Landlubber Mike

Today, I fitted the three masts.  I then added the lines from under the tops down to the fife rails.    All the shrouds and ratlines were then fitted on all three masts.   The furlled main topmast staysail was fitted and rigged.   The furled mizzen staysail, and mizzen topmast staysail were also fitted and rigged.    I then fitted the backstays to the mizzen mast, fitted the furled spanker and gaff topsail and completed the mizzen mast by adding the running rigging.
The next task is to fit and rig the remaining furled fore-and aft sails.    After that, complete the backstays on fore and main, and finally fit and rig the 12 yards.
Bob
 

A Tale of the Windfall of Ocracoke
 
Twas 'bout a decade back when I was out on Ocracoke Island.  Has been part of the sojourn after doing the sib-demo at the Beaufort Maritime Museum.
Captain Rob Temple of the ol' two-masted , 55-ft on deck, schooner Windfall had asked me to help crew on a sunset cruise.  Rob sails in Blackbeard's wake.  A noted rumgagger...spinning yarns that have some base in history, though otherwise...just a good tale.   With 20 passengers for the sunset cruise, we left Silver Lake Harbor with about 15-18 knot winds. 
 
After clearing the habor ditch channel and getting out into the Palmico Sound, which took about 3 of his tales, he asked if anyone wanted to take the wheel.  Knowing his public relations and wanting repeat customers, Rob often invites folks to handle the Windfall.  Tis a great photo op as well.
 
Up steps a lad...about 11 years old...clad in pirate tricone hat, eye patch, and red sash about his waist.  Capt'n Rob directs him to the helm where the lad grabs the spokes.   Starboard tack with a freshing breeze off the Atlantic.   Foreseeing a need to adjust course for the increasing winds, Capt'n Rob tells the lad to turn the wheel to the left.  The youth raised his arm and spun the wheel with all his weight.   Twas a sudden hard port turn that sent booms crashing to the other side and passengers clammering for a foothold.   Rob grabbed the wheel while I quickly moved to unbelayed the sheets. 
 
With the lad's photo op completed, his parents returned him to their spot at the forward hatch.  I passed out drinks for those who wanted.  Returning to the helm where Capt'n Rob was inspecting the wheel, we planned two more tacks in the Sound then to head back.
 
Took Rob about a quarter of my Pyrat Rum bottle to settle down back in port.  With each swig, he mentioned something about "that darn kid!"

Greetings,
 
I know the feeling, in fact you did a lot better than I did! We got a little 13' Chinook years ago, never sailed before, but wanted to see if what I'd learned from 20+ years of model building would lend itself to actually sailing. Not to mention that it certainly would help my modeling, by actually understanding exactly what each line did and how it acted in the real world. A local guy who made part of his living from buying older, incomplete small sailboats and fixing them up for sale, knew about my modeling offered to take me out to "teach me the ropes". We did 3 or 4 sailing lessons, which was OK, but all of them were with winds not exceeding five miles and hour. So, when I decided to try my luck solo, I stupidly decided to go on a very windy day, 20 mph winds no less. Not to mention the wind was blowing straight at the launching ramp, which meant I spent a good deal of time learning how to claw off a lee shore. My smarter better half decided solo meant SOLO, and staying on the beach reading a book, kept asking if I'd had enough! <G>
 
Well, I got off the shore and had a ball zooming around the lake, making sharper and sharper turns when tacking. I was kneeling in the waist, and at some point noticed that I was kneeling in about six inches of water?? Hmmmmmm, started paying more attention and saw that at points I was burying the opposite side of the bulwarks for a second each time I tacked. Well, I tried tacking a bit too sharply, and the boat started going over. No problem I thought, I am wearing a life vest, know how to swim well, and just stuck by the boat. Figured it would tip on it's side, and I'd swing the mast head into the wind, and stand on the steel drop keel to get the wind under the main sail, and bring her upright. No, the boat turned a complete turtle on me, and as it was finishing the  over turn I saw the steel drop keel slide out of it's well and drop to the bottom of the lake.
 
Fortunately, a nearby fishing lad saw what happened and brought his boat over to me, and offered to take me and the overturned boat to shore. Great idea, except I had a 22' high mast now sticking straight down into the water. Took me about fifteen minutes of clinging to the side of his boat while i pondered, and it finally hit me, my boat has to be taken to the lake on a trailer, so the mast has to be swung down and backwards, much like a ship in bottle model mast, by releasing the fore stay. So, I uncliped the stay at the bow, and then tried to climb into the tow boat. That went about as well as the sail, my hand slipped and my ribs came down on the boat side full force. Didn't break any, but cracked two of them.
 
Ended up OK though, got the boat into shallow water and flipped it up and got it onto the trailer and home again. We sailed that boat together for five or six years, and had a lot of fun in it. Four years ago we found a 16' Rebel boat at an auction for such a ridiculous price we had to get it and sail that now. We are by no means top notch sailors, we only go out with winds in the 5-10 or so mph's, but still have a lot of fun.
 
Anchor's A Weigh!
John Fox III

So far, so good
 
Clearly I have not read and absorbed all the detail on Gwyl's how to post pictures
 

 
The picture did not appear where intended
 
AH!  Re-read and followed the instructions - success
 
thanx - build log to follow involving cats and owls
 
andrew

Hi, the Forum
 
I'm sixty-mumble years old, and an Aeromodeller, originally from Scotland, now in Australia and looking to marry soon.
 
To while away the time I thought a ship in a bottle would be a good occupation to keep learning things.  I am in Awe of the creations I find on the forum, and the sheer helpfullness of everyone.
 
As my starter I have a glass bauble for a Xmas tree about 3" (75mm) diameter and I have a weakness for Naval Cutters  which are about as long as they are high.  Neck diameter is about 18 mm  so I will have to do some plotting and making a dummy model.
 
I was planning to use the local version of Fimo for a wild sea, but in a sphere the might be too deep and heavy - happy to take advice
 
be gentle with me
 
andrew

Hey everybody, I'm a new member!  My name is Terry Fox, from Des Moines, Iowa.  I'm kind of a newby, but I have managed to complete 6 SIBs.  I do mostly pretty small stuff cuz I'm not good at fine detail.  I started with a couple of Christmas bulb ships, which to me are easier to work on, and then went to bottles.  The one pictured is a 750 ml Russels Rye whiskey bottle.  I saw a picture somewhere of an old ship either under restoration or being build as a replica, so I used that as inspiration to do a ship that I could focus on a larger hull and depict it basically half-masted.  I wanted to make a better hull, and compared to my other work, I think I succeded.  There are 150+ parts in this thing, the majority on the hull.  Anyways, I hope for inspiration, as it seems I spend more time emptying the whiskey bottles instead of putting something creative inside of them!  Sorry for the poor photo....screwing around with a laptop and this it the best I could do.

 

Mr. Markus Imthurn gets it right when it comes to modelling miniature ships. Check out his Vasco DaGama collection ... Jeff
http://www.vasco-da-gama.creativepark.com/index-en.htm

Here's a link for Lloyd McCaffery's miniatures at the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery.  McCaffery miniatures
 
Here's a teaser:

Three of the figure heads here are miniatures of those carried on U.S. Frigate Constitution.
Can you identify all three? The first figurehead, lost in a collision with President
during the First Barbary War, may be the most difficult of the three.

Started on the hull for a 470 sailboat. This one will be donated to help out the Great Britain olympic sailing team.

Browsing pinterest.com I came across this shot of two sailors building models underway on a sailing ship. The guy on the right, sitting on what appears to be a snatch block, is building a ship in a bottle it seams to me, and he is using a technique I have never seen or heard of before. He has the model on a virticle  dowel or peg with a pin or a nail of some sort stuck into the keel of the model. The peg appears to be unsuported and I think its stuck into the deck with another nail or pin ( the mate will be angry about that) or in an existing small hole?
The controll lines descend from the model and are made off underneath on the dowl. It strikes me as a good way to work and locating the propper line would be easier using this rig than it is on the traditional horizontal cross out-of-the-bottle building ways since the lines emerge from the hull under the mast they originate from and its going to be easy to grab the one you want instead of fishing through a jumble of lines all off the bow of the model. Pretty cool idea.

Still working on ribs but have also made progress on other components. Couldn't work on them because I was without electricity for two days - first hot day of the year (90F at 9am) and several transformers blew out here in the desert. I also had to do a bit of new tool set-up that kept me from some of the work until the set-up was done.
 
 
Here's some photos of cutting, sanding and detailing my rib zero.
 
 

Just finished cutting out zero on the scroll saw which made quick work of it compared to doing it by hand with
a jeweler's saw. The black tube is connected to a small shop vac for saw dust control so I can see the cut line.
 
 

Finished sanding what I could safely do with this shaper/sander attachment for a Dremel motor. Learned quick to
use slow speed to prevent making smoke instead of sanding dust. And there's that ubiquitous black pipe again.
Some hand work left at the 'steps' in the inner side of the rib. The steps are for gun and spar deck beams.
 
 

Zero rib again with one of the half-ribs cut away for a gunport on the forward side and notches cut for the gunport
sill and lintel pieces. Not much rib here above the spar deck line - this rib is in the low bulwark waist area. If you look
closely you will notice the glue line between half-ribs and at the segments used to build the rib. Those segments partially
replicate actual construction except that each half-rib was made up of six or seven futtocks on each side of the keel.
Chose not to do that - way too much work even for this detail fanatic. I think the suggestion of those futtocks is enough.
One down - about seventy more to go, not counting the cant frames fore and aft and the bow and transom ribs.
 
 

Work on the keel continued with sanding of the stem and beak head and gluing it to the keel and stern post. Used a
print-out from the computer, covered with plastic wrap so I don't glue the pieces to the paper, to lay these pieces out. I
did the same with those rib pieces but failed to mention the plastic wrap in that post. Again, chose not to duplicate the
beak head assembly exactly which was made up of about 10 individual pieces scarfed together. Much of that will be
covered by the trail boards and painted so there's not much point to the tedious work that would be.
 
 
I also cut and steam formed deck beam stock to the correct scale camber (arching curve) for the gun deck and spar deck (different camber on each) and made a clamp to hold the keel assembly when it comes time to start installing the ribs. Photos of that when I start using it.
 
As I mentioned previously, I'm using Castello boxwood for the ribs. It's a bit hard but works beautifully either by hand or with power tools. Now I know why Lloyd McCaffery uses it for his miniature figure head sculptures. (Actually he uses European boxwood - different species - nearly identical in working properties but a lot more money here in the States, that he finds, harvests, cuts and dries himself.) If you haven't seen his miniature figureheads, search him on the web, you will be amazed.
 
 

Alex, your Morgan is amazing.  I just started a 1:64 version of the ship from the Model Shipways kit - I hope it comes out half as nice as yours!
 
Funny you should mention Heather Roger's Morgan, I just came across her picture yesterday.  I was thinking that when I had enough skill I would try to do the Morgan SIB with whaleboats and a whale in the water, and then saw that she had already done one.      

The hull is now complete,. and I am ready to start masting and rigging.
Bob
 

Thanks.    It is not too stressfull      I drew them at 1 foot to 1 inch scale on a piece of paper.    I then scanned them into the computer as a jpeg and coloured them in with Adobe Photoshop image processing.     If you don't have Adobe Photoshop, or similar, you can use the common "Paint" programme that most computers seem to have.       After they were coloured in, I shrank them down to the required scale, printed them onto self-adhesive film, cut them out, and stuck them on.    The portholes were just drilled in!
Bob

Colin Archer RS1

The deck details are now almost complete.    My patience is now wearing a bit thin, and I am working a lot slower.   No doubt I will speed up again after I have started the masting and rigging.    The display case and base are now assembled and the case is waiting for its veneer edging, whilst the base is awaiting its French Polishing.
Bob

At the tips of the gripper glued soft white paper.
Artur

Hi, I present the photos from the construction of my ship
Pozdrawiam Artur

Dave,
I was delighted to see that you had made a scoring device based on my own.    It is one of the most useful building aids that I have, and I wouldn't be without it!
Bob

Thanks for sharing your device with us, it inspired me to make my own just for the task of cutting hull cladding plates. I'll also use it for cutting uniform, narrow strips of paper for mast bands, paint stripes and numerous other similar details. I don't score my decks, preferring to build them up from strips of wood similar to McNarry and McCaffery, but will certainly use it for numerous other tasks. I already had the dial indicator and bolted it on so I can use it in other applications. Thanks again, Bob.

Happy Easter everyone!
 
Jesse

Do NOT substitute waxed paper for freezer paper - waxed paper is waxed on both sides - the ink won't set and the wax will melt onto the face of the iron. We mustn't piss off the Admiral!   Remember - freezer paper, NOT waxed paper. I cut it to standard paper size and keep a supply pressed flat in a book to take out the curl from coming off a roll so it will feed through the printer. 
 
Both McNarry and McCaffery have done full-on plank on rib construction in their models which inspired me to try it on this project. I studied larger scale conventional models in progress on Model Ship World as well.
 
I find craft stick wood much like basswood, kind of soft and not real good at holding fine detail like clean sharp corners. Try pear or boxwood, much better than the unknown soft wood used in those craft sticks. I love the smell of boxwood as I cut it on my mini table saw - kind of sweet and nutty that reminds me of Mom's butternut squash baking in the oven on Thanksgiving when I was a kid.

A lot more progress has now been made.   The hatches are fitted, also fife rails, catheads, light towers, pumps, cargo winch, capstans and donkey boiler.    Next lot of fittings include mooring bits, ladders, compasses, compass platform, bridge from poop to compass platform, anchors, chartroom, skylights, wheelbox and wheel, compass platform, rails.     The hull will soon be finished now.
Bob

Hi Dave,
She is looking good.
 
I know how you feel about the tendency for wood splitting at growth rings. I tried using Douglas Fir for the rudder on the Preussen and I experienced the same issues. I ended up believe it or not using pop-sickle stick wood. The latter I think is a white pine, not sure, but its hard and dense enough to sand and detail for extremely small pieces.
 
I echo Daniel's comments on the wax paper, nicely done. I see your mirroring McCaffery's techniques on this build! Great so see ....

While waiting for wood I made a tool based on one similar built by Shipbuilder. See:  Deck Scoring  
 

Here I'm trying out my scoring tool to partially cut through .0014 in. /  0.036 mm 
copper foil to use as the 16 in. x 48 in. / 41 cm x 122 cm cladding sheets. They are
.066 in. x .200 in. / 1.68 mm x 5.08 mm.
 

By scoring the copper foil I will be able to break them apart on the score lines.
I cut about 2200 scale copper hull plates, most still connected to use later.
 
 
Also while waiting for wood and tools to arrive I made the keel, stern post, rudder and some deadwood from the piece of USS Constitution. That piece of wood was miserable to work with because in tiny pieces it had a tendency to split at the growth rings so I chose not to use as much as I originally intended. I also generated patterns for many of the parts I'll need to make and, as soon as the wood arrived, set to cutting them.
 
I use freezer paper for printed patterns. The paper has a waxy/plastic coating on one side and is unfinished on the other. Printing is done on the paper side then the pattern is placed, coated side down, on the wood and ironed to soften/melt the coating to make it stick to the wood. Makes it easy to cut out the part then sand it to split the line. The pattern comes off easily, rarely leaving a bit of the waxy/plastic as residue which can be controlled by turning the heat of the iron down a bit.  
 

Constitution wood in the keel, stern post, rudder and deadwood (bottom and left side).
The keel required four pieces to be spliced together. To the right are some of the pear
wood bow pieces with patterns attached, cut out but needing sanding to finished size.
 

Assembling the ribs in two layers to replicate the original construction. Four have the
two layers epoxied together such that butted joints are lapped and don't coincide to
leave a weak spot in the construction. The second one from lower left is the only single
rib used. The three in the upper row to the right will have another layer applied. The rib
at lower left, labeled "zero" on the printed sheet, is at the widest place in the hull.
These ribs are aft of that zero station. I'm using Castello boxwood for the ribs.
 

Thirty-six ribs with freezer paper patterns ironed to them. Next step is to cut them out,
sand to finished size and detail them - about half of the ribs needed.
 
This is the first time working with either pear or boxwood. Both are a dream to work with.