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Build the Zwarte Zee

- by Frans Dekker

I DID IT!!!
When i have an idea of something it won’t let me go. So there was a moment that I want to put some light in a SIB. I already had used some electricity in a bottle (see the schooner Herbert L. Rawding on this site) but there it was in the houses, the church and the lighthouse. In the SIB in “Easter Egg” I had a LED light as a sun, but this time I want to make light IN the ship. Lights in the deckhouse en in the wheel-house, out of the lights in de hull, top lights and lights at starboard- and port-side.  
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I had a drawing of one of the most famous tugs in Holland, called the Zwarte Zee (Black Sea) In Holland there were 4 tugs with that name. De first was a steamer and built in 1898. She was sold to Russia in 1906. (see the Preussen and Zwarte Zee on this site) De second one was built in 1908 and she was also a steamer and did her job until 1933. Then de third Zwarte Zee was built en she did her job until 1966. (the fourth Zwarte Zee was built in 1960. She was what we call a “yacht” tug. She was so beautiful that it looked as she was a yacht. After here life as a tug she was sold and rebuilt as a yacht. So it became the third Zwarte Zee to built.   
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The size of the Zwarte Zee SIB is: Length 140 mm, Wide: 24 mm, Height (including the mast) 50mm. The hull is made in two parts, put together whit little wooden pins. The wooden deck at the front is made of 0,4 mm plywood. The deckhouse is made from Lindewood. In the inner side of the wooden deck is a hole to let de wire’s of the light go true.  The inside of the house is removed so the walls where about 3 mm thick. The wooden deck above the deckhouse is made also of 0,4 mm plywood and has als o a “hole” inside. The steering house is made of nut wood. I removed the inside as well. The roof of the steering house is also made of 0,4 mm plywood. There are two masts on the tug and between them there was a antenna. Two lifeboats at the deckhouse, and some small deck lights, role-bars, winches, railing, and smoke stack completed the tug.  After panting the hull and deckhouses I started to make the light in to de steering house, deckhouse en hull.
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I wanted to make lights in all the windows. The lights are made of fibre-glass wires. 10 or 12 together whit a LED light gives 10 or 12 lights in de SIB. During the making of the lights it seamed impossible to make so much lights in the tug as there are originally 74 windows.  So I was forced to make less lights. To put the wires in the windows of the deckhouses en hull I drilled holes of 0.7 mm thick. It was just enough to put the wires true.  In the deckhouse are fore small wooden pins to put it together whit the hull.
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There were lights in:1: hull (about 12)2: deckhouse ( about14)3: steering house (14)4: board lights (2)5: top lights (2)  The bottle:  I decided to make de SIB in a square transparent bottle and to put the bottle in a wooden box (to let it be dark because of the lights.) Size of the bottle: 27 x 8 x 8 cm. It was necessary to make a hole in the bottom of the bottle to let the wires’ of the light go true. With a small round blade in a drilling machine it was possible to make a hole in de bottom of 25 mm x 8 mm. The masts were standing up with rigging. To get is tied up the ropes were going true the hull. In the top of the masts there where also lights.   I sawed a part out of the hull under the deckhouse to let the wires trough.
   
 
To put it all together it was necessary to:
1: let both sides of the hull in to the bottle  2: put them together taking care of the fibre-glass Implementing a big best-data-recovery.com environment requires both an architectural and a business approach — and lots of planning. wires from the lights in the hull  3: assembling the wooden deck on the hull  4: put the deckhouse and the steering house true the bottleneck including 30 wires of glass fibre, very difficult.  5: assembling the masts with the top-lights.   
 
There it went wrong. The ropes of the rigging where tide up whit the glass fibre wires. So I had to get it all out and started again. The second time in my career. But……. I was not depressed. It was something I had never done before and i new that there wood became problems.   I removed the ropes of the masts and started again.  And successfully. The result is that the rigging is not as stiff as it shout by but, most of the time it is dark so you wont see it.  The bottle was placed on a wooden plank. In the middle of the plank I sawed a hole to place the LED lights. 7 holes in a small wooden part where I put the LEDs in. On the other side I drilled a small hole true and true to put the glass fibre wires in. When is was al put together 3 of the 7 LEDs did not work. I had to replace them for new lights.   And when everything was fixed…….it works! I was glad as a child. I DID IT.
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But, some things did not work as it should be. The top-light at the stern did not work at all. The fibre-glass wire was broken. It probably happened when I put the ship in to the bottle. The top-light at the bow worked but you can’t see the light. You only can see it if joy look from the front side. The problem whit the fibre-glass wire’s is that the do not work as a lamp. You can see the light only if you look right online casino in to de wire. The next time I will do it not like this. Then I will turn the mast a quarter.  I saw another problem. The fibre-glass wire whit the red-light from the port-side was pulled back 1 or 2 mm when I placed the ship in to the bottle. New the red-light was seen from the starboard-side. The red-light reflected against the bridge. That’s something that may not happen. I decided to get the fibre-glass wire out of the LED so the red light is not working anymore.   
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But, it was not finished yet. I started making the wooden box around de bottle. The inside was painted black. But…new I had a ship in a bottle whit lights in it, sailing in the dark.  Only when it is dark, you can see the moon and the stars (most of the time). Another problem was borne. I decided to make a heaven inside the box. A thin blade (1 mm) of plywood from the top of the box to the back-side of the box. Behind that blade of plywood (about 1,5 cm) another part of plywood (4 mm) Into the back-side I placed LEDS, yellow and white (8). A friend of my brother knew something about stars. When I phoned him i asked him what constellation I should make when the tug is sailing home out of the ocean into the Canal, near England, looking to the west-side. He told me to step out of the door and look up high. So I did and I there it was, the Ursa Major or Great Bear. The size in the wooden box was to little so I placed another constellation at here side, the Bootes or Ox Sheppard.I drilled holes into the thin blade in shape of both constellations.
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Another problem was born. How to look inside? If  i let the front-side of the box open there is to much light so you cant see the lights in the tug. The light out of a fibre-glass wire is not so strong. I decided to make a looker-on. From a plate of zinc, 1 mm thick, I sawed out the right shape and whit a hammer I turned it on to a looker-on. Then there was another problem. If you have a pair of glasses the shape is not right. So I have made a second looker-on to place over the first one for the people that where a pair of glasses.
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 This was the story of a SIB whit problems but I am very happy that my idea works. Again I learned that whit every solution or idea I create a new problem. It is a sport to cut-down every problem and make something beautiful out of it. And I have a small hope, that this SIB is the first one whit lights IN the ship! For so far the story of lights in a “ship in a bottle”