The Ship Model Forum

Thanks Timmy, didn't go from the 1st try, but not nearly enough setbacks to stop me from exploring this further. Finally found a way to do less than 1 year for 1 build!

That looks awesome. Everything came together so well!

Hi Jim,

luckily I didn't have to do that. I was indeed doubting between waiting for the glue between the hull halves to set, so I'd have a stronger platform to build on and manipulate or just to continue building.
Luckily I just continued, so I was still able to separate the halves. If that wouldn't have been possible, breaking the bottle would have indeed been the only way...

Next step was to attach the ship to the bottom to prevent it from floating (and toppling over) in the epoxy. Same for the monopile foundation I placed next to the vessel.
I then filled some holes between the feet and the (rock-hard) sandy bottom. Both gluing and filling was done with acrylic-sand mixture to blend it in with the bottom.
[attachment=4]SI52.jpg[/attachment]

Next up was the filling of the epoxy. As you'll remember, I had a test bottle. So first test was with that bottle. I also added the Uni Caenis (nylon) thread along with the woven Uni 8/0 thread in it. Just to see what it would look like in Epoxy and to see if it would withstand epoxy at all.
[attachment=3]SI54.jpg[/attachment]

The test bottle was ok, some bubbles which were immediately visible when I mixed the two components. I probably shook 1 or both components too much before pouring. Most of them disappeared due to the slow curing. I also noticed that some bubbles came from the sand, so despite the slow pouring, air was still trapped somewhere and released perhaps too far down the curing process of the epoxy. I didn't like the colour too much, so I decided to add more pigment for the real thing.

Then came the real pour. I'm stuck with some bubbles, but I can live with them. I noticed some air escaping from underneath one of the feet at regular intervals and relatively late in the curing process. Luckily none of them remained trapped mid-epoxy.

Not sure on the hub, it looks a bit heavy and eye-catching. Perhaps with a better stand underneath it will look better.
[attachment=2]SI57.jpg[/attachment]

And at least the model is finished now. I'll see about the "extras".
[attachment=1]SI58.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]SI59.jpg[/attachment]

I thought perhaps you may need to cut the bottom out of the bottle
to retrieve the model undamaged....


well done for persevering!

JIM B :thumbs_up_1: :wave_1:

As giving up isn't exactly in the dictionary, off to attempt No2.

Given the issues with the pins and the pretty obvious solution, I went ahead to fix it and try again (can't wait too long or I run the risk of shoving it somewhere at the back of a shelf).

This time I was succesful, except for 2 small issues. 1 leg was twisted, so the foot was pointing (Chaplin-style) outward. Second issue is that the glue on the accomodation block didn't seem to catch, so I assume I couldn't/didn't press it hard enough in its place. The latter action is also difficult as she's far from steady on the sandy surface. I'll wait until she's fixed in place to have another go at that.

She's not in final position yet as I'll fix her with the same sand-acrylic mixture as I used on the bottom. This will make her more steady and make sure all 4 feet are touching the bottom.

At the same time I'm running some epoxy tests as well as making a wind turbine hub to mount over the neck of the bottle.

[quote]Barking mad-- but brilliant![/quote]

Thanks Jim, I guess... :heh:

Well time to dive in. 1st attempt (yep!).
[attachment=3]SI43.jpg[/attachment]

Attaching part 2 to part 1 was as expected and practiced and went quite well. The crane somehow wanted to shift and twist all the time in the tweezers, so took me a while to find the balance. The hull bouncing around didn't really help neither. As you can see, the legs go tangled, so it didn't want to sit properly.
[attachment=2]SI44.jpg[/attachment]

Then leg 1 dislodged. The tiny pin (0.3mm copper wire, normally locked in place with CA) came out and the lower part fell out. I never quite thought of that going wrong... In any case, I was still of the illusion that I could fix that once I got the other 3 legs properly deployed.
[attachment=1]SI45.jpg[/attachment]

Until... a second leg came off. After several attempts to deploy the 3 legs, 2 went without a fuss, but the crane leg came off as well. I'm assuming I took out the CA glue during my last adjustments with the file around the hinge to make it slide easy. The leg was blocking completely at first, something that never happened before, I found out it was blocking on the partly extended pin. And yes, I did get nervous during this whole process and some curses escaped me. :heh: :heh: :heh: Exactly why I don't want the kids around when I'm trying this kind of stuff. :big_grin:
[attachment=0]SI46.jpg[/attachment]

At that point I decided this wouldn't work anymore. I removed the wobbly crane and luckily thought of a way to split the hull halves again. I didn't use CA, only UHU plast glue, so it hadn't set yet. Normally I split the hull by using my knife point as a wedge, but that wouldn't work inside the bottle as I couldn't fix the hull. I put the tweezer tip between the aft leg casings and pushed it apart. Then I did the same with the forward leg casings and off they came. I removed both halves with surprisingly little damage (1 small disk came off on the forecastle) and am ready to have another go.
I guess I need to fix those pins better.
I used 0.3mm wire in a 0.5mm-ish hole since pressing a 0.5mm wire would be difficult and possibly break the hinge off the leg. This time I am going to press that 0.5mm wire in that hole to make sure it wedges itself in and won't come out by itself.

You can see the etched DEME logo near the back of the bottle in some of the pics as well. Be it under an angle.

very very impressive V/S propeller construction !

Hard enough of you build it as a stand-alone model

;let alone try and get the thing onto a bottle....

Barking mad-- but brilliant!

:thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:

JB :wave_1:

Easy to forget in my rush to have it finished, but I still needed to add the Voight Schneider propellers. I wanted to do that last, since they would be very vulnerable during all manipulations of construction.
I also first did a test in the test bottle to see if my sequence would stand a reality test. I noticed the legs were trouble, too hard to press down, which I could do with the prototype, but with all the details on the real thing, it was hard to press without damaging something.
Decided to file a bit off the leg part that would fit in the "sleeve" of the hull, for easier up and down movement.
[attachment=4]SI38.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=3]SI39.jpg[/attachment]

Then the Voights. Built up from tiny strips of Evergreen, which I eventually made even smaller. I made a core of 1mm styrene rod (brown, you can see it glued to the masking tape above the blades.
I then cut lengths of 1.5mm of the strip. Then I lined them up on some masking tape to avoid them flying away, and cut them with scalpel to have same length.
[attachment=2]SI40.jpg[/attachment]

I then glued the strips to the central piece of rod/disk. And once the glue set, I pried it off the tape to glue them to the hull. I did this method to avoid handling the vessel and working on it directly. Afterwards I painted them.
[attachment=1]SI41.jpg[/attachment]

I had to make 3 of them for this ship.
[attachment=0]SI42.jpg[/attachment]

That was the final step before bottling.

Still a great idea and a fascinating project to follow :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:

Looks like you're almost there. Now don't hit the bottle...

Nearly there now, some minor paint jobs and she's ready.
I've also tested the etching cream. Test went like a walk-in-the-park, of course on the real bottle, it went sideways (a little). Some small bleed underneath the mask has made the result less then perfect. On the other side, it is only in the background, so I guess I'll keep it that way.
Been thinking about doing the whole bottle thing all over again, including the sand, with a new bottle, but that would take again 2 weeks, and I don't want to spend that amount of time on this first attempt. I'll just make the best of what I have.

I'll let the pics speak for themselves. The crane was eventually rigged with Uni Caenis thread for tying flies for fly fishing. Clearly the thinnest thread there was, also the weakest, but strong enough for this job.

Time for some test fitting with the bottle.
[attachment=3]SI29.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=2]SI32.jpg[/attachment]

And some more platforms all around the vessel. Luckily they are nested against more solid structures, so I only need to make 2 legs and I can glue the backside to these more solid structures.
[attachment=1]SI31.jpg[/attachment]

And for the gratings on the engine casing, I decided to paint them. Since they are slightly bigger, I opted for masking. I can't cut them this fine and close to each other, so I made one large hole and then separated the separate grills by using a tiny strip of masking tape.
[attachment=0]SI30.jpg[/attachment]

Thanks for all the replies, been a while since I've seen this activity over here :heh:

[quote]Maybe this will inspire to other unexpected modern ships, in even more modern bottles... What about a trashed container ship or oil tanker in a coke or whiskey bottle or like? With a lot of poluted ocean around it?[/quote]

Although a feasible idea, I've contemplated this kind of things before (as this has been a plan of mine for over 10 years). However, there is one big point against it. Tankers and other modern ships are so large/long that downsizing their length to fit them in a bottle, creates an extremely tiny scale. This brings with it a limited width and height of the vessel and this leads to a rather simple bottling process. With limited all-round dimensions you don't have to fold or assemble anything, you can just slide it through the bottleneck. That makes it a lot less impressive than a normal Ship-In-Bottle build of a sailing vessel.

The reason I chose the Sea Installer was because of its odd length-width-height ratio, the raised crane being an additional plus (not even part of my original idea, as the legs would have been challenging enough).
I guess any modern crane vessel would be suitable, as long as you raise that crane high enough to make it fill the bottle properly.

With this build I went from idea to start of construction within 1 week, which is not what I normally do. However I've decided to live with some of its errors and learn the lessons I've learned from them. At this point I'm still happy I'm trying this, although the bottling process is something I'm somewhat afraid of.

During tests, I've always put one part of the hull sideways and push the other part on it that way. That way you can push, using only one hand/tweezer. She can't really sit upright, since both parts have the legs sticking out at the bottom, so you can't squeeze them together. However, adding all the detail on the sides now, and with the sandy bottom in the bottle, I'm hoping I don't break anything when doing this.

I'm nearing completion now, working on the helo deck. We'll soon find out how this will go :woo_hoo: :heh:
Once/if/when she is in the bottle, I'll start doing a lot of testing for additional features:

- Glass etching, I'd like to etch the company logo and perhaps the name of the vessel on the backside of the bottle
- Epoxy pouring, I'd like to pour in epoxy as a water layer inside the bottle
- Dressing up the bottle, I'd like to dress it up to resemble a wind mill nacelle, with a hub (without blades) over the neck and a stand that resembles the tower.

I only see the above as extra features and I won't try to apply them to the model if bottling was succesful and tests weren't.

I have to say, this W-I-P made me laugh when I first started to read through it.

A ship in the bottle was interesting on its own, and I expected the usual sailing ship because I wasn't paying close attention. A very clever idea indeed, and your execution has been brilliant. A very, very cool project, IMHO.

What a neat subject for a ship-in-a-bottle, Roel! :thumbs_up_1:

Maybe this will inspire to other unexpected modern ships, in even more modern bottles... What about a trashed container ship or oil tanker in a coke or whiskey bottle or like? With a lot of poluted ocean around it?

Looking great! the hinged legs are a most clever idea! Am very curious to see all the steps of the bottling process and some pull rods in action. The latest touches improved the already good look of the vessel. Well done! :cool_2:


PS Am sure you have seen and discarded this bottle already. Anyway, just in case you didn't:
https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/9211/glenrothes-1991

I was just getting up to speed Jim, now some real progress.

I am sacrificing quality for speed a bit, but I guess it's a bit like a Ford carrier, too many new technologies in 1 go... For the time being I did the windows free hand with a tiny tip marker. I later on figured out I could have used masking tape to at least have the top and bottom edge lined up and straight. I tested that, and it worked, but the windows were a bit under an angle. I might use a modification of that making tape-marker combo on the next build.

I added the cargo lashing equipment, which basically are a bunch of clamps to hold the Transition Pieces. Also built those TP's and started painting them. Couldn't wait to have an overview since I'm working on many different area's of the vessel at the same time, so made a small dry fit. It also helps to test fit a few things through the neck to reduce the assembly inside the bottle.

....."" Little progress. "" ......

Pah!

that is decent and painstaking progress

Brav0 :thumbs_up_1:

JB

Nice project. There's currently one of these at my local shipyard (Damen Amsterdam) and it is one thing to see this in 1/2000 and another to see it in reality. The crane alone is higher than the 70m+ apartment building next to it. These things are huge.

Thanks Marijn.

Little progress. The ship has a lot more platforms and clutter than I expected when I started this. Can't leave all of it off, so I'm making tiny platforms and the rescue boat.
Will soon be rigging that crane jib with some fly fishing binding material.
Next will be the deck cargo to hide that nasty seam. It looks worse on the picture as the hulls aren't entirely pushed together in this picture (I noticed later on).
Also added some brass wire to resemble the mooring winches. The portside aft one will be covered by a platform in any case. I could probably go sharper in details, but then there's also the distortion of the bottle later on, which might not make this worth the effort. It's a first after all... :heh: