WIP: Developing a new way of building ship

[WilliamWalls]

Hi there,

After seeing pictures of beautiful ship as the ‘Achille’, the ‘Nuestra Seniora de la Conception’ and many others last year I started dreaming of building my own ship(s). The technique for building frigates shown by CGH on the forum works well: it is simple, solid and delivers a realistic ‘minifigure illusion ship’.

In CGH’s model, the ship’s curve along the longitudinal axis progresses by steps of half a stud using ‘jumper bricks’ and I wondered if it were possible to make a ship that is even more streamlined.

The last weeks I have been experimenting with all sorts of building techniques: hinges, slopes, even an ‘internal skeleton’ of Lego technic… Eventually I developed a combination of ‘headlight’ bricks and bricks with studs on one side to make the base of the ship. It is similar to GCH’s model, but is stead of making steps of half a stud, I made steps of ¼ a stud. I thought the technique was new, but just yesterday I saw another EB member building a ship with a similar base. However, the best has yet to come…

By combining hinges in two directions (bricks with clips and regular hinges) I could make a very fluid ship, and after some fine-tuning I even could make it with almost no noticeable cracks. The difficulty is to fit the front and back part of the ship, where the side bends towards the inside of the ship, to the ship’s base because the double curvature of the walls makes them bend downwards (it’s difficult to explain, but if you try building it yourself you’ll see what I mean). I constructed the side of the ship upside down and used small panels that progressed stepwise to make the double curvature of the top fit the base. The technique is elegant and solid, there is no stress on the hinges, it works! It only is quite difficult to find the right angels that make the top and base fit.

This is only a small experimantal 'practice' ship.

I want to build a frigate, inspired by the ‘HMS Indefatigable/Grand Turk’(you can find some magnificent pictures of her on the internet). The pictures I post here are from a practice model, used for developing the technique, the frigate will be almost twice as long (so please don’t comment that the ship is too short, I know it is :)). The practice model also allows me to estimate the quantity of bricks I need to order via bricklink.

I also added a smaller MOC that shows how I want to construct the inside of the ship, using white arcs, tiles and black ropes to hold back the cannon (in the definitive version the arcs will be spread a stud wider).

That leaves me with two questions: shall I use a black base or a dark brown? And should I keep that yellow line (I’ll replace it by smooth tiles) at the bottom or make it black?

EDIT: I added larger pictures.

Edited August 22, 2011 by WilliamWalls

[Skipper]

From what I can see it seems very interesting, but I can barely see the pictures, it would help if you should post/give a link to bigger ones.

I would get rid of the lower yellow stripe (I've never seen that before) and make the hull entirely black, but sometimes too much black doesn't look good in LEGO so you should try it out.

Good luck!

[Bart]

What you describe sounds interesting, but like Skipper sad, we need a slightly bigger picture to really judge it.

About the colour, I think it doesn't really matter brown or black.

Bart

[Captain Green Hair]

Hi,

You're new technique seems quite interesting, but from the pictures I can't really make up how it works.

Can you please make it clear with some building steps?

From your test ship I can see the horizontal curve is a bit much, is there a way too smoothen that out a bit as well?

That leaves me with two questions: shall I use a black base or a dark brown? And should I keep that yellow line (I’ll replace it by smooth tiles) at the bottom or make it black?

EDIT: I added larger pictures.

The base doesn't really matter, brown, black or dark brown all looks great with this colour scheme!

I'd change the lower yellow line to black tiles.

[Weil]

Like everyone else, even with the bigger pictures I'm still confused as to what you've done... That's probably to the building styles credit in that the end result is subtle.

[WilliamWalls]

Hi,

You're new technique seems quite interesting, but from the pictures I can't really make up how it works.

Can you please make it clear with some building steps?

From your test ship I can see the horizontal curve is a bit much, is there a way too smoothen that out a bit as well?

The base doesn't really matter, brown, black or dark brown all looks great with this colour scheme!

I'd change the lower yellow line to black tiles.

Like everyone else, even with the bigger pictures I'm still confused as to what you've done... That's probably to the building styles credit in that the end result is subtle.

I would like to add some pictures but I almost reached the 100k upload limit. Is there a way to get a higher upload limit? I have a busy week ahead however next week I have a lot of spare time and I'll make a tutorial or something alike. The short version is: alternate headlight bricks and bricks with studs on one side at the base to create a smooth, stepwise longitudinal curve. Then I used hinges with clips for the vertical curving and regular hinges (http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2429c01) for the longitudinal curving. The side was constructed upside down so I could place small plates (http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4865) at the bottom that fit perfectly on the earlier constructed base.

You can give the hinges any angle you like, as long as they fit the base, and the curving of the base depends on how many steps you used making it.

[kurigan]

I'm a huge fan of innovation, great job. I do have to agree with the others, however, some step -by-step photos would help out a lot. I wouldn't be too worried about the stripe, in history the design of a ships paint job was at the discretion of its commander. For my part I like visual ques that set one ship apart from others like an extra stripe. Until Lego releases a hull bottom in "White Wash" or "Copper Plating" it seems to matter little what color you use as a base. It’ll mostly be over shadowed by the upper works any way.

The interior looks good too, but I might suggest, if you're modeling off "Grand Turk" (or any other frigate for that matter) you'll want to go with smaller guns. The Lego guns look neat, but in terms of scale can't represent anything smaller than a 36lb-er gun. For a frigate, something more in the 9-18lb range would be more appropriate. There are lots of examples of good brick built guns in the MOC forum here, I sure no one would mind you using. It might look better and save space.

A note; “Grand Turk's” guns all occur on the spar deck and are quite small, something like 6lb-ers if memory serves. The actual HMS Indefatigable, which served as the literary inspiration for Horatio’s ship in the original books, was 38gun frigate, made by shaving off the upper deck of a 64 gun third rate. That ship seems more in line with the method you’re devising. You can find plenty of information on her on the internet as well.

I like what you have so far, and only want to encourage, thanks for sharing.

[Weil]

I would like to add some pictures but I almost reached the 100k upload limit. Is there a way to get a higher upload limit?

Can you not just upload the photos to some free service like photobucket or brickshelf and then use image tags to place them in your post so they appear exactly the same as if you attached them?

ie

[img=http://www.picturelinkexample.jpg]

[hobbes5a]

I am impressed by your great technique!However, like the others just said, larger photos please so we can understand more about whats going on in there. Thanks

[WilliamWalls]

Thanks for all the constructive comment and advice! I understand it might be difficult to see what exactly I did inside the ship. I hope the pictures help. When I have some more time I'll make a more complete walktrough.

The wheel behinde the back mast will be connected to the rudder by ropes and to the steering by an axle, so moving the steering will move the rudder.

(The other pictures I posted on brickshelf earlier are from a castle I have build a few years ago with parts from hogwarts and lego castle sets before I discovered Bricklink. I did the best with the parts I had but it's not that nice, I might better remove the pictures.)

[Sebeus I]

It's funny, I'm also working on a new more streamlined technique but completely different from what you're doing, which is very nice by the way

I'm running short on parts to make a decent presentation of my technique though