Building a Ship in a Bottle

Ever stare down a ship in a bottle, scratching your head, wondering how the heck it was made? You're not alone. Building a ship in a bottle is a difficult task that requires a lot of patience and practice, some skills and a few simple tools. Here is a beginner's guide to building a ship in a bottle.

The first step in building a ship in a bottle is gathering all the items you'll need. Of course, what you need depends largely on the type of ship in a bottle you'd like to build. Boyslife.org offers a very comprehensive guide to building a ship in a bottle, and if you're a beginner, you might like to try following their lead. Boys' Life recommends purchasing a Raingutter Regatta kit from scoutstuff.org, the official Boy Scouts of America retail store.

In addition to the kit, you'll require a bottle. If you're using the Raingutter Regatta kit, you'll need a plastic three-liter soft drink container. As you become more experienced, you can experiment with other types of bottles. The best bottles to use are clear and hand-blown, with flat bottoms. You'll also need sandpaper, epoxy, blue paint and white glue, straight pins, tissue paper, shellac, florist's wire, quilting thread (black and tan in color), hobby basswood, and a bamboo skewer (which you can find at most grocery stores).

The tools you'll use include a knife, scissors, tweezers, nail clippers, a pencil, a steel ruler, cotton swabs, a paint brush, and a pin vise drill.

The trick to building a ship in a bottle is to construct the ship outside the bottle. Most ship-in-a-bottle builders construct sailing ships with masts that collapse like umbrellas, folding back along the deck of the hull. Then the ship can be carefully slid through the neck of the bottle. Once the ship is safely inside the bottle, the mast can safely be raised.

Many expert ship-in-a-bottle builders use tinted putty for the sea at the bottom of the bottle. The putty is tooled and accented with acrylic paints in order to give the water a feel of movement, like ocean waves. This can take up to eight weeks to dry, so although it's effective, you may want to experiment with different faster-drying materials.

Building a ship in a bottle is a challenging endeavor, but it can be an enjoyable hobby. Once you master sailing ships, you may decide to move on to container ships, aircraft carriers and destroyers. Just be sure to have patience and confidence, use the listed online resources, and always take your time.

Resources:
boyslife.org
scoutstuff.org
seafearer.netfirms.com