Date Added: 29 October 2009
From the Artist: "At the shipyards of former employers there were always half models of different kind of ships at the office. In the old days the were made to look at the way the under water part of the ship was good and to look what was the best way the metal plates of the hull good put together. In contrary to a usual ship in a bottle the difficulty is not the masts and rigging but the shape of the under water part of a ship. A wooden board in the middle of the bottle was made of 2 mm thick triplex. The plates of the board (17 mm wide and 60 mm long) are fitted in small wooden sticks of 5 x 5 mm. in the sticks I sawed a groove. The groove was to wide so I had to make a smaller part to fill it up. (painted yellow) Al the parts are painted in different colours. Then it was time to look at the models. For this model I chose the "City of Amsterdam." She is one of the most beautiful and fastest clippers ever. She was made in Holland in the year 2000. I also made a second half hull model called the "Noach," a Dutch ship built to transport cargo in 1857 and in here days in Holland very famous. (that model can be seen under Bottle ID 768). I built the (under water part of the) City of Amsterdam out of planks from peer wood and maple, 1 mm thick. The right shape of the hulls were seen in different kind of books about ships. Small copies of the different water lines were glued on the wooden planks so the right shape good be sawed en cut of. After the planks ware put together with glue the upper part where put on the lower parts of the hull by wooden sticks. Then is was time to make the hull in the right shape. With knives, small axes, files and sand paper (starting with no 80 than 120 and the latest 250) the (half) hull’s were prepared in to the right shape. The lowest parts of the hull’s, especially where the rudder is placed, where so thin that I had to put 1 mm triplex at the backside of the models. The shape of the keelson, stem and rudder is seen on the triplex. The upper part of the City of Amsterdam is painted black en the deck is painted light brown. I finished the model with line-seed oil. For the stand I choose a slipway made of oak wood. The bottle is 280mm x 75mm and the diameter of the bottle opening 22mm." Frans Dekker, Artist
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