VeniVediLego

This is my fourth prototype and I'm quite happy with it. It is designed for real rigging made of 3mm twine. The same basic construction can be adapted for use as a 6 stud wide mast top. The top mast is held together with a No. 4095 Umbrella Stand with the stopper wedged into the base of the No. 43888 Support (which is tapered internally) and run through a Technic stud pin, a headlight brick, and an upside down No. 14716 pillar. The other end of the top mast involves rigid tubing, Technic pins, No. 73535/62462 pin connectors, and a No. 87617 Friction Cylinder, but I haven't figured out the top of that size mast yet.

Inspired by @thewatchman's use of the anti-stud on headlight bricks I immediately realized that visually the bottoms of 1x1 bricks are a dead ringer. I was stuck on them actually being ventilated, but it looks so good I don't think I can use anything else. Honestly I feel kinda foolish, this is so good, @kurigan. It's a good thing you shared because I was about to post my prototype on Flickr without attribution even though I was sure someone had come up with it first. All I've done is adjust the proportions for sharper corners. Another Deck Grating

I'm not sure. I have an idea of size (quite large as Lego ships go). I rather like the peculiar arrangement of a Dutch East Indiaman, but like...that's fraught as hell. I also like The Queen Anne's Revenge, but it was originally a slaver ship and Blackbeard sold the enslaved humans on it when he took it . Obviously the world of Lego pirates is less...complicated (to a fault), but I feel obligated to take these things into account. I think I'm going to try and go kinda "aspirational". Maybe make a "blue empire" war ship and then convert it into a pirate ship. I'm shooting for real tied rigging as well, might cheat on dead eyes though.

I've been tinkering with some nautical ideas while things compile at work (I get to work from home...right next to my collection ). I'm toying with making a large ship, solving each problem one at a time. Today I came up with what I think is a very good solution for those pesky raised deck gratings which I think everyone might appreciate. I tried to make it "authentic" while also being in scale with Lego's generally chonky aesthetic. Making it wider is easy, but the way the dimensions work out it is very tricky to make it longer without making it huge, let alone figuring out how to secure the midsection. With some adjustments it can be made flush with a deck, too.

Thanks for this resource! This is something I find the Chinese brands very useful for: parts in colors which are not available from Lego or discontinued parts or parts in colors which have become expensive on the resale market. Support pillar No. 43888 in black, for instance, is available from BuildMoc, and that is good because it features in my design for yards and top gallant masts. Full sets that are carbon copies of actual Lego sets rub me the wrong way, but when they are a discontinued set I don't really see much of a problem. Kind of like a vintage Lancia kit car. My opposition to Mega Bloks has always been based on the design, tolerances and mold quality: even now they just don't stick together. I found some Mega Blok parts in a small thrift haul recently that had flash.

I've been researching a detailed pirate ship build (maybe I'll get to it, maybe I won't) and found that small boat hull section 6054 in old brown is quite expensive, given that it was only ever available in Set No. 6271: Imperial Flag Ship. I've also been looking deeply into the latest quality non-Lego building bricks, and found that ReoBrix (I think) makes a pirate ship set which features boat hull 6054 and a variant of boat bow 6050 (with no cutouts for anchor chain), both in reddish brown with the trim on the bow in black. This set also features the short shrouds/mast rigging in black, but they have a deep "rope" texture. There is a another set out there, though it is dodgier, that features these pieces in red and tan (or maybe white). I'm not sure if the other brands have the chops to pull off large pieces like this without too much warping, but it might be worth investigating. Has anyone gotten one of these? The reddish brown/black set The red/tan set (one of the options)

I revised the bogie design to use only pieces that are currently in production. I think I might have to go all out and build a working example and track. This is the bottom of the bogie.

I recently started fiddling with monorails. I figured that there should be a way to make one from standard widely available parts (and indeed, I found several people have done so). But I couldn't get it out of my head. This is where I'm at: Monorail System Mk2 by Mike O, on Flickr I'm working with some placeholder parts because there are several new-to-me pieces I'd need to get it all to work. The left bogie is driven through the pivot axle, while the middle one is a dumb bogie with no drive. The last one is just a different bogie frame so I can check the clearance of the pivot; I don't have the right connector at the moment to put a pivot on the bogie with the runners.

I think Technic 1×2 lift arms might be prefect for this, assuming you can incorporate the rounded ends aesthetically or can cover them up: 2p5-vertical-offset by Mike O, on Flickr