My First Attempt

[MonkeyBosun]

Well, I finally have my first ship ready to be seen. It's really just a small gunboat and has already been changed since these pics were taken, new gun, and a new mast. More will follow soon. A question to those with more experience...what is the best way to expand your collection, since i'm pretty much out of parts, whats the best way to get more? piece bypiece off of bricklink? Ebay lots? Buy whole sets online? Also, there probably isnts, but ill ask anyways, is there any basic instructions for making largeer ships? like a place to learn how you make the sloped galleries in the rear of ships, and other basic things? Well, enjoy the small boat for now, more will follow.

See the rest at : http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=202403

[Berry Syedow]

Well, I finally have my first ship ready to be seen. It's really just a small gunboat and has already been changed since these pics were taken, new gun, and a new mast. More will follow soon. A question to those with more experience...what is the best way to expand your collection, since i'm pretty much out of parts, whats the best way to get more? piece bypiece off of bricklink? Ebay lots? Buy whole sets online? Also, there probably isnts, but ill ask anyways, is there any basic instructions for making largeer ships? like a place to learn how you make the sloped galleries in the rear of ships, and other basic things? Well, enjoy the small boat for now, more will follow.

See the rest at : http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=202403

'Tis a fine start for a budding pirate fan like yourself. If you haven't already incorporated railings, then I suggest you do so. An' make sure to add some sails when you're sure of its completion. I can't properly answer either of your questions. I'll just say that from experience, do keep an eye out for LEGO listings in your newspaper. (It only got me my one and only complete ship hull; a narrow too. But you never know) The same goes for garage sales. As for your second question, I can't say. Though I believe Admiral Ravensburg said something about creating a ship tutorial, which I've always thought would be great.

[Bonaparte]

Looks good. However, I think it needs a crew :-) .

I prefer to buy lego at second hand markets.

Here you can sometimes do interesting deals for a large amount of lego.

Prices at ebay and bricklink will be much higher.

B.

[SuvieD]

It is a good start but as you indicated you clearly ran out of parts to make it really nice. It needs some deck railings, and perhaps a crew for starters.

The best way to get a lot of parts to build what you want is to PM people like me who need to get rid of a couple ten thousand of them so they can walk in the basement again. I have little in the way of pirate figures and accessories left now but a few plus plenty of pieces and you could easily be on your way to a nice collection. So please I beg you PM me with a list of what you are looking for and about what you can spend. I will get you plenty of pieces and at price you will like.

[Legeaux]

Gunboats are always useful, and could often take down a much larger and more heavily armed opponent, given the right conditions. There's a lot to said for being able to maneuver when others are becalmed, and a single cannon is plenty when your opponent is unable to bring his broadside to bear.

I hope you post some pics of the gunboat's latest incarnation.

Have you considered removing the deck? I realise it gives you a lot more space, but going without a deck would enable you to mount the cannon lower down and give a more realistic look. The beam might be an issue, but use of inverted slopes (or even SNOT work), can gain some extra width for you.

As for building up your pirates collection, I've built up mine almost entirely from eBay. I think only about eight of my 60 odd pirate sets were bought new. (Mostly the rereleases). Generally, I'm too cheap for Bricklink. But with eBay... apply two rules: (1) be patient and (2) keep in mind that not all listers know what they're selling (down to misspelling 'Pirates'). I've never spent more then 30cents per piece on a pirates set on ebay (and that's Australian cents, and including shipping), and most of them were a lot less (less than 20 cpp on average).

(I still don't own a Skulls Eye Schooner, though).

[Jipay]

I nice start ! I mean, conidering the parts you have, you did quite a good job. Are there any plan to expand this creation a little bit ?

[Mister Phes]

This ship is quite a nice minimalist design. "Minimalist" isn't a derogratory term as it can take great skills and planning to produce something from the bare minimum number of elements.

However, why does it have 6 oars? The hull looks too high for a crew to paddle with them.

[Captain Ironhook]

How come there are no custom sails made for this ship as Evil Willy has made us a wonderful tutorial for making sails.

[Berry Syedow]

How come there are no custom sails made for this ship as Evil Willy has made us a wonderful tutorial for making sails.

Quite possibly there are no sails because the ship is powered by oars? (Though they could be reserved for sharp maneuvering...)

[Mister Phes]

I just had this realisation... If everything was removed from the surface (I.e. cannon, oars, mast, etc) then it would look like an air craft carrier. Or maybe that's a bit of stretch.

[El Bucanero]

You should try adding a railing MonkeyBosun, and ehh Phes, what's an aircraft carrier?!?! Some kind of boat to carry birds??

[Captain Schmidt]

I'm new to building boats as well. I don't own any boat sets. I would like to use BrickLink to buy the special pieces required so I can avoid buying a complete set. What are the special pieces that I need to make the hulls called? Are they just one big boat base piece? What about the rigging and masts?

I have plenty of "normal pieces", it's the special curved pieces I lack. I would like to one day build a fairly large ship, would be a lot of fun.

To the OP: That looks like a good start to what will someday be a fine vessel. Sorry for posting my questions in your thread, but the questions you raised had me come up with these followup questions.

[Tordenskjold]

i kind of like the boat. if you got your hands on some of the longer oars you can use it as a cunboat like the one we had here in norway after a little man called Nelson took our fleet :-$

those was simple design, cheap to build and easy to handle. and that ship look like just that.

[Mister Phes]

You should try adding a railing MonkeyBosun, and ehh Phes, what's an aircraft carrier?!?! Some kind of boat to carry birds??

Hmmm.... Aircraft carrier... I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote that. Maybe its a device for carrying air... I should really lay off the tequila its making me write such strange things.

[El Bucanero]

On my Birthday, I got the lego passenger plane, at a first look, it seemed a winged, wheeled and roofed ship to me...then I discovered it was an "airplane"...Mmmmm*thinking* airplane, aircraft... I might have find us the meaning of the word aircraft carrier!!!

sorry for the big pic: Aircraft carrier