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Bottled Ship Builder

Large Lighthouse


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Hello, first time posting here but I'm hoping those of you much more creative and skilled than I can give me some guidance.  I am looking to make a light house in a bottle, just a lighthouse. The issue, besides increasing my skills of making it look good, is how to give it an illusion like a ship in a bottle that makes someone unsure how it was made in the bottle. I think this also goes hand in hand with how to make the lighthouse large enough to make it fill the area of the bottle. Any thoughts or ideas will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, -DJ

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I like the concept.  The illusion comes from the differences in the size of the bottle neck and opening in comparison  to the size of the object in the bottle.  So what your looking for is that the finished lighthouse is larger than the opening.  This requires splitting the light house into pieces and reconstructing those pieces in the bottle.  That process get's tricky and there's no one way to do it. 

I have seen some people that take the finished project and cut it into pieces and reassemble it in the bottle.  I think thats a difficult method.  The problem with cutting a finished piece is the saw often cuts out something like a half milometer or less and the pieces don't come together perfectly leaving a seam, which detracts from the illusion.  In bottle art every millimeter counts.   

The other method is to build separate individual pieces that are fit together by pegs or magnets or string.  When finished these pieces will fit in the bottle neck individually, come together in the bottle and have little to no seam lines and as a whole be bigger than the bottle neck. 

If I were starting out on this I'd do a bottle with two pieces fit together with pegs.  Once I got the hang of that branch out to four pieces.  There are ways with ships in bottles to hide seem lines when spitting a hull to fit a ship in a bottle.  For instance using the channels to cover up the split places making the hull seamless.  I'd have to study light houses to find similar lines where seams could be hid.  Look for that though.  A lot of lighthouses have a wider top and a seam could be hid where the base and top come together. Another method maybe applying paint over seams ones the light house is in the bottle.  That can get really tricky but it's not impossible. 

I would look at things like houses built in bottles or steamboats.  We have a couple build logs that did something like that. Arturs build is a good example. 

 

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Hi DJ!
Do you have any idea what kind of lighthouse you want to make?  

As I assume, it could be some kind of abstract lighthouse or even some specific lighthouse. Usually a lighthouse is presented as a high round tower and a house near it. You can sharpen a tower piece of four pieces of wood that you put together. Each piece must go down the neck of the bottle. You can make a simulation of the masonry and then it will be easier to hide the joints of the lighthouse details. 

I think you can even insert an LED, a battery and a control unit into it.

Best Regards!
Igor.

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Thank you both for the reply. I don't have a specific lighthouse in mind but it will probably be the traditional shape. I figured pieces that were assembled in the bottle would be the only way to do it, that build link really helps thank you. Now I just have to plan it out and start trying until I get a decent enough product. Thanks again.  -DJ

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