Small-hulled boats using the DUPLO rowboat, including a quick "how-to"-tutorial

[Legostein]

Small-hulled boats using the DUPLO rowboat, including a quick "how-to"-tutorial

1. Introduction

Hello everybody,

today I would like to take you on a quick building journey where we will see how the DUPLO rowboat can conveniently used to build small boats for any standard-brick-scaled diorama.

So, let's start! 

 

2. Getting in touch

First we get in touch with the DUPLO rowboat. It is widely available on the secondary markets, and is also quite affordable. We will have a quick comparison with the other rowboats commonly used later in this tutorial.

 

3. The first brick is the hardest

DUPLO was once designed to fit with the standard brick system. It still works today (there are some changes to the bottom tubes today, so that you are more limited as in former days, but maybe this will be another tutorial).

 

4. Completing the deck

Now we simply fill up the duplo studs with 2x4 bricks. Already looks nice, doesn't it? You already could start building your boat now, but we want to get more available standard studs on the main deck to build on.

 

5. Laying deck planks

The most quick and simple way is to attach two wedge plates on the 2x4 bricks as show below. The space utilisation is already very good!

 

6. A tough decision: Overlapping or staying within the railing?

With the result of step 5 we now have two options. We can build a boat staying within the railing, or we can overlap the railing a little bit as it is often done when building with small boats. We will start with overlapping first, as for staying within the railing the unfilled gaps are still a little too wide. Later in this tutorial we will see how we can use the maximum of space when we want to stay with in the railing.

 

7. Overlapping the railing

A big benefit of the DUPLO rowboat is that its railing stays at the same height from the front to the rear. This make overlapping quite easy! Below is an example of how it can be done with a few additional bricks. The photo is detailed enough so you can see the construction without any plans needed.

There are two separate sections to be attached on the main deck, but you can remove what you have bricked into the row boat's hull already, and make a complete inner hull piece:

And this is what our DUPLO boat now looks with the railing slightly overlapped. I bet you can already see what nice boats could be built with that!

 

8. Staying within the railing

When we want to build a boat and stay within the dimensions of the original railing, we can try to use the optimum of space within the hull. At first we remove three of the four 2x4 bricks again to obtain the the results as show in step 3. Instead of bricks we can even attach a 4x6 plate a little lower into the hull. Also the tubes of plates will fit into the hollow DUPLO studs but not as tightly as those of bricks. But this won't be an obstacle.

Witha a few more pieces you obtain a really nice main deck with very good space utilisation. You have again two inlay pieces. But this time you have to stick them separately into the DUPLO boat hull.

And this is how the DUPLO boat looks with a nicely fitting main deck within its railing:

 

9. Comparing boat hulls

With the two options shown above you get two ready-to-build-on boat hulls. But what other small boat hulls are there, and how are they different? Let's have a quick look:

From left to right (or top to bottom on the right side) these are: The Belville rowboat, the Fabuland rowboat, the DUPLO rowboat, the standard rowboat.

You can see that the Belville rowboat (was first introduced in the year 1998 in two Belville sets before having been released in brown color in the year 1999 within the Adventurers series) is the longest of all rowboats, being 18 studs in length. All other rowboats are 14 studs in length. The Belville and Fabuland rowboat have 6 studs in width available for building, while the DUPLO boat and the standard rowboat only have 4 studs to build on. But as you have see above, we can give the DUPLO rowboat 6 studs for building with some extra pieces. On the very right you can see that the DUPLO boat has the only railing that stays on the same height level. A minor drawback of the DUPLO hull is that the outer hull is not as detailed as for the other three boats which feature a pattern of outer hull planks. But this won't prevent us from haveing building fun with the two hulls we just designed:

 

10. Let's build boats!

Finally you have made it through the tutorial and we can start building boats! We will start with the overlapped railing, and then continue by staying with the railing. I hope you enjoyed it so far and I hope you will like the two resulting boats! 

And here you can see them in front of blue background from alle sides:

 

11. Summary

We have seen two possibbilities to use the DUPLO rowboat for stanard brick scaled builds. We can overlap the hull or stay within its dimensions. The DUPLO rowboat hull is a great piece and a welcome addition to the boats hull variety.

 

[HanSime]

Fun! Makes almost for SuperDeformed Pirate ships. ;)

What if you pull a Vikings 7016 and make a longer boat out of it, hiding the gap on the sides with some bricks? :)

Edited Monday at 10:55 AM by HanSime

[Feuer Zug]

Nice work on the tutorial. Fun chibi style ships abound.

[SpacePolice89]

Very innovative use of the Duplo hull and it looks great!

[Autumn]

Now that's some nice part usage!

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Smart idea and beautiful ship!

[R0Sch]

Most important question is, do they still float with the added weight? 

[FGMatt]

3 hours ago, R0Sch said:

Most important question is, do they still float with the added weight? 

I imagine that they'd float OK; it's stability that's likely to be the issue. I wonder if there's a way to include a ballast brick in there somewhere.

[Israel Hands]

Thanks for the tutorial. 

A fun little build