Leaderboard

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

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.

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.

Templates made! Now to start carving … again. Dan

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My new completed projects...

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

Ahoy, So I'm struggling to figure out a way to make the sails collapsable. The top few yards are narrow enough to fit through the neck without the need to rotate them, but the bottom yards need to be rotated. I've trialled this by securing the bottom corners of the top sails to their respective yards underneath. But it still seems to not easily allow the yards to rotate? Perhaps my sails are too rigid to allow free movement. Perhaps I should just be trying to secure the bottom corners of the sails to the yards once in the bottle? Any advice on this would be welcome. Also, I'm unsure of how I will run the diagonal rigging (like the top gallant stay) between the masts and then be able to assembly inside the bottle. I'm thinking I will be able to secure them all outside the bottle and set the spacing so when inside they will all be parallel. I've still got to drill into the side of the deck to allow the control lines to pass through from the main sails and backstays. Upon previous advice, I will now be attaching the yards as one in the bottle, not threading them through like I wrongly thought possible. For the yards I drilled out some thin wood, and then sanded the strips down even thinner and narrower post drilling. I then passed the yard lines through, glued and trimmed them. I will glue these little strips to the side once in the bottle. The backstays will pass through the side of the hull and come out the front. These should secure side to side and provide rear tension. The (royal?) top stays will provide tension forward. As for making the sails, I cut some cloth to size and ran some PVA glue along the edge and glued the thread. I knotted the top corners around a needle, glued with CA and trimmed the tail, in the same fashion as making thread blocks. These little loops allowed me to slip the sails onto the yards and secure with CA. I also added some detail to the prow. I cut thin strips of wood and soaked them in boiling water for a few minutes. This made them pliable and I was able to gradually curve them into shape and hold them there until they dried, keeping their curve. In all this handling, nearly all my handrails got bumped off. Not to worry I can re-attach/make more at the end now I know how to do it. Regards, Caleb.

A hoy! I finally cracked the rear cabins and am happy with the result. The windows and stained glass are printed paper printed with a yellow grid pattern. To get the arched window frames raised, I bent a brush bristle in a tight radius to form a U. I then trimmed each side to length and glued their ends together. These got glued over the top of the printed paper, which got glued on top of a thin strip of wood. I capped the top of the windows with another piece of wood with a rounded edge for the roof. This rounded piece is slightly thicker than the first strip of wood. This allows it to hang over slightly which I like the look of. I beveled the corners of the side cabins roof with the rear cabins roof, again, just for looks. After a few attempts I made a helm I am happy with. I first made the spokes by lining up 8 bristles, I did an initial squaring off cut and then a final cut. This got all their lengths the same. Then I curled another bristle around a tight radius to make a coil. I then cut across the coil in the direction of its axis. This created a neat little circular ring. I drilled a hole in some scrap covered in double sided tape, and put the over length helm axle in the peg hole. This allowed me to line up all the spokes up against the axle. i removed the axle and the spokes stayed in position thanks to the double sided tape. I placed glue on the axle, placed the ring on the spokes and inserted the axle back in. After drying I could pry away the double sided tape, trim the axle length and I had a helm wheel! I also made the longboat using the plug and watered down PVA method. I found waxing the plug before layering it with PVA soaked tissue made it a lot easier to remove the dried mould. I added some seats out of some thin timber I cut down. I also made a grid pattern of bristles for the grating. I also added some stairs into the deck. I later coloured the walls black to add a bit of depth perception. I added some more handrails. I'll post again soon with details of sails and some more questions of course.

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

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.

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

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

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

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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Good afternoon, let's go with some progress... ...and setbacks, that there are, we leave them for later. I carefully examine the curvatures, heights, dimensions, proportions, which would be in addition to having fun for a while because I like what I see, performing optimal quality control... I remind you that I work without plans... which for me is always a difficulty . I am going to be very insistent on this subject, but as long as it can be recycled, reused and reduced... in this case this sheet metal, less than a millimeter thick, comes from the back of a painted plywood picture, which is it separated due to the effect of humidity... I washed it well, let it dry and now I have it for different uses. Forgive the photographer who is a mall, put your finger down. With this round strip of six millimeters in diameter I hope to be able to make the railings of the railing... for this it has been immersed in very hot water one night when I get up I change the water again no matter how hot it burns and after a After a while I put it in its holder, it is one of the two hulls I made in beech, identical to the ship's pine. It is left to dry on days when there are more tasks to do I add some wooden circles on the tips of the masts and bowsprit as I have seen in a photo on the internet, although they are actually metal and a cylinder that surrounds the tip of these. I also varnished the part of the wood that doesn't turn white. Aft seat and helmsman's seat. Well, nothing that keeps your eyes working. We work the mast, it is varnished, it is drilled to pass that piece that I don't know what nautical name it has, it is a crossbar that some lines cross from the hull to the tip of the mast. Information is appreciated We have already put the railings, there are no photos, sorry, but come on, the process is easy, it was left to dry for several days, then it was verified that the curve was perfect, it was cut to the correct length and the only more laborious thing was with a knife cut the strip in two parts to obtain two half circles that make a believable railing, it is glued with pva and without further ado. We have also made the base of the bowsprit and drilled through the hull at the point through it. Greetings. ..

A hoy! I have been working on the masts, yards and ratlines. I bought some fly tying silk and it is very fine. However it is not a single strand, but multiple ultrafine threads laid up together. They are not braided together, which means they easily fray and seperate. But I'm reasonably happy with the results I've got for the ratlines. Shroud lines are standard sowing thread. I set the shrouds up with the correct number of strands and angle, then overlaid the silk ratlines. With tape holding everything in place I dabbed super glue all over it, then absorbed/wiped up the excess glue. Following Onni's advice, I will fix the shroud lines to the mast now, and then glue the base of them to the hull sides later. I made each side of the shrouds on the same strands. This allows me to simply fold the shrouds in half and tie to the mast under the platforms. I've noticed a lot of folks drill holes in their masts and yards to pass rigging through, however it sometimes requires larger mast/yard diameters to allow a through hole. I've chosen to try and keep the mast diameters small, and taper my yards in an attempt to be scale. It means I can't drill through them, I've tried to no success with a no.75 drill. So I'll have to come up with another solution for running rigging between the yard tips, I think it will involve thread blocks. I've experimented with yard braces. It works well I think. There is a small thread block tied to the mast and the yard braces passes through it. When the yard is pivoted to be parallel with the mast (for bottle entry) the line goes slack. When the yard is then pivoted to perpendicular the line goes back to tight. Convenient geometry of triangles and pivot points. My latest problem is how to make the rear cabins. I need to build them up because I haven't carved them out. For shaping the actual windows I can't cut timber panels accurately enough, nor does the grain of the wood allow it. So I have experimented with two methods of creating windows: One is to stamp the shape. So I made a little metal punch to stamp the shape of the window onto a piece of wood that I can then glue to the sides and back. The second is to try and imprint the shape of the windows onto a piece of wood. I bent some tin to shape and sharpened its edges. A light tap imprints the profile. Neither of these methods produce amazing results but it's better than nothing. Does anyone have a way of reliably repeating the exact same cabin window shape? My next major tasks are to work on the prow detail and stairs on the deck. Hope you're all staying safe. Regards, Caleb.

Welcome to the forum Geordie!

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

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

Greetings Dan, You will find it better in future to cut the hull block sandwich to the side/profile view first, then the plan view. When you place the profile view to an already cut plan view you will find that the profile view is too short. Basically, the curved side is longer than a straight side would be. Just a hint for future reference. Anchor's A Weigh! John Fox III

Yesterday, I cut the hull block down to the lines on the plan view. it was a simple enough operation, but I took it slowly to make sure I didn't go too far. Now the hull is about 15/16" wide and 3-15/16" long. Today I'll transfer the side view of the boat to the block and cut the top of the block down to the top of the caprail. Dan

I've crossed the Rubicon. I scaled up the drawings to fit the hull blank I have. (I used the plans redrawn by Howard Chapelle in 1933.) That made the model too wide to fit through the neck of the bottle I have, so I will definitely need a bigger bottle. I marked the outline of the hull, the waterline, the locations of the masts and the locations of the aligning pins on the drawings and then lined all that up on the hull blank. I mounted the drawings on 1/16" basswood, creating templates. Next step: trace the hull lines from the template to the hull blank and then use my razor saw to cut down from the top of the block to the top of the cap rail to form the sheer of the hull. Dan

Hi. Keep the proportions and scale, that's how I understand these constructions... so either you find a bigger bottle or it's dry docked to wait for its bottle and then make one smaller than the dimensions and proportions between hull and sail is the authentic. That's my way of thinking. Greetings, it looks nice.

I've made some progress on my America. Using John Fox's article from 1988 in Model Ship Builder, I made the hull blank. I sandwiched a thin piece of basswood between two others, establishing a keel line for the hull below the waterline. I used 0.010" styrene to establish a waterline. And then I cut another piece of basswood for the upperworks. I turned a couple of toothpicks down to 1/16" to pin them all together. I've made two templates, mounting them on basswood. Here's the side view. So now my question. I decided on the size of the ship based on the internal dimensions of the bottle. Is that the right way to think about this? I made the blank per the article: 3/4" thick, 1-1/8" wide, about 4" long. That'll make a model the same size as John's Bluenose. Bluenose's hull lines are similar to America's, but the yacht carried a lot more sail area. so the model would be taller than the inside the bottle if I built it to the same dimensions as Bluenose. So, do I build it a little bigger and find a bottle that will fit later? Or build it small and fit it into the bottle I have? Dan

Beautiful, Oían, very beautiful...congratulation. Greatings.

Try drilling any holes in the masts and yards before taking down to size. I also use a small dab of thinned varnish (acrylic is good and available in small bottles from hobby shops) or CA glue to strengthen the hole. Re-drill when dry, then size the mast. I use a home made drill guide (shown below). Its made from a bit of brass right angle, a small flat filed on top as shown and a number of holes for different bit sizes drilled in it. If you want to drill into the end of a dowel, a small countersink on the underside, and tapering the end helps. Have fun and stay safe Al

Sometimes when details get this small I print them out on paper and glue the paper to the model. Maybe not the best photo but it gives the idea. I printed the transom glued it on and touched it up with paint. In your case I'd print the cabin windows, cut out the windows and glue the shaped pieces in then paint over them.

The wheels on the gun carriages reminded me of a trick I used to keep track of cannons.

Ahoy, It's been a very busy month but I finally managed to squeeze in a few hours this weekend. I masked the channel line and cut grooves down to take the bulwarks. I glued the bulwarks on too thick on purpose. This allowed me to sand them down thinner to shape and allowed me to try and make the join between the bulwark and the hull flush. I will be running a channel along the join to hide it better anyway. I spent a fair bit of time making some little cannons. The cannon barrels are from bamboo skewers turned down and blacked with a felt tip pen. The wheels are bristles from a dust brush. The bases are from bamboo skewers cut/sanded flat and cut to size. Glued together with PVA. I still need to trim the barrel lengths down, right now they are easier to handle. I store them on the sticky side of some tape. Saves them getting blown away. I also experimented making some hand railing for the forecastle deck, again using brush bristles and bamboo flats. I'm experimenting with hatching. Using blacked bristles here. I laid them up, spread PVA all over, then wiped off the excess and allowed to dry. I'm still not sure if I'll use this method, or try another. I also started glueing the bulwark handrails on. I will cap with a thin strip of bamboo flat on top of the black bristle shown below. I'm thinking of buying some fly tying silk to start experimenting with shrouds and ratlines. How do you folks deal with fly tying silk having a flat profile? Not round? I read somewhere that someone tried splitting the threads. Or is that not required and the flat profile is that that noticeable? Thanks all, I hope to post again soon.

Ahoy! Alan, an impressive gadget you have there. In my research I have previously read and bookmarked the "width of deck planking" topic. A lot of good info in there. If I decide adding deck lines will really help the model, I think I will experiment with the most basic method first - colour printed paper. Then I'll try the other methods mentioned. I'm just mindful that good decking looks excellent, but poor decking often looks worse than no decking at all. DSiemens, I like your idea of running the bulwarks down and using the channel below to cover the join line. To do this, I need some very thin strips of the same timber. So, I had a crack at making some. To save my fingers from being sanded off, I placed two staples into a straight piece of timber. In between the staples I put a thin piece I cut off (first photo). I could then sand the thin piece down using some sandpaper held on a flat work surface. The staples held the piece in place, and spared my fingers (second photo). Doing it this way allowed me to get a fairly consistent thickness. I followed up with some hand sanding using a block in one hand and holding one end of the thin strip down to the table with my other hand. I got them to 0.8mm, the staples do not sit very high off the sanding block so they do not contact the sandpaper. I can go thinner if I need (third photo). I tested the "channel bulwark" method on a piece of scrap. Using an exacto knife I cut the channel. I think it will be achievable. More suited to my level than Alan's deck carving. The photo below shows the new veneers up against the channel. This next stage of course brings new questions. Plank bending? The bulwarks need to curve rather sharply around the front deck, what's the best way to curve thin strips without cracking them? I've previously steamed balsa to get it to achieve sharp curves. I've read on here of the "soaking and grain break" technique. Any others come highly recommended? Thanks again folks, Caleb.

Hi All, There is a link to Shipbuilder's free plans for his deck scoring device in the thread 'Width of Deck Planking' in the General Ships in Bottles discussion. Looking at some of his work, this works very well. Back to bulwarks: to finish off bulwarks when digging out the deck well, I made a scrapper from bits of brass tube and an old UK mains plug (a good source for bits of brass that are already threaded for a screw). The bit is ground from a masonry nail, which is very hard carbon steel so it holds an edge. The screw to the left of the bit with the black insulation goes through a hole in the vertical tube to allow the bit to be locked at the required depth setting, the square tube with the screw on the left side (can be moved to the right side) of the horizontal tube acts as a guide against the outside of the hull. The tool is held so the bit is vertical to the wood. It takes a bit of time, but scrapping down to the final thickness and depth gives a good result. I've also seen this done with two nails, one blunt, the other ground to a chisel shape and pushed through two holes drilled as required in a small length of rectangular wood. Best Alan

Thank you everyone for the advice and warnings. I've found some nicer timber to use, but I have no idea what it is, any ideas? It came out of the frame of an old worn out LazyBoy recliner chair we threw away. The photo below shows it has a really fine grain structure. It sands, cuts and chisels nicely. You can see I chiseled of the corner of the bottom piece, and you can hardly see the grain. I really don't want the split lines to be visible and because I won't be planking the hull, the mating surfaces must be perfectly flat to each other. So my new bit of timber needs to be sanded dead flat. I find sanding such small widths by hand often creates a rocking motion, resulting in a slightly curved sanding surface. So I placed a sacrificial block each sight to stabilise my sanding. See photo. I can't just drill through the hull stack to make the dowel holes because I can't have them seen (not planking), so I drilled one side, inserted a little dowel peg tool into the shallow drilled hole and pressed the two sides back together. The sharp little point of the dowel tool (sharpened, cut down nail) made an indentation on the adjacent hull section. I could then drill out the matching dowel hole. The below photo shows a bamboo dowel on the left, and the little dowel marker tool on the right, leaving an indent. So I now have my hull stack doweled and ready for shaping!

Good for you taking on the challenge. I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it. Too much fragile glass in there to cause more damage. Well done Alan

The whole thing is glass. Its a glass blown ship in bottle. I'm not sure how it all came together. The bottom of the ship is fused into the bottle it self. The sails are all glass. It looked like the glass is fused together when its still hot. The bottom sail was fused to the sail above it. To much bumping around broke the two apart leaving a loose sail. I was able to get it back in place and glue it where it was fused originally.