Bernard Kelly

Hi Bruce and welcome.
A method I use with plastiline is to form the hull as if you were going to make a full hulled model but the bottom part is only about 1/8th of an inch thick. It attaches to the upper hull with the two pin method normally used for a full hull. I then stick the bottom to the inside of the bottle with an epoxy and when set place the plastiline around it and form my sea. I then find that when I glue the top to the bottom piece that it is very rigid and well secured. I sometimes use the bottom of the base to put the name of the ship on. If I do it along the edge I can put the epoxy in the middle and it does not cover the name. I then usually stand the bottle on it´s end with a wad of tissue in the neck to dry out. I usually leave it a couple of days and then insert the rest of the ship into the bottle.

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SS Great Western.

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In progress...

Greetings,
I said that based on my own experience and a host of other models I've sen. I suppose it is possible it was someone's first ship in model build, but it seems to be more advanced in technique and execution in my mind. Perhaps I should not have used the "definitely", just looks a bit more advanced to me.
Anchor's A Weigh!
John Fox III

I used up the contents of a clear  square face 1 pint olive oil bottle, lovely bottle, but with Delallo embossed on all four shoulders. A corundum stone with water made short work of the embossed letters, leaving a frosted surface. I went at the frosting with various grits of diamond polishing compound  on 1/2 inch felt cylindrical buffs chucked in a Dremel. I was careful not to contaminate the buffs with different grits, and had no trouble going from the frosted surface down to the same gloss as the bottle, took a while though. The diamond paste came from Tech Diamond Tools by way of Amazon, and cost around ten bucks per five gram syringe. A little goes a long way. After buffing with 200,000 grit there was no trace of the lettering.

A bit more on fixing the outside of a bottle.
I was rushing to finish a SIB for the 2023 EASIB convention and discovered that the bottle label adhesive had actually etched the glass in very faint strips which showed up in a good light. I have some jewelers rouge from long ago that I got to remove corrosion on a boot sale find. It was pressed into service as follows. 1/4 teaspoonful in a disposable plastic cup, a few drops of olive oil, mix to a paste and use a buffing pad on a hobby drill. It took about 10 minutes of polishing, had to add more olive oil as it dried on the bottle. It worked well and removed the etching. SIB finished in time. Points to remember - its messy, very messy. Do it outside somewhere where red stains on walls and floor won't be a problem, wear old clothes or incur the wrath of one's partner.
Best for now
Alan

I had another thought on the subject. My late father in law's hobby was lapidary, ie, cutting, polishing and faceting gemstones. He had just started to teach me when, unfortunately, he passed. However, the laps (the turntable carrying the grinding paste) he used were of copper, aluminium ('cos thats how its really spelled) and Perspex which I believe is called Lucite in the USA. He had a selection and only used one grit on each. He applied a small amount of grit (usually diamond paste although he had others as well) in a zig zag fashion over the lap using his finger, then turned the lap on so it was rotating and used a small metal roller to press and spread the paste evenly into the lap. Cutting was lubricated by water. 
Instead of a polishing mop head, if a circle of Perspex was used (maybe an old CD) with cutting paste, in a similar fashion to a disk sander, more force could be used and it might be a quicker and easier job. Just a thought. I might give it a try somtime.
Best
Alan

In progress...

After a couple months break it is time to start the next project! This time I’m going for a galleon which I’m expecting to have some unique challenges over the schooner I made last. This will be my first try at a square rig and the neck of my chosen bottle is smaller than my last build so hopefully I won’t be biting off more than I can chew. 
 
For this build I’ll be taking inspiration from the art on the label of a bottle of Kraken Rum and this wonderful model I saw on Instagram by iniciacionmodelismonaval



I started as before with estimating the inner diameters of the bottle and sketching out a plan that should fit.

next I rough cut the hull shape on a piece of walnut. This wood is actually scrap cut offs from the bottle stand of my last build. 

I faired the hull roughly with a dremel and various sanding and grinding bits and then did a final smooth with 220 grit sandpaper. 

On my last build I used wire to make some railings on the deck but didn’t think it would look very good at this scale and it was also very time consuming. This time I went for a recessed deck and carved out gunwales. I did this with linoleum carving tools as I still don’t own a good chisel set. 

With the hull looking pretty good I shifted my attention to spars, masts, and the bowsprit. 

To achieve a nice taper on the round dowels, I clamped the dowel in the chuck of the dremel and then gently held fine sandpaper against it as it spun. This effectively creates a very tiny lathe. I made up the spar for the sprit sail and did a little bit of tiny dremel carving to make a bit of a figurehead. 


then finally I put some tea on and dropped some cotton scraps in to dye them an off-white/brown colour in preparation for sails later on. In my last build I used paper for the sails but when I put it through the neck of the bottle they got some ugly creases in them so I think using the cloth will be better. 

That’s all I’ve got for now. Next I’ll finish up the masts and get them installed before rigging and sails. 

My latest project, IJN Kongō, as she appeared in early 1944, before her final refit, is complete. The model is entirely scratch built from boxwood and brass, with over 2,500 individual photo-etched pieces alone. Construction time l ran to Just under 8 months. She is 1/1500 scale or 125’ to 1”. 
  The case is made from spalted tamarind and Patagonian rosewood finished with tung oil, with a glass cover assembled from copper which was acid etched. The marquetry for the rising sun motif took a few days if work, and I think it compliments the model well. I do enjoy spalted tamarind, it’s probably my favorite wood for a ship’s base because of its visual interest.  The name plate is acid etched brass which was enameled. This was quite a complex job in itself and took several days to complete.    The hull of Kongō was made from carved boxwood, with the balance of the superstructure made from brass and individual photo-etched brass parts. The funnels are made from aluminum with the correct bulging at the top. To man the ship, there are several hundred crew members on deck. The rigging is nitinol wire, and paint, as always, is ScaleColors exclusively.    The ship is depicted as she would have appeared in port in the early months of 1944, before she was refitted with dozens more anti-aircraft emplacements. I chose this fit because it allowed me to model all 3 towers on her turrets, which I thought was more interesting. The model is probably the most complex I’ve built so far, and she was an absolute joy to build. The photo-etched superstructure came out just as I’d planned, and she certainly is striking. Several challenges needed to be overcome, such as the funnels with the bulge at the top. This had to be achieved very carefully because I still wanted to represent all of the interior trunking, so they had to be scale thickness, shaped correctly, and carry this detail. This was probably the single most difficult aspect of the build. She’s finished in ScaleColors Kure grey, with some light weathering.    If you’d like to see photos of her being built, I keep everything on my website, www.josephlavender.com.  

Second SIB completed. Similar design to the first just much smaller. Lots of lessons learned on the first build and now more on this one. Loving the time spent learning and can’t wait to try a square rigger 

Hello and thanks for accepting me to your group. I recently completed my first SIB after years of wanting to try and now I’m hooked. Loved looking through the posts here and already learned so much, a bit to late for this project but planning the second one now 

Hi all! I thought I’d share my latest ship build which is not at all bottled but is entirely nautical in nature, a Revell 1:570 scale RMS Titanic. This was my second ship build and first ship from a plastic kit. I’d have to say the fit and quality of the kit is quite poor compared to my recent plastic modelling kits which have been mostly aircraft. I leave it to the fact that it’s an old tooling kit and the manufacturing techniques of modern kits are simply much better. In any case it was still fun to make and has a nice presence on my shelf.