Make a Ship in a Bottle

ow can someone possibly squeeze a model of a sailboat, or even more astounding, a model of a fully rigged clipper ship, into a bottle? The opening is way too small. There has to be a trick and there is. You really do squeeze the boat in through that little opening. You build the boat outside the bottle with all its masts, sails, and rigging folded back toward the stern. Then you slip it in, glue it in place, and thenwith the pull of a threadpop up the masts and everything attached to them. Its a neat trick, though it requires a steady hand and some patience. Heres what youll need:
3-liter soda bottle Goo Gone or WD-40 artists brush blue paint 5-inch length of pine or basswood sandpaper x-acto carving knife 2 wooden cooking skewers or dowels glue drill magnet wire black thread tissue paper long stick tweezers

1. Wash out the soda bottle and remove the label. Remove any stubborn adhesive with Goo Gone or WD-40. 2. Lay the bottle on its side and, using a long artists brush, paint a blue ocean for your boat to sail on along what is now the bottom of the bottle. 3. Measure the opening of the bottle and carve the widest hull that will pass through the openingprobably about 1 inches wide. You can use a piece of pine you might find lying around, or basswood obtained from a hobby shop. 4. Cut a 312-inch mast from a cooking skewer or a thin dowel. 5. Cut another piece of skewer about 2 inches long to make a bowsprit (the pole or in proper sailor speak, the sparthat sticks out from the front of a traditional sailboat). 5. Using a pin or needle, push a small hole into one end of the mast and the bowsprit. 6. Glue one-quarter of the length of the bowsprit to the deck at the bow, making sure the hole you drilled is on the outer end. 7. Figure out where youd like the mast to go on the hull, and drill two small holes through the hull on either side of the mast. Poke the magnet wire through the hole in the mast, bend it into a U, pass the ends through the holes in the hull, bend them up onto the hull bottom so they wont come out, and glue the ends in place. Check to see that the mast pivots up and down easily, and adjust as necessary.

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Now its time to get creative. You have a choice of how to rig your boat. It can be a modern sloop with a triangular jib (the small sail in front of the mast) and mainsail (the larger sail behind the mast) with a boom along its bottom edgein which case it will be Marconi-rigged. Or it can have a four-cornered mainsail with a gaff (a pole) along the top edge as well as a boom (another pole) along the bottom edgein which case it will be gaff-rigged. (The gaff and boom, by the way, are two more examples of spars, and the mast is yet another example.) Or it can be a cutter with two jibs, or it can be square-rigged if you add a square sail. 8. Rig the boat using black thread for rigging and tissue paper for sails. The key is the headstaythe thread that leads from the top of the mast through the hole in the bowsprit and out. With the rig lowered toward the stern, see if you can haul it up into place with all rigging taut and sails in place by pulling on the headstay. Keep adjusting the rigging until everything lies flatpointing straight back and looks shipshape when you haul on the headstay to pull it up. Be patient; this may take a while. 9. When youre finished, complete your vessel with a trim paint job. 10. Using the long stick, spread slow-setting glue on the water in the bottle where the boat will sit. Grip the bowsprit with tweezers and slide the boat into the bottle and onto the glue, making sure the end of the headstay is hanging out of the bottle. Use the stick to push the boat down into the glue for a better grip, and let the boat sit overnight. 11. Now for the grand finale. Pull the headstay to erect the rig and tension all the rigging. Keep light tension on the stay while you put a dab of glue over the bowsprit hole with a stick. Let that dry, cut off the excess thread, and display with pride.
Using a long artists brush, paint the inside Carve a hull that will fit through the
bottle opening.

bottom of the bottle blue. You will glue the hull to this.

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 Glue the bowsprit. Attach the mast to the deck

using wire run through the hole you drilled at the base of the mast and the two holes drilled through the hull.

Rig the boat with a headstay (black thread) run

through the end of the boom, the top of the mast, and the hole at the end of the bowsprit.

Attach the tissue-paper sails to the mast,

boom, and headstay. Lower the rig to the stern.

After spreading glue on the blue bottom

of the bottle, slide the hull into the bottle, stern first. Position the hull with a rod or skewer, making sure the headstay thread is hanging outside the bottle mouth. Let the hull dry overnight. Gently pull on the headstay to raise the mast and sails. Once the stay is taut, glue it to the bowsprit, cutting off the excess thread.

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