Hello everyone. I am sorry that I have been very busy and am finally finding this post about my pirate creation. Right now, (Summer 2008) this massive ship is sitting in a couple of boxes in a LEGO shop near Taipei Airport in a city called Nan Kan. I don't know when the boxes will next be opened. However I do have about a hundred pictures to filter through to give you details about the ship. It is valued at $15,000 and is built of so many pieces that I did not count after 150,000. It is the 3rd version of my "Ghost Pirate Ship" and the first was named X, the second XL, so this would then be XXL, and they kept getting bigger. It took about 3 months working in free time, so a total of maybe 14 hours a week - I would guess 168 man hours? SO there are some stats if that's what you like.
I built the first ship "GPSX" based on the standard LEGO hull size, then longer - using all the center hulls I owned. Having it on display with some standard LEGO castle and pirate sets I saw how cool it was to be towering over the "normal" LEGO sets. So the second "GPSXL" was built based on normal LEGO cannons and did not extend the length, but did get larger upper decks. The third "GPSXXL" is truly a mismatch of scale. I must apologize for not making it proper. As I was constructing the first ship for an exhibition, I ran out of time trimming the sails and just threw the top together. Also the first ship was the most inconvenient, the main hull being too long for any box. Live and learn. So with the second ship, the display was at my convenience and it stayed at the school most of the time, then when it came home it got scrapped right away. Then I decided that I needed to get more unique nautical parts. The first problem was my desire to create a brown ship, I was sick of the black. I also ran out of all shipbuilding parts so I scavenged the markets and bought up lots of pirate LEGO from everywhere (but mostly Australia). Lastly I raided the local LEGO shops and LEGOLAND pick-a-brick, cleaning out their supply of brown 1x12 beams and 2x10 plates every day. Now I was ready to build a really massive ship.
I'll write more when I have time, and I'll get the pictures up as soon as I can, I hope in the next 2 weeks.
Some details you don't know:
- Rudder actually turns with the main steering wheel.
- Lanterns flicker with an LED mounted in each, connected to RCX with a program to adjust the power output.
- Captain's quarters has 4 ceiling mounted amber color lanterns also running on the RCX power output program.
- Hull separates into 3 parts and locks with Technic axels, it's strong enough to hold from any point with one hand and no bowing of the deck.
- All cannon ports open with LEGO chains.
- Only the fabric for the sails and the LED lights are non-LEGO elements.
- Most of the ship is modular and sets in place without locking mechanisms.
- Cargo doors on the main deck slide open for access through the cannon deck down to the lower deck in the hull.
- Storage and brig are on the bottom deck, a fully detailed galley is in the forecastle and the crew sleeps at the cannon deck.
- Areas that need access, such as the rigging for the rudder through the deck and electrical, are closed using Technic pins and modular walls.
- Both anchors lower and raise, but the chain spindles do not spin.
- I did learn about mast rigging to tie most of the ropes in proper places, but some are simply needed for structural support and others to give it a more menacing appearance.
- I hate the skinny masts. :-( [i didn't have enough large round bricks to make wider masts, plus I didn't like the look of the 4x wide mast so these were a compromise. If there are 3x round bricks, then I would substitute. Also the height of my masts is limited by the original LEGO masts, I tried my best to make them "reasonable" but I didn't learn enough about sailing to really do the details perfectly, so I'll save my perfectionism for my job and keep the LEGO building fun and free. I like to build without rules.]
- Almost forgot, the kitchen stove also has a flickering red LED and amber LED with a battery pack hidden in the storage area below the deck.
I hope to display the ship again at a show or shop, maybe tear down the rigging and masts and start from the deck up again.
- Brian Heins
(now in Southern California)
