Build the New River Bridge in a Bottle

No doubt you’ve seen a ship in a bottle. It’s an impressive illusion that is achieved by building a small ship with collapsible masts that can be raised with a string once it’s inside the bottle. In this article, you’ll be introduced to techniques you can use to build something less conventional – not only the New River Bridge[1] but an entire scene as well.

The basic idea to keep in mind when considering any intra-bottle creation is that everything must either be small enough to go through the neck of the bottle, or must come apart into pieces small enough to do so. Although this article is about building a specific bridge and scene, the techniques can be used to make a variety of other projects. So, without further ado, here is the information to get you started building your own bottle creation.

Steps

  1. Seek inspiration. What kind of scene or object would be interesting to put into a bottle? What subject will be able to hold your interest over the many hours needed to complete the project? Perhaps a simple scene would be good to start with. People have been putting creations into bottles for centuries, and a browsing around the internet might yield some inspiration.
  2. Choose a bottle that is right for your creation. Consider the size of the object or the design of your scene. Would a long skinny bottle be best, laid on its side? Would a short fat bottle be best, used upright? Many people use clear liquor bottles, but you may want something more elegant. Often the best bottles are clear, cork-type (without threads), free of distortions, Fix Scratched Glasses, and other damage, and have a neck opening that allows you sufficient access. Another consideration is the length of the neck – a short neck allows much better access to all parts of the bottle, including the difficult-to-access ‘shoulders’ of the bottle, just inside the neck opening.
    • Cleaning bottles yourself can be a waste of time]]Empty bottles are everywhere, but finding the right one may take some persistence. Antique shops are a good source of older, elegant cork-type bottles.
    • You might find the right bottle, but be disappointed if old age has left it clouded, scratched, or otherwise compromised. Not to worry – there are professional bottle cleaning services that can tumble the bottle on a machine and polish it to like-new condition, all for just a few bucks. Or you can try cleaning the bottle yourself, but some mineral deposits can be nearly impossible to get out.
  3. Assemble the tools. The tools needed will depend on what you’re creating, but generally you'll need long, slender pieces of wire or wood, which can be bent or shaped to suit the task at hand. One tool that will prove very useful if you're getting serious about your project is something called an ear polypus, which is like a long skinny pliers. This photo shows a simple tool made from coat hanger wire.
  4. Create the scenery base. The scenery base in this bottle was created using a two-part epoxy clay called Epoxy Sculpt. Using gloves, mix the clay until it is a uniform color, and roll it into little logs. The clay will stick to the end of a tool, and can be lowered through the bottle’s mouth.
  5. Make a swab tool. Try to avoid touching the inside of the bottle with the clay in places where you won’t be putting the landscape, since it will leave smudges which you’ll have to go back and wipe out, which is very time consuming. In fact, keeping the inside of the bottle clean is one of the most time-consuming and tedious parts of this process. Prevention is the best remedy, but you'll ultimately spend plenty of time with your swab tool doing damage control.
    • To make a swab tool, take a small rectangle of paper towel and tape it around the end of a piece of clothes-hanger wire. Moisten it with a solvent like epoxy Safety Solvent (to remove clay smudges) or window cleaner. You will use and discard many swabs in keeping your bottle project clean.
  6. As you add clay logs, flatten them using a tool that can take some pressure. This tool was made from ¼” (6mm) steel gas line tubing. It may take a while for you to learn how to shape and flatten the clay logs so that they contact the glass evenly with few trapped air bubbles.
  7. Create a clean-looking layer of black in the shape of the landscape, that acts as a visual barrier, and which can be filled with more Apoxie or other materials. The working time for Apoxie is about three hours, so you may need to mix new batches as you go. If you're leaving the project for long enough that the Apoxie will dry, try to think of how to best shape the edges of the Apoxie you’ve already placed so that joining fresh Apoxie later on won't create crevasses or air pockets that will be visible outside the bottle.
  8. Use a cardboard dummy of the bridge to help with the planning of the Apoxie Create Basic Model Train Scenery base as it is built up. Based on the size of the bottle, it was decided that the 3030-foot-long bridge would be built to a scale of 1:6060, yielding a model {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} long.
  9. Build the arch from styrene strips. Scale-dimension styrene is available from a few companies in the US, or you can cut your own strips from styrene sheets using a razor blade and ruler. For the arch, styrene strips can be bent around the diameter of a stack of CDs glued together, and held in place with pins while glued.
    • Bents (the vertical support pieces) for the bridge can be made from strips of copper mesh, cut in strips to form the x-bracing, and sandwiched by styrene strips.
    • The height of the bents should be checked with the arch to ensure a flat surface for the deck.
  10. Make the road deck from styrene sheet and strips.
  11. To make sure that the bridge has a correctly-shaped contour to sit on once it is inserted in the bottle, create a pair of step-forms from square styrene tubing.
    • These became part of a structural frame that was inserted in pieces into the bottle and reformed to hold the exact negative space that the bridge would occupy.
  12. Cement the step-forms into the landscape using Apoxie. The two connector pieces can be removed.
  13. With the landscape in its near-final shape, and with the step-forms in place, add the color and texture needed to bring the scene to life. Trees can be made from bits of Woodland Scenics ground foam, and inserted individually. Use a wire tool to apply small dabs of white glue inside the bottle, then wipe off the end of the tool and lightly lick it; your saliva will be sticky enough to pick up a tiny tree tuft, but less sticky than the glue spot, so applying the tree is relatively easy.
    • Exfoliating this bottle took about one hour per square inch of forest, with the most time consuming parts being the distant hills, where smaller tree tufts were used to give the illusion of distance.
    • The furthest background mountains can be painted with acrylic paints, using an improvised brush. Cut a very small commercial brush short, and insert a brass wire in a hole in its stub, which can then be inserted in a hole drilled in the end of a kebab skewer. This allows the brush to be bent to reach different areas inside the bottle. You may want to experiment with the length of the wire section to suit your needs.
    • The river gloss was created with Woodland Scenics ‘Realistic Water’ product. Drops were transported into the bottle on the end of a wire and spread to fill the river bed. The railroad tracks are flattened shelves of Apoxie painted gray, with parallel black threads glued with white glue.
  14. Insert the bridge in two sections. In order to position and glue them accurately within the bottle, a hinged wooden platform can be created from Make a Trebuchet with Popsicle Sticks.
    • The tallest four bents attached to the road deck were too tall to go through the opening of the bottle, but were attached to the deck with a flexible white glue called Crafter’s Pick Ultimate, which gave the bents the flexibility to bend without breaking as they were inserted. The arch and its bents was slim enough to squeeze through the neck without needing any hinges.
    • Because the landscape blocked most of the light and view when inverted, it was very difficult to see the uniting of the two bridge sections. A wiser builder might have chosen a bottle with a greater diameter and fewer distortions.
    • After enough staring into the bottle, you can start to feel a little distorted yourself.
    • Here the bridge has been joined and placed.
  15. Securely attach the bents and arch to the scenery using dabs of Apoxie clay.
  16. After many, many hours of dedicated and tedious work, here is the result. Although you may not wish to build something this intricate on your first try, a simple rural landscape scene, perhaps with a few buildings, is well within the reach of any crafter with the patience to try.

Tips

  • For models like this, color and texture are the most important features. Detail is important only in specific areas where you want the eye to linger.
  • Use a magnifying lens or goggles if you need to. Ensure that you're working under good lighting.
  • Plan ahead. Apoxie can’t be undone, so think about what features need to be embedded.
  • Keep the inside of the bottle clean as you work.
  • In order for Apoxie to form a lasting bond with the glass, the bottle must be cleaned very thoroughly to remove any abrasive dust from the polishing process. Alcohol or vinegar are good cleaning solutions.
  • White glue dries glossy, but you can use Testor’s Dull Cote to dull any visible shiny areas.

Warnings

  • If you feel like you need to take a break, do it.

Things You'll Need

  • Suitable bottle, cleaned by professional if needed
  • Pieces of wire, wood, clothes hanger
  • Epoxy clay (for example, Apoxie)
  • Cardboard
  • Styrene sheets
  • Cutting tools
  • Copper mesh
  • Model foliage
  • Other modeling items as decided by you
  • Acrylic paints
  • Gloss
  • Paintbrushes
  • Glue
  • Drill
  • Kebab skewer(s)

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ Wikipedia:New_River_Bridge

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