PRIVATEER SHIP IN BOTTLE KIT

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Hi all,
Been missing the hobby and this facet of it has always fascinated me so I found a cheep kit at eBay and thought I'd tackle it.
It'll be my first ever wooden ship and one that goes in a bottle to boot.
Was supposed to arrive Saturday, today, but didn't. I'll assume this week sometime and will post pix as I progress. :)
Here's the kit;

psib1.jpg
 
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I am looking forward to see how this little ship will come into the bottle
 
Well, guess what came in the mail yesterday? Yup, right. It's here and although it was classified as 'used' and 'open box' it appears to be in pretty good condition with the exception of the clay... HARD as a rock. LOL Not sure if it is revivable or not but I do have some FIMO coming as well. Resin is out of the question, living with a parrot and in a very very small apartment with inadequate ventilation so, clay will have to do. I know no other way to make 'clear' water without causing chemical fumes.

I've read all the instructions but understanding very little of them is going to be a real challenge for me having never built a wooden ship before. Fortunately, I don't believe they come any easier than this although, even with over 40 years of modeling experience I'm still going to have to ask a few ignorant questions as I progress. (Hope you don't mind.)
Sooooo, here I go... :cool:

psib3.jpg

Suggestions, tips, ideas and any kind of help will be much appreciated. :)
 
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That's a piece of great news, Rick. Down the road, once you start your build, there might be questions\suggestion. I guess, for now, you will acquire a new bottle of glue and will be ready for a new journey in a bottle ;)
 
Well, guess what came in the mail yesterday? Yup, right. It's here and although it was classified as 'used' and 'open box' it appears to be in pretty good condition with the exception of the clay... HARD as a rock. LOL Not sure if it is revivable or not but I do have some FIMO coming as well. Resin is out of the question, living with a parrot and in a very very small apartment with inadequate ventilation so, clay will have to do. I know no other way to make 'clear' water without causing chemical fumes.

I've read all the instructions but understanding very little of them is going to be a real challenge for me having never built a wooden ship before. Fortunately, I don't believe they come any easier than this although, even with over 40 years of modeling experience I'm still going to have to ask a few ignorant questions as I progress. (Hope you don't mind.)
Sooooo, here I go... :cool:

View attachment 242655

Suggestions, tips, ideas and any kind of help will be much appreciated. :)
we will try to help and assist - and I guess here are several members knowing how to make a ship in the bottle....
 
Rick, based on what I see in your photo of the parts, I would recommend making your own sails. You can use the kit supplied sail sheet as a pattern if you like. It has been my experience that most SIB kit supplied sails that they are usually too thick and the lines are too fat. I use ordinary office paper (Hammermill, acid free, 20lb.) that I buy from Office Depot. I put a very thin wash of Liquitex Heavy Body acrylic (in a tube). The color is Unbleached Titanium (available at Michael's or Hobby Lobby). The wash will cause the paper to pucker when it dries. I like the pucker effect, but you can press it flat with an ordinary clothes iron, if you wish. I then draw on the lines in with a very sharp 4H or 6H pencil and then lightly erase most of them with a white eraser until it looks "right." For the sea, I use a combination of blue, green, and white Plastilina which is simply an artist's grade modeling clay you can buy at Michael's. (Do not use Playdough since it contains water and it will eventually "rain" inside your bottle!). I roll out three "worms" of each color, then twist them together and knead it until it "looks right." I prefer swirls of the colors rather than a monotonous glob of uniform blue/green.. A great first timer book on SIBs is Guy DeMarco's book entitled, "Ships in Bottles." It is available from Amazon for $14.95. His numerous photos showing how to put the ship in the bottle are worth far more than the price of the book.
 
Well, guess what came in the mail yesterday? Yup, right. It's here and although it was classified as 'used' and 'open box' it appears to be in pretty good condition with the exception of the clay... HARD as a rock. LOL Not sure if it is revivable or not but I do have some FIMO coming as well. Resin is out of the question, living with a parrot and in a very very small apartment with inadequate ventilation so, clay will have to do. I know no other way to make 'clear' water without causing chemical fumes.

I've read all the instructions but understanding very little of them is going to be a real challenge for me having never built a wooden ship before. Fortunately, I don't believe they come any easier than this although, even with over 40 years of modeling experience I'm still going to have to ask a few ignorant questions as I progress. (Hope you don't mind.)
Sooooo, here I go... :cool:

View attachment 242655

Suggestions, tips, ideas and any kind of help will be much appreciated. :)
Hello Jack. I have been building ships in bottles for many years and have had the good fortune to teach classes in it as well. Most kits are often less than generous with vital information and I will; be happy to offer the aid I can. Unfortunately, ships in bottles are tricky and will try your patience. On the other hand, they are small, so errors can be easily corrected, and once done, they are much, much easier to keep clean. All the best for a good outcome.

Alex.jpg
 
Hi Alex,
I build a ship in a bottle many years ago be it plastic it was very enjoyable doing it I still have it ( see photo)

View attachment 243334
I was inspired by a similar kit my parents bought when my brothers and I were pretty young and we all assembled "together", though I wonder how that really worked out.
FIMO is a good alternative to your hardened "sea clay" and many ship in bottlers are happy with it. I think it's available in many craft stores. I like glazing putty but it's much messier to work with. It needs to be colored by mixing in oil paints, usually Ultramarine Blue and a bit of Cadmium Orange to cut the brightness of the blue. This is time consuming and, of course, don't wear your best shirt when doing this. Then it needs to be formed into a "patty" and left to soak out the excess oil on sheets of newspaper for a couple of days. Afterwards it can be worked into the bottle with a putty tamper. It does gradually harden but will remain somewhat flexible for months as you finish your ship.
But again, many folks are quite satisfied with FIMO, and you are quite free to take my advice with a grain of salt. I may have done all this for a while, but I'm not building your model. You are.
If you find a copy, the old book by Don Hubbard, "Ships in Bottles; A Step-By-Step Guide to Venerable Nautical Craft" is the best I've found on the subject. It came out in hardcover around 1978 and he republished in paperback in 1988
 
PROGRESS REPORT;
Hi guys,
I bought a bunch of FIMO clay on ebay so am glad to hear I did right there. I also bought a couple empty bottles/jugs for my next venture... scratch building one.
I planned to use tea-bags paper for the sails. That should be thin enough and look pretty good, I think. I believe I'll be able to paint/stain 'em off-white.

OK, the instructions say to draw 1mm lines with a sharp pencil for the deck boards. Not me, I want 'real' boards so have been trying to scribe the lines into the ship body/deck/wood to make them look like real boards. :) That has been a challenge but I did finely get it going. I almost cut 1mm boards and actually layed the decking down. I still may... :cool: It's all a bit small tho.

Many thanks and until next time,
Happy sailing!
 
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Hello Rick,
When I make models from plastic, there was a product like a self-adhesive wooden deck. It is made from real wood and fits in to scale 1:350 or 1:700. The deck is made for a specific model\brand and is spot on. However, they also sell sheets so you can cut your own deck. Here is an example I found, it might not fit exactly your scale, but you will have an idea.

1626440828723.png
 
PROGRESS REPORT;
Hi guys,
I bought a bunch of FIMO clay on ebay so am glad to hear I did right there. I also bought a couple empty bottles/jugs for my next venture... scratch building one.
I planned to use tea-bags paper for the sails. That should be thin enough and look pretty good, I think. I believe I'll be able to paint/stain 'em off-white.

OK, the instructions say to draw 1mm lines with a sharp pencil for the deck boards. Not me, I want 'real' boards so have been trying to scribe the lines into the ship body/deck/wood to make them look like real boards. :) That has been a challenge but I did finely get it going. I almost cut 1mm boards and actually layed the decking down. I still may... :cool: It's all a bit small tho.

Many thanks and until next time,
Happy sailing!
Nice idea about the deck planking. It adds a nice feature.
I struggled with all sorts of ideas for sails, including using cigarette papers for small models. For the time being I've settled on a light weight printer paper colored with a warm gray magic marker and scribed with the point of a common pin, held in a pin vise, to simulate the seams of the sail cloths. Your hard pencil point would probably work just as well as the pin. This model of a fishing schooner is about 4" high, probably a bit larger than your model.
 

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Alex, I'd like to know a blow by blow instruction on how you did your water.
I've watched a number of vids at YouTube but the more I see the better I will be able to emulate the process. Thanks.
 
Alex, I'd like to know a blow by blow instruction on how you did your water.
I've watched a number of vids at YouTube but the more I see the better I will be able to emulate the process. Thanks.
There are, of course, a variety of options people use for creating the sea in a bottle. Plasticine seems to be the most popular, my old friend Gil Charbonneau of Maine preferred that. FIMO may be a form of plasticine, I’m not sure. I only used it once, for a kit review, because that’s what came with the kit. On Gil’s advice, I put the plasticine in the bottle and set it in a cool oven. In a few minutes the plasticine melted and adhered evenly to the glass. I lifted the bottle out carefully, to keep the liquified clay from slopping around inside the bottle and as it cooled, gently chopped up the surface with a coat hanger wire to simulate an active sea surface. Otherwise, the surface would have been perfectly smooth. I only did this once.

As I wrote before, my preferred material is glazing putty, colored with artists oils. First, I determine how much putty will be needed adding water to the bottle until the level looks right and measuring the amount in a measuring cup. It’s important to be sure the bottle is completely dry before putting any putty or clay in. The I mx the appropriate amount, usually with a bit extra, with the blue and orange paint. A cheap pie plate works well as a mixing container and a small putty knife and/or flat blade screwdriver work well for the mixing. It’s hard to know how much paint to add, so start with small amounts and add more as needed. It is possible to add too much and the putty begins to take on a texture like cake frosting. This will be hard to work with and will have plenty of excess oil that could eventually damage your model. It’s best to go for consistent color.

Even if you are careful with the amount of paint, the colored putty will still have some excess oil. This eventually will darken the natural wood surfaces, such as the deck, and the sails will also darken and become translucent. Once this is consistently through the model it gives it an appealing “aged” look and the oil will probably help preserve it. But unfortunately, this takes place over a few years and the sails change color in random order, so for quite a while it looks really awful. To keep this from happening I form the putty into a “patty” and leave it on newspapers to let the excess oil seep out. I usually set it out after mixing it, leave it overnight and turn it over on fresh paper I the morning. The following evening it gets turned once more and by the next morning it can be used. You want to keep some oil in the mix so it will be malleable, but not enough to mess up the model.

You can insert the putty into the bottle in a number of small pieces laid out along the “bottom” of the bottle, but I prefer rolling it into” snakes” that can be dropped through the neck and mashed down where you want the putty. You will have to make some kind of “putty tamper”. Most of my tampers are simply wooden disks sawn from dowels, drilled in the center and epoxied to coat hanger wire. Some tools made this way have lasted me over 40 years. The tamping process is time consuming but rewarding in the long run. The quality of the work done here will plays an important part of the atmosphere and mood inside where your ship will be seen and enjoyed. There are two goals at once; make the adherence of the putty to the glass even and free from “cracks” in putty or gaps. And make the water surface even and smooth as possible. Sure, you want some motion along the surface, but a ship skimming along an even sea is more compelling that a vision of the vessel out on wild night just before the masts are about go by the board.

Attached is a picture of three putty “patties” soaking the oil out. Please note the color is not that dark. It does darken a bit on its own over time. This was for a trio of 2 liter schooners from a few years ago.
 

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WOW! Great! That is very very helpful, Alex. Much appreciated. Way better than most YouTube videos. :)
I didn't know Plasticine would 'melt to liquid?' I don't think FIMO will do that. I understand putting heat to FIMO will set it up hard. I do like the 'melting' process tho. I don't want to use epoxy or resin cuz of the fumes and my pets. Living on the 8th floor of a HUD project for seniors gives me no place to work except in the apartment itself.
Rolling it into 'snakes' looks like the way I'll be doing it. :cool:

OK, many thanks again, Okay Thumbs-Up
 
Hi all,
Say, can anyone tell me what kind of ship this is so I can research it for details? The manufacturer calls it, Privateer. Is it even a real ship?
I like details and in my opinion details or the lack thereof, either make or break a model.


sib-4.jpg

sib-5.jpg

These are the best pix I could find for this model.

Thanks,
 
Hello, Rick. Looking at the way she is rigged in the picture, having the fore and mainmast rigged 'square', and mizzen mast rigged fore & aft, it looks to me as three-masted bark.

Giving the scale is extremely small, it is difficult to recognize a naming ship. Technically speaking, it would be difficult to reproduce the exact or similar match of deck furniture or other details. Building ships in a bottle differed from traditional static models. The size of the model dictates how narrow is the neck in the giving bottle and how wide is the bottle itself. Small details are often omitted due to a lack of visibility, in favor of all-over appearances
 
Good information, Jim. We all must realize that ships in bottles can be split down the middle (hulls) to double it's size then reassembled back inside the bottle. :cool:

OK, maybe it's a three-masted barque. Anybody else have any ideas as to what the above pictured ship might be OR has Jimsky hit the nail on the head?

tmb1.jpg

Remarkable find, Jimsky. :)

Thanks again,
 
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Salut tout le monde,
Le passe-temps me manquait et cette facette m'a toujours fasciné, alors j'ai trouvé un kit bon marché sur eBay et j'ai pensé m'y attaquer.
Ce sera mon tout premier navire en bois et celui qui va dans une bouteille pour démarrer.
Je devais arriver samedi, aujourd'hui, mais ne l'a pas fait. Je supposerai cette semaine un jour et posterai des photos au fur et à mesure que je progresse.:)
Voici la trousse ;

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Bonjour monsieur. J'ai le même kit, mais il me manque le papier avec les figures. Est-ce que vous pourriez me le scanner s'il vous plaît? Merci.

Hello sir. I have the same kit, but I am missing the paper with the figures. Could you scan it for me please? Thank you.
 
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