Project 4: Ship Out of a Bottle

This is the realization of the project I tried to do two weeks ago and couldn't. See project 2. I decided to make a ship out of a bottle. Like a ship in a bottle, but a little less intense. 

The Process:

I started with a wine bottle. One of the more frustrating parts of this project was getting the labels off the bottle. Shouldn't be that hard right? Wrong! Try 20 minutes of scrubbing with soapy hot water. Annoying. 

So the way to cut a wine bottle in half is to score the bottle, then take a candle and heat the score line until it starts cracking, then submerge the bottle into cold water. The heat differential causes the bottle to break. Although, I had a slightly scary experience with this bottle. There was a small amount of water in the bottle while I was heating the score lines. The water vaporized and pressure built up and a piece of the bottle just shot out. Thankfully, it did not shoot in the direction of my face.

Not quite half a bottle, but a chunk is missing.

Unfortunately, the heat caused another part of the bottle to crack. But it wasn't bad enough to prevent me from using the bottle.

Cracked :/

I drilled two holes into the base of my ship and glued in wooded dowels, which would serve as my masts. I wanted to use a clear bottle so I could make rooms below deck and actually have them seen. So I had to add in a floor.

I glued in two walls. My three rooms are a holding pen for pirates (I think it's called the brig?), the captain's room and the sailors' quarters.  I got to test out my sculpey skills to make the furnishings of the rooms. The cloth things are supposed to be hammocks.

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Overview

Captain's room

The Brig 

Sailor's Quarter

The next phase was creating the above deck area. I cut out a wood floor. I put up my sails and made a rope ladder. On deck, there are 2 cannons, a pile of cannon balls, a barrel and, of course, a steering wheel.

Avast!

Sailor's quarter with ambiance. 

Captain's room. Note the bookshelf.

 Final Product:

If I had more time and patience, I would have liked to add a crow's nest, more rope and maybe draw in some portholes below deck. But as you can see, I'm a little past the deadline. But I think 3:45 am on Friday counts as late Thursday night, don't you?