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Bottled Ship Builder

Question about putty as sea material


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Jeff,

 

I am interested on your work on the carved wood sea.  I know Bob Wilson has a couple of CD's out, with his method of carving wood seas, and they look terrific. I am looking forward to your progress.

 

Alex,

 

On your ship above you mentioned that your use a pin to scribe the sails (clothes).  Is this scribing done on the Windward side or the Lee side of the sails?  BTW, your sails look very realistic.

 

Gwyl

Thanks Gwyl,

 

Usually the scribing goes on the weather side because the scribing causes the paper to curl in slightly on that side.  But the effect is so subtle I often get the sides mixed up.  What's important is to keep the sides consistent throughout the model.  The best picture I could find to illustrate this is this one of fishing schooner Ingomar, a big model in 5 liters.  Please note the scribe lines on the foresail stand out a little, because the paper was scribed on the opposite, weather side.

These sails are the result of several experiments and many mistakes.  I'm sure there will still be plenty of both ahead.

 

Alex

post-23-0-57166600-1427894499_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

  I've always used oil based glazing putty, but none of my models from the late 1950's and 60's have survived (thank God, they were ugly things!) so i can't say whether the putty became a problem or not, the color was lousey though, kind of pale because i tinted it with artist's oils, and it was hard to get much color into the putty without turning it into soup, and i needed it firm enough to hold the hull in place while i yanked the rigging. In the late 1960's oil putty began to get hard to find, but there was a brand called "Old Time" around that you could purchase in professional paint stores, along with dry pigment that could be added to get the color right and still keep the putty firm. Old Time finally vanished in the 1980's.

 

 I still have some models around from the late seventies and early eighties done with Old Time, and they don't show any oil uptake. Some of the folks here may have seen my Model of HMS Birkenhead in Bottle Shipwright years ago, it was done in '82 with oil putty and still doesn't show any degradation from the stuff.

 

 Since commercial oil putty faded from the scene, i've made my own. Glazing putty is basically made from linseed oil (some favor boiled, some favor raw) white lead, and whiting. The white lead helps to set the oil, and the whiting is a filler. Putty isn't a simple mixture, it's an emulsion. The lead and whiting have to be ground thoroughly into the oil, otherwise the putty will be thixotropic and leach oil. White lead is increasingly difficult to find, though some pottery supply places carry it. Zinc oxide, which is more readily available, supposedly can substitute for the lead. Since in making putty the dry contents can be controlled, it's quite easy and effective to color it with artist's oil colors, which is what i do.

 

  Oil putty has a short shelf life unless it's stored under oil, and putty that's gone over can't be effectively reconstituted by adding more oil or turpentine, or by putting it in the microwave, it's really something you need to make as needed, which is the method i favor. Working up the putty on a piece of window glass with a fairly flexible putty knife takes some time, but results in a product that doesn't leach oil, clings like a limpet to both wood and glass, doesn't fade or leach color, and probably lasts for eternity.

 

  I worked as a carpenter for forty years, mostly in Boston on buildings built in the mid to late 19th century. I dealt with a lot of old windows in that time and never saw oil filming the glass above the putty line or saturating the rabbet. Certainly traditional oil putty sometimes failed to the point that prying with a putty knife will remove it, generally though it's rock hard if a little powdery on the surface, and requires a torch or heat gun to remove without gouging the sash. Anyway, i like the stuff, but what do i know, i've never tried any of the newer materials.

 

TJ

 

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TJ

 

Great info, thanks.  I noticed a difference between the glazing putty I used in the 70s and what's available today.  The older stuff would not hold much paint, so was always a little pale, and dried in a few weeks, very hard.  Now it will take more paint and takes much longer to dry hard. 

Have you, or anyone, come across any acrylic solutions?

The late George Pinter, of Halifax, MA. a wonderful SIB builder, swore by plumber's putty and recommended leaving it, mixed with the paint, out on sheets of newspaper for a few days, changing the paper everyday as it saturated with the oil,  I only tried that once, but other experiences got me off plumber's putty forever.

I found a product called "painter's putty" which I tried once.  Awful, soaked with heavy oil, nasty to work with and nasty to the model afterward.

Scarcity of white lead is due to gradual recognition of its toxicity.  Very useful stuff, but is a slow, cruel poison if not handled well.

 

Alex

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Hi Alex,

 

  I remember George Pinter's article about absorbing the excess oil out of plumber's putty from Bottle Shipwright. He was an excellent craftsman, and we lost him far too soon.

 

  I also took a shot at commercial painters putty, and found it unusable. I've heard of house painters simply working up a mixture of oil and whiting and using it as a spot filler, but never had any luck with the stuff.  Figuring that blue chalkline chalk might be worth a try i tried it, also with negative results.

 

  Zinc oxide will substitue for white lead, and makes a good sticky putty thats skins over pretty quickly with a nice sheen, can't testify to its durability though, and durability can be a big problem. I'm sure you remember how Jack Hinkey got into trouble with Dap glazing when he discovered that it out-gassed and fogged the bottles. I have the same suspicion regarding turpentine, and wonder whether the fogging noticed in some models bottled with oil putty might come from the practise of trying to soften putty which has begun to harden by working in turpentine.

 

  If the FDA came to my house tomorrow and confiscated my white lead, i don't know what i'd use, probably silicone caulk with some sort of colorant. I can imagine how messy it would be to work with, but there are probably ways to tame it a bit to keep it from clinging to tools and such. It smells heavily of vinegar too, which i suppose might mean outgassing acetic acid. Hopefully leaving the bottle open for a while would eliminate the fumes, whether or not they're potentially harmful.

 

Tell you something interesting about plasticine. I had a figurine in my room at home of the Grim Reaper which i'd sculpted out of plasticine on a wire armature. I went off into the Army for a few years, and when i got back, the plasticene had dried out and crumbled off the wire armature. Maybe i just used a bad batch, or it just got too hot in my room while i was away, made me suspicious of the stuff though.

 

The best material for creating the sea inside a bottled ship seems like it's going to be debated far into the future, should make for interesting reading.

 

TJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I agree, every thing seems to have it done sides.  So far it sounds like the best material for long lasting seas is wood.  Looking at some of Michel Bardet's restorations of 100+ year old ships it seems they would use wood or leave the out the sea's all together.  Although not all left the sea's out and the ship I just bought from Greg Alvey that was built some where between 1900 and 1930 has amazing sea's that are still very much intact.  I wonder what the builder used.

 Bottle_Ship_634b-500x500.jpg

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That looks good Igor.  Did you do anything different to the glass before you applied the epoxy?  I have never epoxied to glass before.

 

Gwyl

No Gwyl, I did not do anything different to the glass before you applied the epoxy?  This bottle is the small and I don't think that will any problem. I  heated epoxy resin a little  before mix it with pigment and hardener. I put it in a bottle with a syringe. Its volume less than 2 cm3.

But I made a mistake with the amount of pigment and the sea is too dark :(

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was doing some research on old ship in bottle articles and found a couple from the 1930's.  They mention that putty was used for the sea and say it almost generically like every one should know what putty is.  I did some more digging and found this. 

 

http://chestofbooks.com/reference/Henley-s-20th-Century-Formulas-Recipes-Processes-Vol3/Putty.html#.VULJjVU4nTY

 

"Common putty, as used by carpenters, painters, and glaziers, is whiting mixed with linseed oil to the consistency of dough. Plasterers use a fine lime mortar that is called putty."
 
I don't know how this differs from glazing or plumbers putty today but if it's the same stuff used in the ship in bottle I got from Greg Alvey built some where between 1900 and 1930 then it certainly lasts a long time.  
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Interesting Article Daniel.

I noticed some of the concoctions utilized white lead, red lead, and benzine. All the aforementioned are highly toxic! Back in those days not much was known about toxins. I also found out why workers used to go mad from working in light houses. People thought is was due to isolation, turns out they used to grease the turn table with bare hands applying liquid Mercury which is also toxic. Also the Mad Hatters disease was from treating the felt with Mercury to preserve it.

Thank Goodness we know more now from other people's mistakes and research. I can just imagine what the Rear Admiral AKA the wife would say about boiling up a pot of putty on the stove and adding in the lead and linseed etc.

I'll go with wooden seas for now!

Jeff

Edited by Chasseur
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Yea I noticed that too upon further reading.  I wouldn't think of using lead it's way to dangerous.  There seems to be a lot of linseed oil glass putties out there though.  From what I can tell they use chalk instead of lead.  Lime rock is also used but that appears to be for masonry.  A bit to rough for bottle work.  

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  If you substitute zinc oxide for the white lead in a putty formula you get around the toxicity issue, and the zinc supposedly will inhibit mold growth. Since zinc oxide's been used as a paint pigment for centuries, i suppose it's durable. Oil putty's not for everybody though, and i would think that the fact that improperly mixed putty can damage a model would be an excellent reason for avoiding it, whether formulated with zinc oxide or white lead.

 

TJ

 

 

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White lead and zinc oxide are just pigments in your putty mix, correct? Then why not just use blue pigment in your mix?

 

My biggest objection to putty for a sea is that I have rarely seen it much darker than sky blue while deep water ocean is dark blue on a sunny day and black on an overcast day. I've never seen a baby blue ocean.

 

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Sunny day, dark blue ocean.

 

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Overcast day, black ocean.

 

I'm finding that the reflectivity of water is the hardest part to model and haven't found a good solution, yet.

 

Dave

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Dave,

 

  Whiting (and its cousins limestone and marble dust) tends to be a filler in putty recipes, though there are plenty of recipes out there where it functions as both a filler and colorant. Both white lead and zinc oxide are better colorants, but in the recipes i've seen incorporating white lead, (skylight putty comes to mind) it's there as a hardener.

  It's been years since i've bought dry pigment for coloring putty, and i never tried it as the basis for a putty; just as a colorant for commercial oil putty. As an experiment i did try mixing blue chalkline chalk with linseed oil to form a simple putty, but the mixture was thixotropic, so i abandoned it.

  In terms of reflectivity, oil putty compounded from whiting, lead (or zinc oxide), oil, and artists colors dries with a nice sheen; pretty much as one might expect from varnish. Creating the putty is rather like working directly with oil paint. The colors i use are viridian, pthalo blue, cerulean blue, lamp black, burnt umber, and zinc white. In such a mixture the lead and whiting are serving mostly as fillers, with the linseed oil added as needed to adjust texture and tackiness. It may well be that simply adding some whiting and oil to artist's colors would produce a perfectly acceptable putty. Whiting lacks the opacity of both white lead and zinc oxide, and might actually  be a better filler in terms of how much oil color is needed in the mixture, since it takes quite a bit to get the color right.

  I haven't had much luck with formulating putty from whiting alone though (the putty tended to flow), and am reluctant to "fix" a formula that in terms of my requirements isn't broken.

 

TJ

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  • 3 months later...

I have used polymer based modeling clays successfully for many years. There are several brands - Sculpey and Fimo come to mind - available from most art supply stores. They can be baked at a very low temperature but I've never done it, I just leave the sea as sculpted and set the model in it. They don't bleed objectionable solvents or take months to dry like some alternative materials. About a year ago I saw a photo of my second SiB and the sea looked the same as it did 38 years ago.

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Hello All, I am new to ship in bottles and have hit a snag with my first attempt in that I cannot locate a source for Plasticine.  Does it go by a different name?  Is there a good source for it?

 

Tom

Hi Tom,  welcome to BSB.  That's great advise Dave.  Looking good after 38 years is a great test of time.

 

Gwyl

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