some of the models ended up in an art gallery that went defunct and is now a real estate office that has one of the larger models in a window collecting dust.
My other Cape Cod find was from an antique shop in Provincetown. I found a lone SIB that was very nicely done and obviously handmade. It’s a Gloucester fishing vessel, almost a dead ringer for the “Elsie” model I have recently finished, housed in a green glass magnum wine bottle which doesn’t detract from its appearance. Considering most of the poor examples and cheap imitation SIB’s I usually find, I didn’t mind paying $40.00 for it. It was obviously made by someone who knew what they were doing. It has neat deck furnishing and non-hinged masts glued in place after insertion. The hull and furnishing look so neat that I almost suspect some pre-fabrication. The sail cloth looks like the sail cloth that came in my 1970’s vintage SIB kits. So, it could be a kit build that was upgraded to a nicer bottle with a green putty sea.  
That’s about the extent of the models I’ve purchased. I really don’t want to collect other people’s work unless I can find some top-notch build for a bargain. I have a collection of materials and I just needed some incentive to start building my own again and just do it for my own amusement.

 

 

The third SIB in my collection was of my own construction. This was from a kit series that was readily available in model shops and department stores in the 1970’s. These were offered by a company called “Ship A’ Sailin’” out of Santa Susana, California – copyright 1971 J.O. Knight. I built two kits from this series: the “Lively Lady”, which I still have and the “Gjoa” which was given away. The third ship in the series was the “Skeeter”, which I never owned but just recently purchased an NOS example of. The $1.98 on the box must be a later tag sale price because I remember these kits to be priced somewhere less than $10 in the mid 1970’s. This series of kits may have been extended into the 1980s as the “Woodkrafter’s” series which have a very similar look but I never owned one of these for comparison.
The “Skeeter” that I purchased may have been an earlier edition of the kits I purchased judging from the instruction sheet and the materials included. A nice touch that wasn’t in the later kits I purchased is a nicely engraved metal name plate for the base, mine was just a faux metal paper sticker. I plan to keep this kit intact as a keepsake and maybe build the model from scratch from the plans. I enjoyed reading the little descriptive histories on the back of the box. I am now informed about Roald Amundsen’s Arctic Exploration in the “Gjoa”, the history of Canadian fisheries disputes on ships known as “sharpshooters”. However I believe the “Lively Lady” to be a fictitious 1812 privateer perhaps taken from the novel by the same name.
The kit was fairly complete and allowed me to almost 100% successfully build my model. The instruction sheet was very straight forward and provided my initialization into model ship in a bottle building. I still have both instruction sheets which can be used for scratch builds but I found that the dimensions are somewhat compromised. My construction was successful enough that I started receiving request from family members, examples that do not survive. The kit was all inclusive with rudimentary tools and a clear glass bottle with a cork. The bottle could have been an empty “Miller Highlife” beer bottle or perhaps a pop bottle but has no bottle deposit information or any other imprint. The sail cloth was also included but is too coarse for the scale.
I took some liberties with the “Lively Lady” design, most of which worked out. My one alteration that caused me trouble in the end was the addition of the putty sea. No putty was included and the instructions called for a sea of glue which was to be colored with ink or food dye. Of course the addition of the thickness of the putty was not accounted for in the design and I ended up cracking the foremast during final set up.  
As I look back on this model some forty years later I don’t think I did such a bad job. Even the cracked foremast isn’t that noticeable. Sometime later I managed to add a surprisingly neat “Turk’s Head” knot on the bottle neck. The kit was a good introduction to basic SIB building and these kits allowed one to make a model that looked somewhat authentic. I now find that the dimensions of the ships were highly modified to accommodate the small glass bottle so accuracy was sacrificed. Other SIB kits I’ve seen look very cheap or compromised but kits are still a good way to learn. The techniques learned are easily applied to scratch builds from more accurate plans.

Hi There,
I thought it may have been an early SIB by Leon Labistour who with his wife lived in Robin Hood's Bay and produced many quality SIBS. Leon passed some time ago, however I know his wife through the European Association of Ships in Bottles. I've contacted her and this is the information Pat replied with.
"Hi Alan. No, it's one from the factory in the next village, Fylingthorpe. They made millions of aspirin bottle models, all farmed out to piece workers. They advertised as RHB because nobody had heard of Fylingthorpe. The factory was called Ship Models and was run by a guy called Milsom.
Glad the owner of the model likes it!
cheers, Pat."
Hope this helps you out.
Best
Alan

New to forum, I got into the hobby back in the late 1970"s buying my first kit from Model Expo in NJ. I met  Mr. Frank Mastini there, and ended up becoming a student of his. I recently retired and am now getting back into ship building. Currently started a Mamoli Alabama, and an old Authentic models kit Princess Royal Ship in a Bottle, which I picked up at the Disney World Souvenir shop outside the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride. Totally different feel from building a plank on frame, I find it more enjoyable & relaxing, not to mention a lot smaller mess & footprint to deal with. Looking forward to tips & tricks & checking out your Bottle builds!
Thanks
Lobo

Hi All, 
As I have recently bought a SiB kit, I figured that being a member of this forum should be interesting.
I've been building semi-scale, RC controlled model boats for a while, and somehow drifted into miniature Ships in Bottles, (for better or worse!)
I bought the Amati "Hannah", thinking that it would be a good starting place, and I think I'm right in that respect.
There are a few issues with it, but nothing that isn't surmountable.
As I get on with it, I'll post a few photos.
Cheers, and looking forward to meeting other members.
Mick
 

Sometime in mid April, I began to build my first SIB in nearly 40 years. Although I had several older books on the subject to reference, I was curious to see what U-tube had on it about the subject and that's when I discovered this forum. Glad I did as there is wealth of information and apparently a lot of great guys contributing to this wonderful spot on the net.
I love seeing the other builds and soaking up the combined techniques you guys have so willingly shared. Some of which I've employed in my recent build. What a place to grow with in this art form. Good on you.
I'm a mostly retired research and development process guy at a German Based machine tool manufacturer specializing in extreme precision geometry of all sorts. I've spent a couple of decades looking through a microscope there so wearing magnifying glasses is second nature to me in many respects. I also have been restoring antique clocks for a long time. A fascinating hobby I just adore.
I'm seventy years old now and have an adoring wife who somehow has managed to put up with my creative juices all these years. That's a big plus for me. We have three great kids the last one is midway through collage on his way to becoming a Dr. of Chiropractic. We live on a small Lake about forty miles north of Detroit Michigan. When I was a younger man I did a lot of sailing all around the Great Lakes and have owned several boats in those years.
I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you and hopefully I'll be able to contribute to the forum here and there along the way.
So that's my bit.
Happy to be a member of Bottled Ship builders.
Steady as she goes and regards from Bruce Foxworthy

WOW! Hi Carl! I'm glad to see you here!
Best Regards!
Igor.
 

Finally took the time to subscribe. Only took me a few years. I love the SIBs I see here and at MSW where some of you folks may know me from. I might even try my hand at a large version of a bottled ship. But first things first: finish my current plastic & PE builds.