Brick Bounty MOD

[Capt RooR]

Hello All, this is my first post. I've combined a couple BB's - this is still heavily in works - by the end I want a 35 canon Frigate with two gun decks

Only have 7 cannon at moment - have 10 coming via amazon so keeping my eye for good deals on canons. for the moment it has a half completed deck

that slides or easily lifts out for access, I do need to build up the rear structure and figure what to do with my extra tall 2nd masted. suggestions constructive criticism

is welcome. I've been creeping the site since Christmas but only signed up the other day.anytips on uploading ore pis ? it won't let me :(

Edited January 26, 2016 by Capt RooR

[Captain Dee]

Welcome to Eurobricks matey! (You picked the best theme by far...)

This is a promising project and already looks a lot better than what it's based on. The main mast does look a little odd though - too much of a gap between the middle sails. It's a little too tall in relation to the fore and mizzen - maybe you could shorten it or raise the other two a little. I look forward to seeing your progress.

Are you familiar with Bricklink? You can buy all the cannons you want, or buy them straight from Lego's site.

Eurobricks is not an image hosting site. You'll need to upload your pics to Flickr, Brickshelf, Bricksafe, Photobucket, etc and then deeplink them to this site.

Good luck and keep it up!

Edited January 27, 2016 by Captain Dee

[Capn Frank]

You should try buying cannon on bricklink as Captain Dee suggests or brickowl

[Cousarmy0001]

I have a terminology nit-pick, sailing frigates generally carried their primary armament on a single deck. If you build a ship with two gun decks, it won't really be a frigate anymore.

As for your masts, this index may help you: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=23991

You have a good start here! From what I can see in your pictures, if I were you, I would make my own sails, and balance out the mast lengths so that each of them have three sails. Ships with four sails on each mast did exist, but the top sails were generally much smaller than the ones you have on your center mast. If you gave them all the same number of sails, each of roughly the same size, it will give your ship a much more balanced appearance.

This is also personal preference, but if I were you, I would think about raising the existing gun deck by one or two levels, and then tweaking the front bulkhead of your captain's cabin so that it's accessible from the gun deck, with its ceiling close in level to your top deck. Most frigates had a relatively flush top deck, without a sterncastle like there is on your current ship (or as exists on pretty much every Lego sailing ship ever). Your sterncastle itself looks good, and I think will go very nicely with a taller hull that matches your existing color and design schemes.

I hope this didn't sound really negative and critical. It probably did, but I don't mean it that way. I think this is a very good beginning, and I hope you continue to tweak your design as you go. Personally, I've completely redone my flagship at least three times now, as I've learned more and more techniques as I've built. If you're anything like me, you'll keep finding more and more ways to make your ship better.

I'd also like to echo what others have said regarding the cannons. Always keep your eyes open for good deals on cannons, because they can be hard to come by at times, given the fact that Lego likes to sell their ships with half as many guns as their ships have gunports, and everybody wants to add more guns to the ships they have. Even if you find a good price for more guns than you think you need, it's better to have and not need, than need and not have. You may decide to make another ship some day, after all.

[Capn Frank]

If you'd like to keep using the BB sails, here's what I'd recommend:

• Foremast (front mast) could have 2 large square-rigged sails with one small at the top.
  
• Mainmast (middle mast) could have the same sails as the Foremast, 2 large and one small, and it would be a little taller than the Foreast.
  
• Mizzenmast (back mast) could have 2 small square-rigged sails or one small sail and a Lateen-rigged (triangular) sail. This would be the shortest mast.
  

With a Lateen and a small square-rigger on the Mizzen the vessel is classic-ship rigged and you could get away with a raised stern and an ornate captain's cabin.

[Captain Dee]

Cousarmy001 is definitely correct about the terminology, and I thought about it to but chose not to say anything. Ultimately if you want a two-decker then by all means build a two-decker and we'll classify it accordingly. I'm guessing your intention is to build the ship up to about the height of the cabin - it looks like it would work out pretty close with two gun decks and should look really good.

I would stick to three square sails on the fore- and mainmast and try something like Phred mentioned on the mizzen. But if you have to have four on the mainmast I'd put at least three on the foremast and probably the same on the mizzemast to indicate a later (19th century) style of rigging.

I'm slowly building a big ship-of-the-line that consists mainly of parts from this same set, plus the other related sets. It's a fun challenge. But so far I've got all my cannons (about 100) the old-fashioned way.

Hope this all helps and happy building.

[Capt RooR]

Thanks for the kind words everyone - and the input- I've always loved ships and at the moment I'm obsessed with 18th century ship's ( and early 19th )

I was thinking of a ship of the line but yeah they generally have about 100 cannon and that's bit much for me at the moment - there's just something sexy about two to three

levels of gun decks - I will be looking into brick link for a number of parts

thanks again

[Cousarmy0001]

If you added a second gun deck, you could certainly keep your current deck and captain's cabin as they are now. Most of my comments were made with the assumption that you were going for a single decked frigate, so by all means disregard the parts of my earlier comment that reference that. I've never built a multi decked ship, so I can't give a great deal of advice on the actual design and construction, but I would encourage you to look into some of the various tumblehome methods shown on this forum. Building a ship with it makes the project much more difficult, but the end result looks MUCH better than a completely rectangular hull does.

There are a number of 4th through 2nd rate MOCs out there that you should be able to pull ideas from. Not many people have been bold enough to go for a 1st rate, which would require over 100 guns like you said. The only one of those I'm aware of off hand is Poseidon (http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=68797&st=100), which is an absolutely amazing project, but has been under construction for about as long as a real 1st rate would be, and I would wager has been just as expensive and labor intensive as a real one. Fortunately, you shouldn't need THAT many cannons :-)

As a frequent Bricklink user, I caution you if you live in North America, about buying bricks from European sellers. Many European countries- particularly western European ones- have Value Added Taxes that range from 10-20%, which can greatly increase the cost of your order, but aren't generally included in the listed price for each brick. I've never been dissatisfied with any of my European purchases, but the price on the final invoice can come as a shock. If there is a VAT included, it'll usually say so on the seller's page, on the top right of the screen.

Again, I apologize if this sounds negative, or if I sound like a know-it-all. I'm hoping to help you avoid a few of the mistakes I've made since I started building MOCs.

[kurigan]

Wow! For once I don't have to be "that guy". Thanks Cousearmy0001 and CaptianDee! Essentially they've about covered the historic stuff I'd usually chime in with. I do have one nagging curiosity though. 35 is an odd number, I wonder which side gets the extra gun? 

From a MOCing stand point the best advice I can give is; start small. If your really getting into it, especially from a historic stand point, I can all but guarantee your technique will go through several iterations before you're satisfied with it. You'll also learn a lot more fundamental stuff if you give yourself a smaller scope to focus on. Instead of a SotL or even a frigate, perhaps try something below the rates. Even sloops make great MOCs if they are done well.

P.S. yes, support bricklink. Bricklink is great!

Edited January 27, 2016 by kurigan

[Staslegomaster]

The ship isn't finished yet to judge what the results may be, but she looks impressive in spite of some drawbacks and mistakes. She already reminds of the Scull's Eye Schooner 1993. I'd use black and red stripes on the sails.

[BrickOn]

Interesting I am trying to do the same thing right now and the Brick Bountys are taking over my living room. My starting point was to get the Imperial flagship down and use it as a reference point, but I think its leading to my TBB MOD becoming too similar, but for building up the central mast I used something like 5 round 2x2 bricks at the base.

Look forward to seeing more pics as you go.

[Capt RooR]

Wow! For once I don't have to be "that guy". Thanks Cousearmy0001 and CaptianDee! Essentially they've about covered the historic stuff I'd usually chime in with. I do have one nagging curiosity though. 35 is an odd number, I wonder which side gets the extra gun?

From a MOCing stand point the best advice I can give is; start small. If your really getting into it, especially from a historic stand point, I can all but guarantee your technique will go through several iterations before you're satisfied with it. You'll also learn a lot more fundamental stuff if you give yourself a smaller scope to focus on. Instead of a SotL or even a frigate, perhaps try something below the rates. Even sloops make great MOCs if they are done well.

P.S. yes, support bricklink. Bricklink is great!

yes 35 is a odd number but that's 8 guns per side per deck so 32 guns in total there plus going to add 2 chase cannons to the front and a swivel cannon on the rear possibly 2.

again no offence is taken I like the feed back I've already redone the one side a couple times and imagine i will again to perfect it. Checked out some ships online and a some you tube vids

so will be making the cabin almost flush with the gun decks.

[kurigan]

Odd was a bit of a double-entendre in that it’s both mathematically odd (as opposed to even) and that it’s a strange choice. Here’s why: Ships of this time were rated/classified by the guns of their main battery only. Which consisted of only those which point out the side and for which the ship was designed to carry. Despite having a particular number applied to her rating any given ship may have many more guns than listed. That listing will always be an even number though.

For instance a 34-38 gun frigate of no particular class would likely carry 24-28 guns on her gun deck of a heavy caliber, say 18 pounders. On the spar deck and additional 10-12 smaller pieces of artillery would fill out her main battery; something like 6-12 pounders most like. Now, in a completely supplementary way, that same ship may sport another 10 or more guns including carronades, chasers and swivels which are not part of her official armament but add to her strength all the same.

So it sounds like you’ve laid out a 32 gun fifth rate. A respectable command to be sure like to earn her captain and crew a tidy profit in prize money.

I get that doing a mod you’d want Lego cannons on at least the gun deck, but I always suggest brick-built guns at least on the upper deck. Lego cannon are huge, bigger to a mini-fig than any cannon ever shipped in the time period in question, and they can make scaling difficult while taking up a lot of space. Brick-built guns can be more realistic and compact. This way you could fill out the rest of your rating without so many mid sections ( or so many Lego cannon piled on top of one another) as described above.

Quirky little piece of information you may find interesting (or not): in any English speaking country a certain tradition from way back when still holds true. As soon as it sets down on a naval deck, rifled or not, any artillery becomes a “gun”.

P.S. I’m guilty of having overrated my own ships in the past, so don’t think me too judgmental. I learned from being corrected all the same :P

Edited January 27, 2016 by kurigan

[Cousarmy0001]

I would echo Kurigan with regards to the guns on your spar (top) deck. I only have one MOC that features guns on the spar deck, and those are brick built in order to 1-save space and 2-cut down on the amount of weight that would raise the ship's center of gravity, making it more stable in heavy seas. Because, you know, your ship is totally going to have to worry about that :-)

With the full size guns, they're 4 studs wide, which for me isn't that big of a deal, but they're effectively six studs long from the front of the carriage to the end of the nob at the back. That's a lot of space to take up when your deck is only going to be about fourteen studs wide, assuming you're using normal hull pieces. If you brick build them, they can be as short as two studs long (mine are 4 studs), making it MUCH more economical in terms of space.

A bit of a history lesson here, if you're interested and don't already know the story, when the American navy built its six heavy frigates, their initial captains gave them masts and guns that were too large. The result was that the ships would yaw heavily from side to side, most often away from the wind. While the masts and rigging made them exceptionally fast, the tendency to lean away from the wind had a very adverse effect on their gunnery- namely, they couldn't use the guns that faced downwind because the ports were so close to sea level that the ship would flood if they were opened. When the USS Constellation fought L'Insurgente in 1799, the former had to give up the "weather gauge" (a ship that had the weather gauge was upwind of her foe, giving her a distinct advantage in most combat situations) because as previously described, when upwind of her opponent, the overgunned Constellation's gun ports were too close to the water. While Constellation handily won that battle, she very easily could have lost, and upon returning to the US, her captain had her battery of 24-pound cannons replaced with 18-pounders, in order to avoid a repeat of the situation.

[Captain Dee]

I echo the previous two comments about cannons/guns. I didn't pay any attention to the 35 in the original topic but it isn't historically correct (but pursuing historic accuracy is for you, the builder, to decide - not us!) I know the Brick Bounty has a full-size cannon on a turntable at the stern, but in reality turntables weren't used extensively until the 19th century and even then they weren't used in that position. I suggest an even number of guns, with all of them on wheeled carriages (or an implied wheeled carriage if you don't want them rolling around). Chasers and swivel guns - the small antipersonnel swivels, not swivel cannons - would never count as part of a ship's rated armament (as kurigan already pointed out) just because they weren't effectively used as part of a ship's broadside fire.

I wouldn't try arming both decks with the standard Lego cannon. Go for it on the main gun deck. (I wouldn't worry about their large size because the standard minifig is either a small child or a midget or dwarf, not a tall adult, and because of this the scale seems okay although the ship hull pieces are way too small for those big guns, but that's Lego's problem.) The spar deck will definitely look better and have far more room for men and other items if you equip it with smaller custom guns. It may look daunting if you've never built one but it's really not that complicated and I'm pretty sure a lot cheaper than buying enough of the standard cannons for both decks. I'll try to post a pic or a link to some pics when I get a chance (I'll have to find them first!)

Keep us posted as this progresses.

[Capt RooR]

new up dates - trying to link pics from drop box hope this works

think you just have to open in a new tab to see.

so re did the side made a color change with adding black - lowered the middle mast

my cannons arrived and decided to go to a 42 gun ship lowered the rear structure so it was almost flush with the deck.

still have alot of tinkering to do - still not happy with the bow i'm open to suggestions.

also for a more solid deck with easy access i cut a gray base plate to fit and cut holes for the masts- waiting for a few orders to come so i can properly

do the deck in one color and still not sure about that 9th cannon on the main deck.

Edited February 6, 2016 by Capt RooR

[Captain Becker]

Looking good so far, but I think the cannons on the lower deck are too close each other. instead of having only 2 studs, try to leave at least 3 or even 4 at least if you use those Official Lego cannons, as it just looks a bit silly to have those giant guns so close each other. And you can remove a couple of guns from there as well and make them chasers to the bow and at the stern of the ship.

As what comes to the masts, it looks like they are a bit too far from each other, but that might be just me. My suggestion would be make he main mast (Middle one) taller by adding maby a third if not fourth sail in it. Otherwise keep building.

Captain Becker

PS; You might want to take a look at the historical frigates and ships of the time for reference. For example: USS Constitution which is 44 gun super frigate.

[Cousarmy0001]

I think the mast distances aren't too bad, though historically the space between the fore and center masts was generally greater than the space between the center and the aft masts. You may want to consider moving your aft mast forward a few studs.

An easier way to distract from the mast distances, though, maybe be to fill that space with more sail. If you have any triangle sails left, you may want to consider using them between the masts, like so:

I concur with Captain Becker's statement about your center mast height. I would go with Phred's suggestion, and add one of the smaller sails to the top of your center mast. If you don't want to add another sail (if you're using the Lego sails then that may be impractical), you could try raising your center mast a bit, so they aren't all the same height. It shouldn't be too difficult to do that, just add a few blocks under the base.

I also feel obliged to echo Captain Becker's concern over the space between the guns, particularly on your lower deck. It would lower your gun count, but it may look better to have two or three studs between each gun. At the very least, it would make the gap for your ladders less noticeable. On looking again, though, if you raised all of your masts by two bricks (and the center mast by 3 or 4), you could eliminate that ladder space on your lower deck, and gain twelve studs. If you spread out your guns and took advantage of that space, you would actually gain the space for another gun on your lower deck, like so:

And it wouldn't require any changes to your upper deck.

It's your MOC, of course, so feel free to disregard all of this.

[ejred]

Lego cannon are huge, bigger to a mini-fig than any cannon ever shipped in the time period in question

I was looking at some ship model plans, which included a diagram for a 9-pounder. I was surprised that the lego cannons didn't seem as out of scale as I expected.

The lego barrel is clearly a lot thicker than a real cannon--the real one (outside dimension) would be less than one stud at the muzzle, and not much more than one stud at the thickest part.

But the rest didn't look too bad. The barrel would be about 7 studs long--the lego ones are 8 counting the elongated nub at the back for shooting. So definitely in the ballpark. The carriage would be about 4 studs long (so that's correct), and about 3 studs wide. The only thing making the Lego cannons 4-wide is that the wheels tend to be thick, but maybe there are workarounds for that

My takeaway was that maybe the criticism of lego cannons as "way too big to be realistic" is overblown. Not that I don't enjoy some of the incredible brick-built ones people have done...

[Cousarmy0001]

I was looking at some ship model plans, which included a diagram for a 9-pounder. I was surprised that the lego cannons didn't seem as out of scale as I expected.

Lending further credence to your argument, most frigates of the period carried 18-pounders or heavier. If the Lego guns seem accurately sized for a 9-pounder, then they may actually be too small for an 18.

[kurigan]

Well every time this comes up and I say something about it I get scolded and directed to an old argument which went nowhere and solved nothing, so forgive me if I’m a bit sour at the double standard. I’ll not make any bigger a deal of that, but I do want to say my piece/make my point.

The issue with the scaling of Lego cannons is as simple as this. Mini-figs are ill proportioned compared to real human adults. Their proportions are more akin to that of a human baby. Because of this a modeler endeavoring to rescale any real world object to work in a mini figure populated environment must decide for themselves if they consider mini-figs to be either really wide or extremely short. The cannons suffer the same condition. In fact, to say that “the scale is wrong” is an over simplification, the trouble is actually with their specific proportions. As with the figures they are either really short or very wide.

From my perspective it’s not so much a matter of external dimensions as it is bore size. The projectile that thing must fire compared to a mini-fig is gigantic. It’d weigh far more than any projectile launched from a wooden sailing platform, ever. Then consider the laughably thin walls which are expected to hold back the charge necessary to move such a weighty shot. The whole thing just seems… silly.

On my, none-too-impressive, land based MOCs I do use the Lego cannon since they are available from childhood and a such a large piece of artillery can be justified on solid ground. What I do to make them more convincing to me is to leave a few round bricks in the barrel to make those side wall look more realistic (like this). I don’t think I it looks too terrible, and it might amount to a helpful suggestion in a case such as this.

Again, only where realism in concerned, keep in mind how many men it takes to work a gun. Even something like a small 9 pounder is a crew of six standing with another crew of six to either side scrambling to operate their own 1,000lb piece of artillery. The bigger the gun the more space between which should be provide. Unfortunately that can really add up in terms of up-scaling to fit it all in. All this is exactly why “mini-fig illusion scale” was created in the first place.

So, Capt RooR, do as you will with your own MOC. Hopefully you understand a little better where suggestions about gun scale and placement come from.

[Cousarmy0001]

My exact words when I clicked your link were, "Hmmmm..." A very interested and thoughtful "Hmmmm..." to be precise. Extra points for the minifig scale soap crate :-)

Your argument about the side walls is very well taken, as is your statement regarding ammunition sizes. I wasn't considering any of those when I made my statements, and you have valid points on each of those. I was looking at it purely from an exterior appearance view.

As for working area for the gun crews, it's something I've always thought about as well. When I first built my flagship Thunderchild, she had four or five studs between each gun, in order to afford room for the gun crews to do their thing. It looked like a lot of wasted space, though, so I wound up redesigning it with less space. I think it looks better, but in the real world, it leaves very little space for gun crews to work.

[Captain Baker]

This Mod is Dripping with Awesomeness.

Love it.

.

[Captain Dee]

If you consider the minifig to be an adult body, period, then yes - the standard Lego cannon is a colossus. And yes, one glance at any historic cannon or illustration will quickly show that the bore is comically large in proportion to the outside barrel diameter. The barrel sidewalls were much thicker and heavier in reality. And the barrel had a visibly larger breech diameter, taper toward the muzzle, and muzzle flare. The cascabel was usually shorter and less prominent; Lego made them big so you can fire them, which was always lost on me (I hate those center guides). So the overall proportions besides length aren't quite right. I like the standard cannons only because that's what they are; the design could be vastly improved, but I use them anyway. Land-based looks best to my eyes, but ultimately I think the issue is best left to the individual builder.

[Capn Frank]

new up dates - trying to link pics from drop box hope this works

I'm certain you can't post pictures from dropbox using BBCode. Why don't you use you're Picasaweb affiliated with your Google account? If the images are 800x600 or smaller, you can upload an unlimited amount of photos, which meets the Site Guidlines for posting images.