[MOC] HMS BIRCH (Update: Complete)

[Roadmonkeytj]

Check it out!

[NOD]

On 8/8/2020 at 5:21 PM, Elusys Ra Arwal said:

Well, you did a very good job and it shows! The sails construction is nice, although you need to add more strings to maneuver them all... That being said, I like the color-scheme, the shape, and the solutions adopted. 

I like the ship from "rock raider"! I like the ship, the colors, and the position of the minifigures. "Birch" is from Lego Birch Books 10270. I'm not the only one who saw it and didn't know it. Good idea and "Birch" belongs forever to the ship from "rock raider"!

Ok, after you said it, I can see that the ends of the sails are missing a rope. Your assessment is even more fussy than mine.

"You need to add more strings to maneuver them all." I'm building a ship myself, so I'm interested. Initially it was a MOD from 21322 Barracuda Ship. Very little is now original. It's a now MOC. Now I am building masts, sails and rigging. I am not a model builder of historical ships. I am not a Lego expert.

It doesn't have to be perfect. But which strings are absolutely necessary? Only the minimum and most important! Are there instructions or photos? A photo with "1 million ropes" is no help! Google and Wikipedia are of no help! I have my own idea for shrouds for climbing. Stupid, quick and easy. It's something new, that looks better than the idea. So please help me with strings to maneuver them all.

[rock raider]

On 8/8/2020 at 11:21 AM, Elusys Ra Arwal said:

Well, you did a very good job and it shows! The sails construction is nice, although you need to add more strings to maneuver them all... That being said, I like the color-scheme, the shape, and the solutions adopted. 

Thank you. I agree that there is much still to be done. I'm not able to work on this project right now but, as soon as I am able, I plan to add sheets for all the sails and braces to control the yardarms. I've already included halyards for the jibs but I also plan to add a staysail or two in between the fore and main masts which will require more pin rails which will take more deck space etc. etc.  I'm not sure I'll ever be done. 

If anyone has come up with a smaller way to make blocks and pulleys than using 1x1 bushings or wheels, I'd love to see it. 

On 8/13/2020 at 12:19 PM, Roadmonkeytj said:

Check it out!

Thank you! After many years of reading this forum and the classic-pirates blog, It's an honor to be blogged.

Edited August 14, 2020 by rock raider

[rock raider]

1 hour ago, NOD said:

I like the ship from "rock raider"! I like the ship, the colors, and the position of the minifigures. "Birch" is from Lego Birch Books 10270. I'm not the only one who saw it and didn't know it. Good idea and "Birch" belongs forever to the ship from "rock raider"!

"You need to add more strings to maneuver them all." I'm building a ship myself, so I'm interested. Initially it was a MOD from 21322 Barracuda Ship. Very little is now original. It's a now MOC. Now I am building masts, sails and rigging. I am not a model builder of historical ships. I am not a Lego expert.

It doesn't have to be perfect. But which strings are absolutely necessary? Only the minimum and most important! Are there instructions or photos? 

I sailed in college, and I've even been able to sail on a tallship, so that helps me figure out what different lines do when I see a picture with a million of them but I found a helpful guide that should get you started on understanding what lines are necessary to sail a ship like this and what all the names are.

https://lamitopsail.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/3-Brigantine-Seamanship-Parts-of-the-Ship-Sailing-and-Running-Rigging-pages-8-23-.pdf

I also found a great resource for general knowledge on sails and rigging including some great drawings of the individual sails.

http://mcjazz.f2s.com/Sailmakers.htm

[NOD]

1 hour ago, rock raider said:

I sailed in college, and I've even been able to sail on a tallship, so that helps me figure out what different lines do when I see a picture with a million of them but I found a helpful guide that should get you started on understanding what lines are necessary to sail a ship like this and what all the names are.

https://lamitopsail.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/3-Brigantine-Seamanship-Parts-of-the-Ship-Sailing-and-Running-Rigging-pages-8-23-.pdf

I also found a great resource for general knowledge on sails and rigging including some great drawings of the individual sails.

http://mcjazz.f2s.com/Sailmakers.htm

Thanks for the link. I saw 2 new strings that I didn't pay attention before. But I also see 1 million strings. I can't and I don't want to build it. It is too much!

I keep building on the ship and when I think I'm done, I take photos, then I publish them.

[Elusys Ra Arwal]

1 hour ago, NOD said:

I like the ship from "rock raider"! I like the ship, the colors, and the position of the minifigures. "Birch" is from Lego Birch Books 10270. I'm not the only one who saw it and didn't know it. Good idea and "Birch" belongs forever to the ship from "rock raider"!

 

Ok, after you said it, I can see that the ends of the sails are missing a rope. Your assessment is even more fussy than mine.

 

"You need to add more strings to maneuver them all." I'm building a ship myself, so I'm interested. Initially it was a MOD from 21322 Barracuda Ship. Very little is now original. It's a now MOC. Now I am building masts, sails and rigging. I am not a model builder of historical ships. I am not a Lego expert.

 

 

It doesn't have to be perfect. But which strings are absolutely necessary? Only the minimum and most important! Are there instructions or photos? A photo with "1 million ropes" is no help! Google and Wikipedia are of no help! I have my own idea for shrouds for climbing. Stupid, quick and easy. It's something new, that looks better than the idea. So please help me with strings to maneuver them all.

 

Since you want to keep it simple, you can follow what rock raider did to his ship Birch, because he put in place most of what's needed as "standing rigging", which means all the ropes of a ship which serve to support the masts forward, aft and laterally.
You can follow the diagram and make it look complete, like it has been done on the ship in this thread:

The Stays:

They pull the shrouds (the lines on the side of the masts that are used to climb them) so it creates a balance between the shrouds pulling from one side and the stays from the other. 

As you can see from the picture, each rope is linked to the following section of the mast and they are not linked together.

Here's a view of what I'm talking about:

To counterbalance these, you have the backstays and shrouds:

The numbers from 1 to 17 are the stays 

The numbers from 18 to 29 are the backstays

The number 30 is the shrouds with ratlines

The number 31 are the bobstays

The number 32 are the jibstays

So this is how it looks like with every standing line, which is (again), what rock raider did. The remaining lines, the running rigging, are many, but for the sake of playability, you could do quite fine with just adding a couple of lines to the end of the sails and attaching them to the ship for the lower ones, and to the yards to the upper ones and be done very quickly

 

[NOD]

1 hour ago, Elusys Ra Arwal said:

So this is how it looks like with every standing line, which is (again), what rock raider did. The remaining lines, the running rigging, are many, but for the sake of playability, you could do quite fine with just adding a couple of lines to the end of the sails and attaching them to the ship for the lower ones, and to the yards to the upper ones and be done very quickly

 

Thanks, I understand. These are the best, easiest and most understandable photos and explanations I have ever seen. I learned from you! I can't build everything because of the space and other components of the ship. I have to compromise. I try to build the stays according to your instructions.

[Elusys Ra Arwal]

3 hours ago, rock raider said:

Thank you. I agree that there is much still to be done. I'm not able to work on this project right now but, as soon as I am able, I plan to add sheets for all the sails and braces to control the yardarms. I've already included halyards for the jibs but I also plan to add a staysail or two in between the fore and main masts which will require more pin rails which will take more deck space etc. etc.  I'm not sure I'll ever be done. 

If anyone has come up with a smaller way to make blocks and pulleys than using 1x1 bushings or wheels, I'd love to see it. 

I know what you mean, on my ship I just added temporary stays and shrouds and rudimentary paper sails, just to have an idea of what to do and how much space I'd have left, plus how much detailed I want it to be and on one side I want to go full into it and on the other I think it would be too much time and then  be difficult to move it around, because it is lego, so easy to have anything snap and then good luck putting it back together with all the ropes in place!
Also, I want it to be accessible, so dismantling each and every rope, just to access the lower deck or the cabin is time consuming. I still don't know... on top of that I'd like to make my own ropes so to control thickness, length etc. also because the look of it is way better compared to premade ones. 

For blocks and pulleys I am going to buy the wooden ones for modeling, because the size of lego wheels are okay-ish but not what it should be, so I prefer buying those and make everything like that. I used to build ship models in the far past, and I had some leftover blocks I used on the Renegade Runner. It came out ok and I still like it, although there are some things I didn't bother making it right back 10 years ago, because I was just having fun.

Here are some pics I just took, to give you an Idea:

 

 

 

@NOD I am really happy you found the instructions easy and understandable! I know that allocating space on these ships, with all the restrictions we have to work around, it is hard, but manageable to get a decent result! So just take your time, enjoy the process and you'll see it will come together nicely. Also for first attempts I suggest to try on some random ropes and attaching them temporarily, to understand where goes what and how much space you have and what you want to insert. 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Elusys Ra Arwal

[rock raider]

On 8/14/2020 at 6:17 PM, Elusys Ra Arwal said:

For blocks and pulleys I am going to buy the wooden ones for modeling, because the size of lego wheels are okay-ish but not what it should be, so I prefer buying those and make everything like that. I used to build ship models in the far past, and I had some leftover blocks I used on the Renegade Runner. It came out ok and I still like it, although there are some things I didn't bother making it right back 10 years ago, because I was just having fun.

Thanks for the pics. It's good to see what the different options are. I might use those but I think I'll stick with Lego wheels. I know we all have different levels of purist but I think I fall somewhere around the 'all official Lego except for cloth and string' level. One piece I have been considering using is the zip-line pulley. It's just a bit smaller but it doesn't capture the line. I guess it would be perfect for a snatch block but I don't know how much those existed in this time period.

Edited August 15, 2020 by rock raider

[Mister Phes]

On 7/12/2020 at 2:41 AM, rock raider said:

I probably won't have much time to finish it soon. It's getting close though so I thought I'd post it.

Did you end up finishing it?

An eager fan has made a request for instructions:

 

[rock raider]

On 12/16/2020 at 3:18 AM, Mister Phes said:

Did you end up finishing it?

An eager fan has made a request for instructions:

 

It is almost done. I've been splitting time between finishing it and working on my next ship but, rest assured, I will post final pictures here once it's ready.

As far as instructions go, I don't think I will go to the effort to make instructions for this, though I could post some of my "in progress" pictures to show how it went together.

[Mister Phes]

14 hours ago, rock raider said:

As far as instructions go, I don't think I will go to the effort to make instructions for this, though I could post some of my "in progress" pictures to show how it went together. 

I shall inform your fan -  "In progress" pictures will have to do.

[rock raider]

As requested, here are some in progress shots that show the internal structure and some features I didn't highlight before.

Here you can see the spine, kind of an internal keel between the base and the gundeck. The spine, gundeck and lower hull provide almost all of the longitudinal strength for this model. You can also see the pulley system I used for the working steering, part of the capstan inner workings, and how I achieved the half stud offset for the deck using 1x3 double jumper plates.

I later added a small hold to use a bit of the wasted space below the gundeck.

Here she is being outfitted with guns and supplies. You can see how the bitt is set up for mooring the ship. I only show one line but the ship can be moored with two spring lines, an aft breast line and, with some creativity, a forward breast line.

 

 

 

[Stoertebricker]

Wow, I do not have any words to say more then the ones before so I continue in admiring silently your fantastic build...

[Barbatos]

Really impressive!

Congratulations on the beautiful ship!

[CapOnBOBS]

Loved everything about it right up until you gave it to the red coats. Now its just pretty good

[evancelt]

14 minutes ago, CapOnBOBS said:

Loved everything about it right up until you gave it to the red coats. Now its just pretty good

LOL it went from very good to awesome when it went to Redcoats

[Tezclatipoca]

Great update !

Like I was expecting the vessel is excellent now with sails !

And the vessel is !

 

[Mister Phes]

7 hours ago, Faladrin said:

And the vessel is !

Someone copy and pasted a PNG with a transparent background

[TomSkippy]

@rock raider great build, how did you make the sails?

[1963maniac]

And the helm works! I'm pretty proud of the rope system that I was able to implement that works just like the real steering systems of the time. 

Very impressive helm!!! I just researched that online (last week) so I could try to recreate. Now, you've done it. Awesome! 

[rock raider]

On 2/13/2021 at 11:11 AM, CapOnBOBS said:

Loved everything about it right up until you gave it to the red coats. Now its just pretty good

 

On 2/13/2021 at 11:26 AM, evancelt said:

LOL it went from very good to awesome when it went to Redcoats

Haha I didn't GIVE it to anyone, the redcoats took it and if the bluecoats can, I imagine they will try to take it back.

On 2/14/2021 at 3:39 AM, Faladrin said:

Great update !

Like I was expecting the vessel is excellent now with sails !

And the vessel is !

 

Thank you.

On 2/14/2021 at 2:16 PM, TomSkippy said:

@rock raider great build, how did you make the sails?

I just posted a tutorial on my process for sail making. I hope you find it useful. 

 

On 2/15/2021 at 8:50 AM, 1963maniac said:

Very impressive helm!!! I just researched that online (last week) so I could try to recreate. Now, you've done it. Awesome! 

 Thank you, that's one of the parts I'm most satisfied with.

Edited February 17, 2021 by rock raider

[Captain Braunsfeld]

Did I comment on this already. Don't know, but it is sure a fine vessel. With and without sails.

[rock raider]

It's finished

 

[NOD]

Great! The effort and the working hours were worth it. The rigging makes the ship even more beautiful. I like the photos with the dolphins.