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Thanks JesseLee the lighthouses will slow flash control Ed by a motion sensor I have to drill a hole in the bottle first

Great looking ships in bottles Geordie. I especially like the ones with lighthouses. Welcome aboard!

Welcome to the forum Geordie!

Hi everyone I have been making ships in a bottle for years and just found this wonderful site for sharing in this unusual hobby not sure yet how to post and communicate but will keep trying

Hi, I'm going to put together some photos of the progress made. ¡ I remind you that it was made with photos from the internet, so after seeing many sail configurations, one of the most classic is this one. I make a first sketch. I adjust the sketch to the actual measurements and mark on the paper, lines that establish the hull-to-sails ratio, although there is no fixed rule there either, since this is the most usual. 89 I measure, measure and measure again, if you are able to see in the middle of the neck of the bottle there is a pencil mark, it coincides with the maximum height of the mast, a little further down there is another mark that indicates the opening of the curvature of the sails, the place where they can already have maximum width, I transfer to the sketch and it seems to be going well, it is more or less within those maximums, I take into account the thickness of the glass, I work with the internal measurement in the head. From the first image to the second, although they appear to be the same, there is a displacement of the mast of two millimeters to the right, I have not photographed it but from there the skewer goes to the sketch I check the variations and I know where I am going to have to drill the cover to locate the mast, the marks below help me to verify that at the moment, bottom, deck and rail are where they should be, the photo deflects the marks but they are in their exact place, it is checked with the sketch and the dimensions so far of the helmet. I don't know what these railings are called, but they also have some with vertical sticks on them to tie tackle. I put exactly the ones I have seen in a picture of a sailboat at a mooring. Once dry, I varnish the railings, for God's sake, someone tell me technical names, I'm here to learn... always keep it in mind. With the rest of the brush I go over the railings of the railing, they looked very dull, in the end we will see how the issue of varnish ends up in the light, it is not seen or I do not see it very bright in the photos, yes. He carried out a test with the measurements and I verified that my first sail design configuration does not work for me, later we will see why, that mast is short, I have to add more centimeters, curiously the longest one does admit the first configuration but flush the type of sail to the top of the mast or a foot higher, on the other hand with the short one it goes much higher a meter or more. A lot of changes await me. Ahhh, the skylight is freshly varnished it shows. Greetings.

Quick update. I spent some time last night sanding. I just put the template in place, marked where it touched the model with a pencil and then sanded away the pencil marks. I think the next step is to work on the areas forward and aft of that mark. I want to make sure I don’t overshoot the mark! Dan

A little bit of progress last night. I marked the locations of the frames from which I made the templates on the keel of the model. Then I started carving. You can see the marks and how the templates fit here. I'm planning to work from the middle out. Frame 9 is the widest part of the boat, so that's where I started. And the most extreme curves of the hull are forward and aft of that frame. Dan

I'm looking for someone to restore a very old ship in a bottle, it is almost all intact, minor repairs but the bottle is so dirty inside you can hardly see the ship. It was originally from Norway pre WW2 or older . I'm located in Edmonton AB ca.

Templates made! Now to start carving … again. Dan

Greetings All, Finished adding and rigging all the guns for my Niagara, plus added the chain plates and deadeyes. Added masts temporarily to locate end points for the chains. Anchor's A Weigh! John Fox III

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My new completed projects...

Greetings Dan, I know the feeling, I have often carved hulls that were close, but not symmetrical enough. I put it down to my being right handed, it's almost always the port side that is slightly out of shape with me. The only advice I can give you is to use more templates, good idea to glue paper ones to something a bit thicker and stiffer, you got that one right. That keeps them from bending out of shape when holding against the hull. Mark the points on the keel where each template bottom should be located, and attempt best you can to hold the template perfectly vertical when checking shape. I start in the middle, then work every other template space fore and aft. Cut just a little at a time, I use an X-acto knife and #11 blade myself, At the stern it gets trickier where it undercuts. Be patient, and work slowly, when the hull seems close to the right shape, i then use sandpaper starting with heavier grits and then work down to finer stuff. I often make 3 hull block sandwiches to start with, so don't have to repeat the process again later "when" I screw one of them up. Hope that helps! Anchor's A Weigh! John Fox III

I've made some progress, but I'm afraid in the wrong direction! I've tried three times now to get the hull block carved properly. Each time, I've wound up with an asymmetrical hull. I made three hull templates (midships, about midway between midships and the bow and about midway between midships and the stern). The problem I had -- as I've diagnosed it -- is not being able to clearly see where centerline was. Because everything's made of basswood, it all pretty much looked the same when I started sanding on it. On my third attempt, I dipped the "keel" piece in some wood stain. The stain didn't penetrate too far, so you can't see it on the bottom of the hull blank, but it does show up on the sides of the keel piece, which means I can see where it is. So, now that I've gotten to this point again -- and it's amazing how quickly I can make a hull blank now, after doing it three times -- I'm looking for some advice about the best way to go about this and wind up with a symmetrical hull. What tools ought I be using? I'd like to use my bandsaw to cut away the bottom of the hull block. That's fast and easy. From there, should I just sand it away? Use a chisel? Any tips on using the templates more effectively? I was thinking of making, instead of these kinds of templates... ... some that would be "full hull" that I can fit from the bottom up and have both sides of the model on one template? What do you think of that idea? Any other suggestions? Dan

A hoy, It's been a couple of years but finally back into it! My wife's first pregnancy gave us twins, which would you believe left me little spare time... but finally this project is down off the shelf! So I made a figure head, using a copper wire frame and layers of PVA glue to give volume, then painted white. She's meant to be an angel giving flight to a dove. I re-did the main bulwarks and added capping the to top of the rear section to match. This gave me light coloured bamboo on the tops of all handrails/bulwarks. I also added some stripping along the hull to break up the otherwise bland hull. I made these out of thinned bamboo skewers and bristles out of a brush. They also conceal the join lines of the three separate hull sections pretty well too. I shaped the keel, added a rudder and made some mounts. I am in no ways ready to sculpt an angry sea, so I've gone for traditional mounts, stained to give contrast. I made a capstan using a similar method as the helm wheel. Installed just behind the main mast. Installed the cannons on deck, and the helm wheel. Some door frames to the rear cabins A skylight for the rear cabins. This I made out of brush bristles, thin square cut wood, and yellow card stock to imitate stained glass. 3 gusset braces added to the very rear section. The curved stairs to the rear section I made out of many layers of thinned bamboo skewers glued together to give the tread. I love how they've turned out. I also added some simple grating to the front section, as I thought the deck looked a little bare. I've added all the rigging to the sails and masts and drilled the holes in the deck for the lines to pass through. I'm intending for some of the lines to come out underneath where the longboat will mount. Thus covering the cut off line ends. Some other lines will come and and be glued and cut off behind the stairs. Hence, the stairs and the long boat will need to be installed as a last step, after all the rigging is done. Ready to bottle! Any suggestions on the best way to glue the hull to the glass? Is epoxy the strongest and easiest to work with? I'll post again soon showing the full sail/rigging set up. Kind regards, Caleb.

Not much to report tonight. I pulled out my drawings from the Smithsonian. They're way too big to scan on my little scanner. So I think I'll take them over to FedEx and use their large-scale scanner to reduce them to a size I can use to make templates. Dan

Greetings Dan, What you've done above is the same way I did, and would, do the hull carving to this point. I would definitely make some cross section templates, from copies of the body plan, to do the rest of the carving. Anchor's A Weigh! John Fox III

Quick update tonight. I've done the rough cutting of the block down to the hull lines. Next step is the most difficult -- I think -- final shaping of the hull. I'm not sure what the right tool is to do that. This model is so small that a rotary tool is probably too aggressive. And I'm thinking about making the kinds of hull templates you use when you're making a larger solid hull model. Without those I don't see how I can keep the hull symmetrical. Dan

Good afternoon: Let's see if today it is possible that not a word in spanish gets through, I will be watching more than yesterday... but I still don't understand what can happen, it exceeds my logical and analytical capacity. Today the idea is to show you how I made the sea for this model. Yesterday I told you diorama and this heat is making me delirious, this boat does not have a landscape, it goes in principle for the bottle that you will see. My strategy for today is few words and many photos... you're lucky you won't have to have an aspirin omelette for dinner because of my excessive verbiage. The white paper is a template that we have verified reproduces the oval of the tinted silicone that we have put in the bottle to simulate the depth. There are no photos of the process but you will see them. If everything is fine, I usually measure six times and cut one, the boat will be one millimeter on each side with respect to the interior glass and the mast will enter the neck of the bottle half. Everything we're going to need is here... Focus your attention on a template made with plastic sanded from the paper one, you can see the exact position of the helmet in another template below. The plastic template is surrounded by a twine thread two or three millimeters thick glued, it is the one that limits the height and expansion of the silicone. Determines the working zone of our sea. My method is always to glue wood against wood, that's why I make a small square, sometimes a strip, with two glued wooden sticks that fit into the holes in the hull. In this image you can see that the hull has been wrapped in kitchen plastic, which you cannot see and it is very IMPORTANT that you remember to remove the board from the bottom of the hull, wrap it and finally nail the board back in place by drilling the plastic . One thing that I have done for the first time, I always use tinted silicone, but this time to test how it works against an already tinted background, I have tried to glue the outline of the helmet with transparent silicone to see if I get a deeper effect of the helmet. I have also taken the opportunity to put the transparent silicone that will make the breaking wave of the bow in the plastic. Silicone like two index fingers and three drops of color, to match the one already inserted... the idea is a deep Atlantic sea. Stir to equalize and without beating so as not to introduce air. We fill from the inside out, remember that we just glued the hull with silicone without dye... the entire oval flush with the twine that gives us the height. They are simulated a little bit by distributing the unevenness that the sea creates and we place the bow plastic in the arched shape that we want the bow wave. The next day. The board where the helmet goes in its place... Not even hunger moves her from there. There are no photos of how to put and paste the sea inside. Only the twine is removed from the sea. It is left glued on the sanded plastic.T The sea is rolled up with the plastic part facing out and enters alone. It is supported on the side of the bottle and with a wire, or a drinking straw, drops of silicone are placed on the sea inside and a cord where the board goes. The sea is dropped on it and it is leveled flush. I promised little words and a lot of photo, at least the second I have fulfilled. Ufff...bad. Ufff...bad. Well? Yes, her well. Ufff...bad. Ufff...bad. Ufff...bad. Ufff...very bad. the only thing perfect is that the bowsprit is a millimeter from the glass. I knew that the bottle would deform but not in this brutal way. I don't know if it's worth it put it in it... but at the moment I don't have another, we'll see. Greetings.

Nothing for see. Greatings.

Thanks. Let go yo see It.

Thanks, John! I'd thought I would do that initially, but then cut from the top view. Live and learn. It looks like it's going to work out alright. I traced the waterline on the back of the template so I could position it properly on the other side of the hull block. Then I clamped the template to the hull block. And traced it out... Here you can see the outline and the waterline drawn on the other side of the template. Now it's time to cut down to the cap rail and form the sheer of the hull. Dan

‘Merikarhu’ (Sea Bear) ST-79 Ocean tug. Constructed in Brooklyn NY in 1943 served during Normandy landings 1944. Transferred to Finland 1946/47. Now a museum ship at Hamina , south Finland.