Ship Model Making

A Ship-In-A-Bottle. Part 2

The easiest and neatest way to set up the rigging is to bore holes through the hull into the opening beneath as shown in Fig. 2. Thread a No. 9 needle with the heavy thread and start by pegging the thread end in the foremast hole; then reeve through the mastheads and holes until all are up and tight when the mast is in position. The lifts and braces for each yard can be rigged as one. Start at one yardarm with a knot, reeve through the masthead, and knot to the other yardarm. Then, for the braces, reeve through the hole in the other mast or through the hull and carry the thread back to the first yardarm. The lift part of these lines should be painted black. All these threads must slide readily through their holes. Rubbing them with wax helps. The completely rigged model is shown in Fig. 3. You may give the model topmast shrouds, rove through the top and a hole below the yard, and if you care to take the time, you may also add ratlines (steps) of very fine silk, although this is rarely attempted. Now ease up the forestay, lay the yards along the masts, and lay the masts down on the deck. Make sure that all will go into the neck of the bottle, but do not let the model slip through. Draw it out and see if the masts will stand up again and the yards swing across. Then fold them down snugly once more.

Fasten the bottle with a clamp so that it will not slip about while you are working on it. Put a layer of blue or green colored putty in the bottle after adding a little varnish to make it more tacky and to insure that it will dry firmly. The best way to place the putty in the bottle is to roll it into a thin "sausage," lay it on a strip of paper or thin tin, and, holding the putty in the bottle with a wooden paddle, withdraw the paper or tin. Then spread the putty in position. Sit in a good light and slide the hull with its gear into the bottle (see Fig. 5.). With a long, stiff wire, press it into the putty sea. Untangle the ends of the stays which extend from the neck and, still holding the model down, pull them one after the other, but be careful to do all the straining on the lower stays (see Fig. 5). At the same time, help the masts to rise with a bent wire.

Fig. 4

When you have all the masts up, fasten the threads to the neck of the bottle, outside, and put a touch of glue where they come out of the hawse pipe and through the jib boom. Next, use the wire hook to swing the yards into position. After the glue is dry, cut the lines off close with a sharpened wire such as is shown in Fig. 4. Additional picturesque touches can be added by inserting a lighthouse on a rock, a pilot boat or tugboats, and one or more fishing smacks in the water alongside. As the ship is to be without sails, one or both anchor cables should come from the hawse pipes to the water. If you desire your model to be fitted with sails, the procedure will be practically the same. When the model is completed outside of the bottle, cut the sails from tough tissue paper to fit the yards, allowing sufficient slack for the belly, and glue them to the yards and stays. The sails then can be folded or rolled for insertion into the bottle. Later, when the putty sea has hardened, make a hook of steel wire long enough to reach the end of the model inside the bottle.

Fig. 5

Dip this hook in boiling water, and, starting with the mizzen sails, quickly insert it between the mast and the sail and pull gently with a slight up and down motion to iron a belly in the sail. You probably will be able to iron two sails before the hook cools. Finally, heat the hook until you can just touch it without burning yourself and repeat the ironing process on the dampened sails. Many expert ship-in-a-bottle makers prefer window shade cloth to tissue paper. By rolling each sail between your fingers before attaching it, you can form the belly. Incidentally, not all ships are put in quart bottles. Some are made to stand upright in squat bottles, square bottles, and large and small flasks. A particularly attractive lamp can be made by mounting a ship in the base of a decorative three-cornered bottle or pinch flask and providing the open mouth with a suitable attachment.