Hull construction question

[Free_Frag]

Hey Guys,

I've got a little question regarding hull construction. Would anyone be so kind and explain, or maybe post a photo of two bricks no 64645 fitting together?

My point is can you place them one on another to create a bigger and still smooth stern/bow, or do they missfit? I'd like to know that before ordering a few, and apparently this brick isn't available in LDD.

Thanks in advance.

[______]

I think they don't fit, I have tried before, I'd recommend getting the prefab hull and buildng your own extension, think The Imperial Flagship's bow.

[Free_Frag]

Hm. So it's either change of plans or... You could always try to cover the sides up with something. Flexible hoses for example?

I guess it's still fine as long as the very front of the bow forms a smooth curvature.

[Captain Grog]

This is sort of off topic but my next project will be to cut prefab hull pieces in half so that I can make the hull wider which will give my ship more realistic proportions. A similar technique may be able to give you the taller stern/bow that you seek.

[Captain Blockbeard]

A few months ago, I ordered a number of part 64645 ship hull sections from Bricklink with the intention of creating a taller hull exactly as you are now considering. As others have mentioned, I too found that the way these bricks are designed, you cannot connect them together...at least not directly. However, I'm not disappointed by my purchase because I've found a workaround that suits my needs, and I'll describe it here for your consideration.

First off, even if multiples of this brick could be connected together, the "inverted slope" forming the bow/stern will not be continuous. To approximate a continuous slope, I found you will need to offset the top 64645 brick forward by an additional 1/2 of a 1x1 brick dimension than normal when mounting it to the lower 64645 brick.

Secondly, since you cannot connect the 64645 bricks together directly, you will need something in between that can form the connection.

To resolve both of these issues simultaneously, I'm using a set of reddish brown 3794 modified plate w/ single stud to connect the upper and lower 64645 hull bricks, filling in gaps with reddish brown tiles. It's a crude method that does have issues:

1. the unavoidable 1/3 brick height layer between the 64645 bricks that will be continued into more of the hull beyond these parts)

2. it introduces a vertical gap due to that 1/2 brick offset. This gap can be filled in easily, though, with tiles mounted sideways.

Part 3794 on Bricklink:

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3794

I hope this helps give you some ideas or perhaps some reassurance that there are indirect ways of connecting the 64645 bricks and maintaining a reasonably continuous hull. Sorry that I can't provide pictures of my use of this method because while I've tested it, I currently don't have access to the parts to recreate it nor do I have the finished MOC using this method. (If only Lego Digital Designer had the parts, I could recreate the hull to demonstrate.)

[evancelt]

Roughly a decade later...

My wife got me some hull pieces from lego.com recently for Christmas and they include three of the 64645 hull. I'm planning to put one in back like the Imperial Flagship, but was presented with the problem of how to connect the front two together.

I experimented with @Captain Blockbeard's approach of using jumper plates and I think it will work!

As he said, they appear to be offset by 1/2 1x1 brick, so I think a combination of jumper plates and tiles (no studs) should work

Putting jumper plates in these two locations seems to make a pretty strong connection and not protrude from the hull very much at all.

I think the next step would be finding a cool usage of tiles / clips and hose to cover the gap produced. And... there is going to be a 1/3 brick (plate thickness) height addition throughout the ship.

Edited January 8, 2021 by evancelt

[MAB]

That was a long time coming! Its nice to see pictures of the technique, I was wondering how to do this myself a few weeks back.