How to Make a Ship in a Bottle

By Clive Monk

This vintage book contains an detailed, step-by-step guide to constructing model ships in bottles. Complete with simple, clear instructions and handy, detailed illustrations, this book is ideal for those with an interest in making bottle ships, and it would make for a wonderful addition to collections of model-making literature. The chapters of this book include: “Model Building”, “The Tools”, “The Bottle”, “The Hull”, “The Rigging”, “Deck Erections and Painting”, “The Sea”, “Folding, Inserting and Erecting”, “The Finishing Touches”, “Dimple Bottle Model”, and “Four Mast Barque”. Although old, the information contained within these pages is timeless, and will be of considerable utility to the modern reader with an interest in model ship building. This book is being republished now in an affordable, modern edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on model building.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: May 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473387003

Book preview

Sark

INTRODUCTION

IF you love the sea, yet know little of it; if you have dreamed the old dreams; if the wanderlust has ever pinched your heart but never turned your head; if you have lost yourself for one fleet moment in the billowing white sails of a clipper which heeled disturbingly upon a Christmas calendar; then come with me and build a little ship. A ship which will embody all that is so desirable. The wind-filled curves of the sails, the indomitable courage and grace of the clipper bow, the reckless joyousness of the skysails and flying jibs—a tall ship of your own, built in the old fashion.

Alas, the days of the old sailing ships are gone. Here and there in odd corners of the seven seas clipper ships still sail, but the sea ever took her toll and the gallant vanished sails are never replaced. They lie in a thousand nameless graves, their passing bewailed by every man who ever knew their tiny fo’-castles. Their timbers rot in a hundred seas—but their memory marches on, for the tall ships are symbolic of the timbre of the British seaman.

What wonderful names these ships possessed—Thermopylœ, Red Jacket, Sir Lancelot, Macquarie, Cutty Sark—and what equally wonderful passages they made! Thermopylœ made the run from Melbourne to London in sixty days. Sir Lancelot made the passage from Foochow to the English Channel in ninety days. The Cutty Sark sailed 1,050 miles in three days—she was one of the fastest clippers the world has known. Built at Dumbarton in 1869, her name conjures up all the romance and legend of the clippers. It is this gallant Sea Queen whose modelling has been chosen for the purpose of this book.

1. THE TOOLS

THE tools you will require for making a ship in a bottle are the simplest possible, and the majority of them can be found within the average home tool-box. A wood chisel—1/2-in. size will do admirably—a pair of wire-cutting pliers, a 6-in. medium rough metal file, a few single-edge razor blades and a coarse hacksaw blade comprise all the tools needed.

The paints required are navy blue, sea green, black, white and gold. Small tins of oil paint in these colours can be obtained from any ironmonger. The two small water-colour paint brushes that are needed can be bought from your local stationery store. A packet of pins, a tube of glue and a reel of 60 gauge black cotton complete the kit. Many of these items can undoubtedly be found about the house, but indeed if the reader found it necessary to purchase every item mentioned he would be very little the worse off financially.

2. THE BOTTLE

THE bottle is, of course, the first thing to be found. A well-known distillery bottles whisky in short ‘dimple’ bottles, which are ideally shaped to contain ship models and show