botter

The Botter

The newest vessel in the ships series is the “Botter”. A vessel that was mostly used for fishing on great lakes and along the shore. The “Botter” became in use somewhere between 1800 and 1850. Nowadays this vessel is still popular for recreational purposes.

After cutting up three row boats I started with a larger plaster form. Since I like the second row boat with the more curved front I decided to do a similar form on this next vessel. Looking for reference material I came across this ship the “Botter”.

I haven’t made pictures of the ongoing cutting process but I do have some info I would like to share with you.

This ship is roughly the same size as the medium vessel. If you compare the two you will see that over the years my style changes or improves or whatever you would like to call it. Working with more detail is one thing but I also wanted to make a vessel that is complete when it comes to all the mast parts.
In the picture above you see all the cast parts that makes up a “Botter”. You might notice the metal ends that stick out of the mast parts. Actually the metal bars run through the whole mast part in order to give it more strength and prevent it from bending or breaking. It also make it possible to put sails on the boat and attach ropes to the mast parts.
The two tiny fork like parts belong to the end of the mast parts. This piece will grip around the mast. The tiny part on the right, just above the main mast, is the end plate that goes to the rear of the bow part.

As I mentioned, no pictures of the cutting process itself but I would like to share two more ideas with you that I used on this vessel.

I am planning on assembling the “Botter” twice. One with the sail in and one with the sails in use. I started making this ship with the sails in. I still needed fabric for the sails so I did a little test with two pieces of cloth and a bowl of strong hot tea with good results.
Two pieces of cloth stayed in the bowl over night and the most simple cloth, plain sheets from the bed, worked best. It consumes the tea well and more important changes color nicely to a crème brown. Perfect for my future sail. Now I did try the same thing using strong coffee but surprisingly this did not work that well.

Another thing I would like to share with you is the use of rope on the vessel. I decided I needed black rope on this project. My favorite ships rope however is white so I decided to use acrylic paint to paint the rope black and brush it grey. Now this may sound strange but in the end I got a nice black (less flexible) rope that works perfectly on the mast sections. I will use this technique on my future vessel projects for sure.

The finished ship:

Painting up the vessel I use my favorite color setting. A raw umber base coat and a yellow ochre brush. The smooth wooden parts get a terracotta red color and are also brushed lightly with yellow ochre.
Details on the ship are the hinges on the little door at the front and the hatch on deck. Also at the rear I added hinges (all of those are already there in the actual resin cast) on the rudder as well as below the steering stick of the rudder, the metal circular bar.
Details I added just for fun are the little orange banner on top (sanded toothpick with thin metal plate) and the Dutch flag upon the rudder.
The two “swords”, one on either side are the actual keel of the ship. Those where simply glued on. In a future sailing version of this ship (with sails fully out) I will adjust these swords as if they are lowered in to the water.

This raps up this project. Hopefully I will add a new vessel soon to the ships page.

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