A little tutorial for making mini bottles and glasses to put in dioramas.
A little tutorial that explains how I go about making bottles and glasses in any scale. I would like to point out that to do this you must necessarily have this equipment:
A mini wood lathe.
Turning tools.
Clear acrylic rod bars.
Smac steel or similar.
The bottle I made in these images is 1/32 scale.
The colored rod bars are actually the sticks used for cocktails.
Other bottles, like glasses, are instead transparent acrylic rods.
Place a small portion of the rod in the lathe seat, just enough to work without exceeding because the more you leave the rod out, the greater the risk that the rod will flex during rotation. Help yourself, if you don’t have a measurement with a black pen and mark the length of the bottle while the rod turns in the lathe.
Start turning the piece slowly without any rush, otherwise you risk burrs that are difficult to correct, but after you have done some tests you will certainly find the right pressure to perform the turning. Give the bottle the shape you want.
Having done this, it is better to pass an 800/1000 paper while the bottle is still turning on the lathe to remove any defects.
Having done this, you can now take a small piece of cloth and with the addition of Smac steel, or Sidol or other product for steel, start smoothing the bottle until you see that it becomes as shiny as glass.
Dry well with another cloth.
All operations must be carried out with the lathe running.
Now with a brush or a pen like I did in this case, color the cap. You can start cutting the bottle in the part of the trunk to be able to detach it and finally with the lathe turned off, use a hacksaw to finish cutting the bottle from the rod.
Once this is done, with the help of pliers, remove the imperfections in the seat of the bottle by rubbing it on 300 paper.
Now that the bottle is ready you can find a label, print it and stick it. Finished!!
It’s not that difficult, just a few tries and you’ll immediately become confident.
