De Ruyter (WIP)

[Swan Dutchman]

Hello everyone,

Right after finishing my Christmas Entry (November 2012) I started designing, thinking and building on a ship right out of the pirate era / Golden age. I searched the internet and this website and found many beautifull ships and techniques that inspired me a lot. I wanted to make a ship that could suit well with the Dutch VOC ships of that time. I call the ship 'De Ruyter', one of the greatest admirals of the Dutch navy of all time and decided to use the colour scheme of the USS constitution (I can't help it: I really like black, white and dark red together).

In the next posts I will place some pictures and a little story about the ship's progress.

I want to thank Perfectionist, Admiral Croissant, Captain Green Hair, Dread Pirate Wesley and Mr. Townsend for inspiring me with their beautifull ships and very clever techniques!

Greetz,

Swan Dutchman

Last update:

Edited January 30, 2014 by Swan Dutchman

[Swan Dutchman]

Here are my first WIP pictures of De Ruyter. These pictures (and more) can also be found on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.co...s/66389707@N08/

The hull took a long time to finish: both because of design and getting all the parts (it's all old brown). Next came the mid-section: I tried various techniques including one that I designed myself (there was no gap anymore bewteen the brown and black part), but at last I had to go with Perfectionist's technique because with the technique I made up a little seem was visible right below the upper deck. The front still requires some designing and as you can see the layout for the headrails is already there (they are going to be white). The mast at the bow actually goes through the hull. The captain's quarter is still in design: I am using the very little flexibility between lego parts to create angels in it. It works really well, and the structure is firm. The ship is going to get a full interior that is still visible when the ship is finished because of removable deck sections. The ship will come with a crew and each crew member will be displayed in little scene, for example the cook at the stove and a sailor making music.

[Matteo1130]

Wow.. clean and very elegant.

[Sebeus I]

Very nice, the color scheme works great, keep it up.

I like how you closed the gaps on the stern hull piece, I have a great sollution for those gaps as well and I thought I would have been the only one but it seems not .

[Mr. Townsend]

Your off to a very impressive start. The colors work well together. I especially like the use of the old brown. I didn't spot any additional photos on your Flickr but I would enjoy seeing more. I look forward to progress on this project. Brick on!

Edited June 26, 2013 by Mr. Townsend

[Captain Blackmoor]

That looks like a fantastic build already! Gorgeous lines and coloursheme indeed!

I've got nothing to add so far as it looks splendid. It's nice to see brown headrails as well!

Keep it up!

[Legopast]

Beautiful colour scheme!

The black and white at the captains room is very sharp and elegant. This makes me wish I was building ships! I will be following this thread,

I'm a conformist!!

*What happened there? if a moderator could PM me to let me know what I have done wrong? my "I'm a conformist!!" changed*

Edited June 28, 2013 by Legopast

[Horatio]

Very nice, I can't wait to see more pictures! What do you plan to do for cannons?

[ManInATopHat]

Very nice. I look forward to this becoming a fine ship.

[Swan Dutchman]

Thank you everyone for the comments!

Very nice, I can't wait to see more pictures! What do you plan to do for cannons?

The cannons are already there, although hardly visible on the photos. There will be 2 sorts of cannons: bigger ones for the gundeck and small ones for the upper deck. Both are brick build. I will post new photos when I have done some significant building and will include some detail shots like the captain's cabin, the firing cannon scene en the cook on the stove.

[ManInATopHat]

Thank you everyone for the comments!

The cannons are already there, although hardly visible on the photos. There will be 2 sorts of cannons: bigger ones for the gundeck and small ones for the upper deck. Both are brick build. I will post new photos when I have done some significant building and will include some detail shots like the captain's cabin, the firing cannon scene en the cook on the stove.

Will the "small guns" be swivel cannons?

[Swan Dutchman]

Will the "small guns" be swivel cannons?

Yes, they will be there as well. With the small cannons I mean something different though. They are the same design as the cannons on the gun deck only a size smaller so they would fit well in the gunports on the upper deck. There is one such small cannon on the second photo, although difficult to see in a first glance because of the background colour.

[Grimmbeard]

Very nice! I love the general sleekness of it.

Can't wait for more pics!

[mrsniady1]

Beautiful color scheme. Can't wait to see her finished.

[Swan Dutchman]

Hi everyone,

I've been building again somewhat, so it's time to post some new WIP pictures of my ship 'De Ruyter'. Bigger pictures and more pictures of this ship can be found on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66389707@N08/

As you can see I made a lot of progress on the ship. I still have to do some work on the top deck, before continuing on the front, the masts (note that some parts are replaced with the correct colour) and finally the rigging and sails. The ship has a full interior including captain's cabin, cannons and stove. To be able to view all this when the ship is finished I choose to design the ship with removable upper deck sections as you can see in one of the pictures. Despite these sections the build is still very firm. Enjoy the pictures

[Dread Pirate Wesley]

Lovely! The color scheme is quite nice and the tiled deck makes the whole build look very clean. Did you use my canon design for the main gun deck? I like your smaller versions for the top deck too. I also like what you did with the ships longboat, very clever, I'd like to see a close up of that. Glad to see these designs catching on! Good luck on the rigging, keep up the good work

Dread Pirate Wesley

[Swan Dutchman]

Lovely! The color scheme is quite nice and the tiled deck makes the whole build look very clean. Did you use my canon design for the main gun deck? I like your smaller versions for the top deck too. I also like what you did with the ships longboat, very clever, I'd like to see a close up of that. Glad to see these designs catching on! Good luck on the rigging, keep up the good work

Dread Pirate Wesley

Thank you! I just took a peak at your Flickr page and oh my... your ship is awesome! We do have indeed the same canon design. I found the design in another thread on this web about ship props. So if it was you that posted the design there, thank you very much :) And for the longboat: I didn't think the lego's solid version was good enough, so I started searching to get inspiration and found a threat also on this web that contained longboat designs. I think yours were on it too and I liked what you did with the shape and colours. With these ideas I made a version in LDD at first and began making the back somewhat more angular. I will post some more pictures of the longboat next time.

Seeing your rigging and sail making techniques inspires me a lot too: the result is very neat and no glue as far as I can see. I will look into it again when it's time for me to test some rigging techniques.

[Mr. Townsend]

That's really coming along nicely. I like the use of the DPW long boat. I tried to build one for my brig but I couldn't shrink it down enough to fit. The stern looks nice as well. Its a bit simple but I see you figured out what I couldn't, how Perfectionist put a tile between the windows.

One thing I don't like on the stern is the lantern. I'm not overly fond of it on DPWs ship of the line but it certainly fits better there then here. It's just big, blunt, and offers no variation between it and your stern. Another thing I notice is the way you left accesibility to your gun deck. You went the same way I did for my hold but for the gun deck, and I can tell you from experience it's hard to utilize that small space to play with or move objects. This is of course a difficult thing to do, maintaining access/modularity while keeping the build stable. The way I tried to solve this problem on the new version of the Matterhorn was to make the deck connected to the masts permanent and the in between bits come completely off. This way I won't have a flimsy weather deck and I can still access everything. Maybe you could just expand the openings all the way to the wall of the deck to avoid a massive overhaul while increasing playability.

That being said your making a great ship and I applaud your effort. Brick on Swan Dutchman

-W.T.

[Swan Dutchman]

That's really coming along nicely. I like the use of the DPW long boat. I tried to build one for my brig but I couldn't shrink it down enough to fit. The stern looks nice as well. Its a bit simple but I see you figured out what I couldn't, how Perfectionist put a tile between the windows.

One thing I don't like on the stern is the lantern. I'm not overly fond of it on DPWs ship of the line but it certainly fits better there then here. It's just big, blunt, and offers no variation between it and your stern. Another thing I notice is the way you left accesibility to your gun deck. You went the same way I did for my hold but for the gun deck, and I can tell you from experience it's hard to utilize that small space to play with or move objects. This is of course a difficult thing to do, maintaining access/modularity while keeping the build stable. The way I tried to solve this problem on the new version of the Matterhorn was to make the deck connected to the masts permanent and the in between bits come completely off. This way I won't have a flimsy weather deck and I can still access everything. Maybe you could just expand the openings all the way to the wall of the deck to avoid a massive overhaul while increasing playability.

That being said your making a great ship and I applaud your effort. Brick on Swan Dutchman

-W.T.

Thank you for the feedback Mr. Townsend, much appreciated! I've been looking into the possibility of removing the 'wall sections' and it worked :) At first I thought it wouldn't work, because of the rigging attachements, but some of lego's newest parts brought a solution there :) So, at the moment I am altering the ship so that all walls can easily be removed and put back. You are right, without the walls it's much easier to look inside, move the cannons and dust it. Some of the removable top sections will remain as well: places where no hinderance is expected from sails and rigging, like the captains cabin. About the lantarn, it's indeed a bit oversized... do you have a suggestion for a replacement?

[Frank Brick Wright]

This is a wonderful work you have here The shape is really sweet and all the tiling gives an extra smooth effect. I love all the details and especially the really small capstan, well done! I don't really have anything else to add since you've followed Perfectionist's steps quite far and you've clearly studied the subject

- about the lamp, though, I suggest you take a look at the ones Perfectionist used in his latest ships, I believe they can quite fit the scale you are using.

[Swan Dutchman]

Hi everyone,

I just made some quick photos of my ship to show you the progress. Bigger pictures are on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66389707@N08/

Regarding the Lego parts the ship is finished, now comes the other half .

As you can see I changed some stuff: a new back of the ship (including the lamp designed by Perfectionist) and no more removable deck sections (except the captain's cabin). Instead, all the walls can now be removed to show the interior. As you can see I am currently busy rigging and just began tying the ratlines. The technique I use for the ratlines is very similar to Dread Pirate Wesley's technique. When that's done I have some more rigging to do at the front and at the back of the ship. After that I will start on the sails and flags... no idea how I will do that yet, but I will figure it out in due course .

[Admiral Bejaune]

This is a great frigate. You cant go wrong with black and white. The lines are great, and the only thing I can see that needs changing are the main yardarms. They are too small. The need to be longer. Other than that its a great build.

-B

[Bonaparte]

Wonderful ship

I had a very close look at the pictures and have no suggestions for improvements. It looks pretty much perfect to me. I love the simple color scheme, the lines of the ship are spot on, the masts, rigging and deck details are great.

Looking forward to see it finished with sails.

[Horatio]

Wow. One word really comes to mind when looking at her, and that would be clean. She looks so neat and tight- dare I even say, ship shape. Is she based off of the HMS Trincomalee? At any rate, I can't wait to see her fully rigged. Also, did you put wire in the tubes so that they would hold their shape more easily?

[Swan Dutchman]

Thank you for all the comments!

This is a great frigate. You cant go wrong with black and white. The lines are great, and the only thing I can see that needs changing are the main yardarms. They are too small. The need to be longer. Other than that its a great build.

-B

The yardarms do look small on the photos. I guess it's because of the camera angle and depth issues. In real they are longer and are the correct size (scaled from a blue-print).

Wonderful ship

I had a very close look at the pictures and have no suggestions for improvements. It looks pretty much perfect to me. I love the simple color scheme, the lines of the ship are spot on, the masts, rigging and deck details are great.

Looking forward to see it finished with sails.

Thank you!

Wow. One word really comes to mind when looking at her, and that would be clean. She looks so neat and tight- dare I even say, ship shape. Is she based off of the HMS Trincomalee? At any rate, I can't wait to see her fully rigged. Also, did you put wire in the tubes so that they would hold their shape more easily?

The ship is based on many ships actually: real ships, other lego ships, but my biggest inspiration has been a ship that was digitally designed (and showed many detailed screenshots). The colour scheme is that of the USS Constitution, just because I like black, white and red. The tubes are custom made pneumatic hoses sold by http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=fasblok . They are bendable, yet firm and keep there shape well. I used some lego bar parts in the beginning of the hoses to give them the right shape and used white hand parts that connects them.

Making the ratlines goes well, but slowly... and errors are hard and time-consuming to correct. I want to do it without glue or anything and give it a feel that it's all tied together. However I also don't want a very 'straight' or 'too neat' look for the ratlines either, because that also is not the case with real ships. The mast at the back is done now and I am pleased with that... the technique I am using I now know and I hope to do the other 2 bigger masts more easily.