[MOC] ca. 1650s 54-gun pirate 4th-rate 'Rode Dageraad'

[SteamSewnEmpire]

I have a horrible headache now :(. This is loosely based on the real-world Dutch flagship Eendracht.

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by SteamSewnEmpire

[JintaiZ]

Fantastic build!

[Wurger49]

Niceee, i like this one the best out of your recent posts! 

[SteamSewnEmpire]

21 minutes ago, Wurger49 said:

Niceee, i like this one the best out of your recent posts! 

Thanks. It's definitely my favorite, too. Sadly, this one is pushing 5,000 bricks... but it's high on my to-do list should I ever have money.

Edited September 21, 2020 by SteamSewnEmpire

[Quotenotto]

Amazing! I like the way you shaped the front with the bow and the mermaid and the overall curvature of the ship.

[Wurger49]

like i said on the other topic, really like how your curved the hull but kept the gun deck flat. Really looking forward to see some renders. 

[Count Vroskri]

@SteamSewnEmpire

Www. Wwow! This is certainly your best ship yet and I love it. You have taken everything into account and this is perfect. Well done. 

One point of criticism : the Hull design and shaping and the rough age you've given means this ship wouldn't have a wheel.  This is because they were invented roughly 60 years later. It would have had a whipstaff. This was a stick attached to the end of the tiller. There are some images on CGHs Le Fleuron. 

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Count Vroskri
New update

[Captain Becker]

Absolutely incredible!

[Fraunces]

What a beauty! A very well adaptation of the Dutch example

[SteamSewnEmpire]

2 hours ago, Count Vroskri said:

@SteamSewnEmpire

Www. Wwow! This is certainly your best ship yet and I love it. You have taken everything into account and this is perfect. Well done. 

One point of criticism : the Hull design and shaping and the rough age you've given means this ship wouldn't have a wheel.  This is because they were invented roughly 60 years later. It would have had a whipstaff. This was a stick attached to the end of the tiller. There are some images on CGHs Le Fleuron. 

 

So even during the height of piracy ca. 1700 wheels would have either been uncommon or unheard of? Huh. Learn something new every day.

I've only just recently begun reading about 17th Century ships - most of my knowledge is based around Napoleonic stuff. But it's amazing how many truly immense full fleet actions occurred 1600-1700... in fact, it really puts the period of post-revolutionary French expansionism to shame. The Nile and even Trafalgar can hardly compare to several of the 100 vs. 100 battles from earlier (granted, Trafalgar had larger ships, so an outright 1-for-1 equivalence isn't really fair).

Unrelated: I am considering doing a companion ship, albeit much smaller - potentially based on the Harderwijk, a frigate forerunner.

Edited September 22, 2020 by SteamSewnEmpire

[Wurger49]

Brian Lavery's books like Wooden Warship Construction: A History in Ship Models, The Ship of the Line: A History in Ship Models, are great and available on kindle or google play. 

I also have Dutch Navies of the 80 Years' War 1568–1648 (New Vanguard Book 263) and Warships of the Anglo-Dutch Wars 1652–74 (New Vanguard Book 183). 

[SteamSewnEmpire]

3 hours ago, Wurger49 said:

Brian Lavery's books like Wooden Warship Construction: A History in Ship Models, The Ship of the Line: A History in Ship Models, are great and available on kindle or google play. 

I also have Dutch Navies of the 80 Years' War 1568–1648 (New Vanguard Book 263) and Warships of the Anglo-Dutch Wars 1652–74 (New Vanguard Book 183). 

Lol, I juuuust received the last two yesterday. I like the New Vanguard stuff, even though they're basically fancy magazines in terms of length. Will look into the others - thank you!

[Wurger49]

I love the new vanguard series, a lot of pics and an easy read, they complement the heavy military history books I read.

Another book I recommend:

The Sailing Frigate: A History in Ship Models, 

[Count Vroskri]

9 hours ago, Wurger49 said:

Brian Lavery's books like Wooden Warship Construction: A History in Ship Models, The Ship of the Line: A History in Ship Models, are great and available on kindle or google play. 

I also have Dutch Navies of the 80 Years' War 1568–1648 (New Vanguard Book 263) and Warships of the Anglo-Dutch Wars 1652–74 (New Vanguard Book 183). 

Brian Lavery is a fantastic author. My favourite of his is The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600 - 1815. 

13 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

So even during the height of piracy ca. 1700 wheels would have either been uncommon or unheard of? Huh. Learn something new every day.

 

Unrelated: I am considering doing a companion ship, albeit much smaller - potentially based on the Harderwijk, a frigate forerunner.

Indeed. No wheels.

I'd  certainly love to see you do a frigate in this style, it would be amazing. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Count Vroskri

[Wurger49]

27 minutes ago, Count Vroskri said:

Brian Lavery is a fantastic author. My favourite of his is The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600 - 1815. 

Indeed. No wheels.

I'd  certainly love to see you do a frigate in this style, it would be amazing. 

Wow, that is an very old book, and The Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War : 1650-1850, from the same era, 1980s.

Luckily, their scanned PDFs can be found online. 

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Wurger49

[Count Vroskri]

7 hours ago, Wurger49 said:

Wow, that is an very old book, and The Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War : 1650-1850, from the same era, 1980s.

Luckily, their scanned PDFs can be found online. 

 

My local library has a copy that I borrow from time to time, it is one of about twenty in the Uk's library system (and the only in my region). 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Count Vroskri

[SteamSewnEmpire]

I decided to spend about 4 hours today significantly reworking this ship. I realized shortly after I had finished it that the whole thing was just too darned tall - especially considering that it was just a 2-decker. This had been done mostly to incorporate a) the very high stern art, and b) the method I had used to mount the life preserver gun ports. After redesigning both of these elements, I was able to lower the entire top and stern about 8 plates. This has made an enormous difference and is - I believe - a big improvement, dramatically decreasing the un-protypical stern height, exaggerated sheer, high part count (it's down about 500 pieces), and (perhaps most happily) how narrow she looked from the bow and stern.

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by SteamSewnEmpire

[Count Vroskri]

8 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

I decided to spend about 4 hours today significantly reworking this ship. I realized shortly after I had finished it that the whole thing was just too darned tall - especially considering that it was just a 2-decker. This had been done mostly to incorporate a) the very high stern art, and b) the method I had used to mount the life preserver gun ports. After redesigning both of these elements, I was able to lower the entire top and stern about 8 plates. This has made an enormous difference and is - I believe - a big improvement, dramatically decreasing the un-protypical stern height, exaggerated sheer, high part count (it's down about 500 pieces), and (perhaps most happily) how narrow she looked from the bow and stern.

 

This is much better! 

[Wurger49]

8 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

I decided to spend about 4 hours today significantly reworking this ship. I realized shortly after I had finished it that the whole thing was just too darned tall - especially considering that it was just a 2-decker. This had been done mostly to incorporate a) the very high stern art, and b) the method I had used to mount the life preserver gun ports. After redesigning both of these elements, I was able to lower the entire top and stern about 8 plates. This has made an enormous difference and is - I believe - a big improvement, dramatically decreasing the un-protypical stern height, exaggerated sheer, high part count (it's down about 500 pieces), and (perhaps most happily) how narrow she looked from the bow and stern.

 

While the hull is better, imho, I find the sloped wall from quarter deck to poop deck to be too much, prefer a stepped look of the first version or less sheer by making the quarter deck walls higher, as the poop deck height is set from your stern ornament.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Wurger49

[SteamSewnEmpire]

4 hours ago, Wurger49 said:

While the hull is better, imho, I find the sloped wall from quarter deck to poop deck to be too much, prefer a stepped look of the first version or less sheer by making the quarter deck walls higher, as the poop deck height is set from your stern ornament.

The problem I run into is that this is kind of the place where the (in)flexibility of Lego (and the payoff of being true to life) bump up against cost (and practicality).

On real ships of this era, the hulls were constructed first, followed by internal decking (this is why the majority of the gun ports don't really follow the sheer of the hull, but are largely horizontal down its length). The weather decks, however, did curl distinctly upwards with the hullform:

Ideally, this would mean that the decks on my model would follow the sheer of the side rails upwards.

But... is it really worth it to do that?

For starters, I am pretty sure that I can never replicate the kind of graceful upwards sweep of the railings in the places where they don't step upwards (there aren't any parts in Lego to really accomplish this sort of thing at this size), which means that the hull would always wind up with that kind of 'bumpy' look to it as you went astern. Secondly, this would mean all the plated top decks would need an internal structure to facilitate their angling up, with each one assuming a more pronounced grade the further astern I went. This would be complex, part intensive, potentially ugly in its own way, and would compel minifigures positioned on the deck to "lean backwards" to remain upright (one potential fix would be to use a kind of terraced approach, where the deck 'stepped up' one plate at a time in decreasing intervals as you went aft. My beef with this is that it, too, isn't really prototypical, would be very part intensive, and probably wouldn't look all that great [by the time you reached the last quarter of the hull, the deck would more closely resemble stairs than a flat surface]). 

I'm not saying you're wrong about this - you're quite right. It's just that, at this scale, are the solutions either feasible or practical? And I lean towards no. Were I building at a prototypical scale instead of playscale, then a stepped deck, for example, probably wouldn't be that noticeable... but you're talking about, like, a 30,000 piece model compared of a 4,500 piece toy. And that's the root of the issue, really: the whole thing is already massively wrong in terms of proportions*** - some things I can still get right. Others I just have to shrug and let go. 

 

*** For example, the stern and the bow really aren't significantly 'meatier' than the midships on these older men-of-war - the hull itself is so banana-shaped, and rests in the water in such a way as to give that impression... but it's really not true. Were this an accurate model, the hull would need to replicate this effect - curling upwards as it went fore and aft. It doesn't - I just use an enhanced version of Lego's own cop-out method of using the sides to do a bad imitation of sheer. With a brick-built model in the tens of thousands of parts, you could legitimately reproduce that crescent shape. At this scale - at the size I might conceivably be able to build - I don't even know where I'd begin.

 

*Edit* I'm not trying to rant at you - just explain the illogical way my mind creaks along.

Edited September 24, 2020 by SteamSewnEmpire

[Wurger49]

you are absolutely correct, Lego design isn't about replicating a look 100%, it's actually impossbile. A good designer like you can achieve a balance of technical accuracy and visual pleasure, like how LEGO did the UCS batmobile wings. 

Have a look at how 31109 does the sloped top decks, it uses a simple hinged mechanism, it's works very well. The 31109 actually has a lot of smart techniques included. 

[Captain Becker]

Are you planning on releasing the file or instuructions for her at some point? Would love to build her whit real Legos!

[Wurger49]

21 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

The problem I run into is that this is kind of the place where the (in)flexibility of Lego (and the payoff of being true to life) bump up against cost (and practicality).

On real ships of this era, the hulls were constructed first, followed by internal decking (this is why the majority of the gun ports don't really follow the sheer of the hull, but are largely horizontal down its length). The weather decks, however, did curl distinctly upwards with the hullform:

Ideally, this would mean that the decks on my model would follow the sheer of the side rails upwards.

But... is it really worth it to do that?

For starters, I am pretty sure that I can never replicate the kind of graceful upwards sweep of the railings in the places where they don't step upwards (there aren't any parts in Lego to really accomplish this sort of thing at this size), which means that the hull would always wind up with that kind of 'bumpy' look to it as you went astern. Secondly, this would mean all the plated top decks would need an internal structure to facilitate their angling up, with each one assuming a more pronounced grade the further astern I went. This would be complex, part intensive, potentially ugly in its own way, and would compel minifigures positioned on the deck to "lean backwards" to remain upright (one potential fix would be to use a kind of terraced approach, where the deck 'stepped up' one plate at a time in decreasing intervals as you went aft. My beef with this is that it, too, isn't really prototypical, would be very part intensive, and probably wouldn't look all that great [by the time you reached the last quarter of the hull, the deck would more closely resemble stairs than a flat surface]). 

I'm not saying you're wrong about this - you're quite right. It's just that, at this scale, are the solutions either feasible or practical? And I lean towards no. Were I building at a prototypical scale instead of playscale, then a stepped deck, for example, probably wouldn't be that noticeable... but you're talking about, like, a 30,000 piece model compared of a 4,500 piece toy. And that's the root of the issue, really: the whole thing is already massively wrong in terms of proportions*** - some things I can still get right. Others I just have to shrug and let go. 

 

*** For example, the stern and the bow really aren't significantly 'meatier' than the midships on these older men-of-war - the hull itself is so banana-shaped, and rests in the water in such a way as to give that impression... but it's really not true. Were this an accurate model, the hull would need to replicate this effect - curling upwards as it went fore and aft. It doesn't - I just use an enhanced version of Lego's own cop-out method of using the sides to do a bad imitation of sheer. With a brick-built model in the tens of thousands of parts, you could legitimately reproduce that crescent shape. At this scale - at the size I might conceivably be able to build - I don't even know where I'd begin.

 

*Edit* I'm not trying to rant at you - just explain the illogical way my mind creaks along.

Not at all, discussions spark ideas and changes 

[CaptainPolluxofOrion]

Wow love your ships! Iam a big fan of 17th century Ships. Recently i myself build some ships on an different software (studio from Bricklink). Also a little ship with the midsized Hull pieces you talked about in a different post. Maybe i post some of them in near future. Keep up this great work! :) Greetings from Germany.