Onni

Yes I did;it came to approx 72 hours for my rendition of the Golden Hind in 2013.

Medway Queen,heroine of Dunkirk (1940) where she rescued 7000 allied troops from the beaches. Here she is in post war livery. Now a museum paddle ship in Gillingham,Kent,England.

Hi Moab, The sails are made from a man's white handkerchief stained slightly with tea/coffee then when dried I wrap it around a clean paint roller wrapped in grease proof paper before I brush it over with a diluted wood glue which when dry gives a slight curve to form the sail. The sea/ocean is simply plasticine painted with acrylic paints and modelled to resemble the sea( at least that's the idea!)

Welcome Bosun Moon. A ship of a foot in length or more would have to be scratch built; that's if you could find a bottle of that size to place it in. In any event,scratch built is the way to go,you can make any ship you want to,learn the ropes as you progress and the satisfaction that it is all your own work .

I have also made these paper and card hulls for many years using similar items as John but download ship plans/drawings from the internet and then resize them through Photoshop to a scale that I need for a particular bottle. I don't do this for every model as it is very time consuming and rather tedious but its just to give an idea of what the shape of a hull should look like. In the photo l-r Mayflower,PT109,Black Pearl.

I see that you have done a bit more detail work on the octopus stand;it looks fantastic! Mayflower doesn't look too bad either (looks great). Well done.

Looking good. Impressive height for the masts. Nice work!

Flipper 650DC made for a client.

Funnel goes in and then the main mast. Decided to leave off 'Daisy' and the cow shed as I thought the deck could look a bit too cluttered.( It's possible that I can add them later if I want to.) Main mast in place with no problems and then set in the foremast. The bowsprit gave me a few problems as the glue didn't set on the first attempt because the mounting hole inside is made up of a plastic and wood wafer construction, so in the end I used an epoxy glue to fix it firmly. Finally completed GB after several months work but unfortunately I didn't notice that the top flying jig rigging had tan

I can understand your reluctance to fit it into that nice bottle that came with the kit. I think you've made the right decision to set it in putty in the wooden case. Should look great!

All the hull parts fitted through the bottle neck relativity easily but I had tremendous trouble to lift the front end of the starboard top piece over the front lug to secure it (Second photo). It actually took me about an hour before it snuggly slipped in place (Third photo).Luckily I had already designed these pieces to fit together without being glued otherwise it would of been a disaster had they had glue on them. As you can probably see some of the fragile photo etched railings received some damage in my struggles but they are pretty easy to repair. I then put in the engine room and then

Yeah, I can thoroughly recommend the book Will, it's what got me started on this great hobby.

For some idiotic reasons after I had glued the main sail, it went into an inverted curve (looking like the wind was blowing from the front)The solution;I scrapped off the sail and re glued it the other way round so it now has a nice curve without even me trying anything high tech to get it looking like that!Constructed the lifeboats and all six are fixed (three each side)to a thin plastic strip which will then have to be fixed to the side of the hull of GB when she is inside the bottle.Made the 'red duster' flag from an old hankerchief of which I have inserted and glued very thin wire inside o

I'm not sure if this would help you Will;these illustrations are from 'Sailing in Glass' byJOOP VAN SCHOUTEN and explains where not to glue the sails until the masts are pulled upright and fixed inside the bottle.Pretty much the same applies to your main sail,only glue one end of the sail to the gaff;you can then glue the other end of the sail later on, inside the bottle; perhaps using a piece of wire, with a dab of glue on the end of it. I usually use ordainary white wood glue to fix the sails.

Completed all deck furnishings (the small skylights took ages)and moved forward to the masts and rigging. I am going to rig her with half sails up but no top sails as per the drawing at the begining of this build. As you may of noticed I made a new engine room skylight and cut out the space in the hull so that you should be able to get a glimpse of the engine room machinery through the skylight.Shrouds and ratlines I make on my little jig which are bonded with super glue and white wood glue to simulate the block and tackle.