F1 Car With Miniature Bottle From Scrap Pieces

Hello everyone! Today's project came to my mind when I saw that my mother was about to throw away old miniature bottles of whisky. I'm not sure if they're worth much, but I decided to take the opportunity to challenge myself to build a single-seater car using only scrap pieces of wood while making a lovely present that would incorporate one of those miniature bottles.

At some point I decided to paint the car in red, although if I were to make another one I would probably use different types of wood, leaving them with a natural look (in other words, I wouldn't use scrap pieces of wood!!! xD).

Supplies

- A miniature bottle (any shape will do the trick, but I would suggest to use a round one for better looks)

- Scrap pieces of wood and MDF

- A few small dowels for suspensions

- 4 round pieces of wood for the wheels

- Paint (if you want)

- Glue

Step 1: Making a Plan

Everything starts with a nice plan. I tried my best to scale the body of the car to the bottle I chose, so in case you want to make your own single-seater you may have to adapt its dimensions to the miniature bottle you have. I was also limited by the wheels, because I used the pawns from an old game I had. Luckly they seemed to be in scale with the rest of the car.

You can also print some reference images and use them to draw the sketch, or just scale mine :)

Step 2: Cutting the Pieces

I started cutting the pieces I needed after selecting them from a pile of small pieces of scrap wood. I also glued two of them to create the nose and managed to do as few cuts as possible. I also sanded roughly every surface. All the thin pieces were made from small leftovers of MDF, which were super easy to cut to shape with a fretsaw.

I did a test fit and when I was happy with the result I started gluing most of the pieces together. I also glued the fin piece onto the bottle, but I didn't glue the bottle itself. I instead decided to glue the lateral pieces of the body in a way that would make the bottle fit snuggly inside the car, while keeping the possibility to remove it at any time.

I did not glue the wheels and the spoilers to the body in this stage in order to make them easier to paint.

Step 3: Painting

I then painted most of the car in red and a few details in black and white.

To attach the wheels I drilled a hole in each of them and linked them with a small dowel I painted black. The front wheels were connected by making a hole in the front piece. I then added a few more details like the suspensions, the rearview mirrors and the steering wheel.

Tip: if you want to paint an entire piece in one go, you can stick a needle in a spot that won't be seen or use a tiny clothespin, then paint the piece and then suspend it with a string. You can use more clothespin to hold the dowels while they dry (see pictures above).