Andrew Chapman

Hi all, Here is a question that I've been mulling over. What sort of glue or approach is best when gluing sections of hull together in the bottle, when the hulls are aligned by dowels in one piece that fit into holes in the other. I ask this, because I had two problems. The first was when I used dilute white glue, but this expanded the hole or post or both, so that the fit was very tight, and I was very lucky to get the two hull pieces together. The second problem was when I used 5-min epoxy, which I thought would not absorb into the wood, but then I think a touch of it got out of the holes, and between the two hull pieces, leaving a small permanent gap between my hull peices. I like a ship in the bottle, because the optical distortion of the glass is pretty forgiving for the odd imperfections, but what sort of glue do people usually use? Best wishes, Andy

Hi Dan, Thats a nice looking ship. Everything looks nice and crisp, and I like the detail on the foresail. Let us know if you find a good clear resin and way to color it. I used a resin I had around from a canoe repair, but it started off sort of brown, and the result was not great. I'm not sure where to get the clear stuff. Andy

That maple veneer is beautiful wood, and the planking on both deck and hull looks flawless. I had no idea it was possible to plank a hull at such small scale so perfectly!

Hi Gregg, My first real build was the schooner bluenose, and I found a great set of directions by John Fox III. I posted the bottling of it in the Build Logs.

I made a bit of a mess of it myself. The blurry photos make the water look better than it actually is. I used some fiberglass epoxy resin that I had left over from a canoe repair, and it was a sort of brown color to start with, so the color was not what I was looking for. I rigged up a funnel with a straw, and it was really slow-flowing. And then I mucked about a lot putting silicone on top of that, but it was hard to get a realistic wake and waves. Nothing like some really masterful water I've seen on some builds.

Some friends of mine got a Siren 17 sailboat. Not sure if this is a ship, but I put it in a bottle!

I thought I would post my first and only real ship in a bottle. I was refurbishing a simple Bluenose that I had made with my dad when I was a kid, and then figured I'd like to put one in a bottle. I based the ship on plans by John Fox III in volumes 55-56 of Model Ship Builder magazine from 1988. I did not include the jog in the deck, and my deck furniture is much simpler. I used fabric sails, bamboo masts and spars, no mast doublings, no diagonal stays between the masts, reduced number or rat lines, booms and masts whittled from a dowel that includes the jaws, scoring to indicate deck planking, a wider two-piece stand at the bottom, support posts offset from the keel, and addition of the staysail. I put a Blunose stamp on the bottom, and epoxied a dime to the cork. I made two of these ships at the same time, but am waiting for Gentleman Jack to get back in stock at the liquor store to put the second one in a bottle. I am pretty happy with the result, but I can see that the other builds on this site are at a whole other level! The plans for this ship by John Fox III were exactly what I needed to make the ship, but I had a hard time finding them, and was pretty lucky to get copies of the magazine on Amazon. I am wondering if there is a common website somewhere where people post similar sorts of instructions and hull and plan views? I am incredibly thankful to John Fox III.