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Dear all, I’m very excited to present you my new project. This is going to be a late XVIII century French Frigate. The scale used is the one which I consider the most appropriate for building ships for minifigs, somewhere in between 1:45 and 1:50. This means she'll be some 90 studs long at the waterline which makes her a rather large ship. She will be carrying 36/38 guns, with a gun-deck of 13x2 iron 18-powders and a main deck with 5/6 x2 bronze 12-powders, yet to be decided. I’m using plans by Chapman in his magnum opus Architectura Navalis. The ship is going to be built around a central framework, which takes its support directly from the keel. This framework runs lengthwise and provides for the ship's internal structure and overall consistency. The cool thing here is that everything in the ship, besides the framework, does not contribute to the overall structure and is merely accessory: thus everything but the framework can be removed, making the ship almost fully modular. Neither the hull nor the tumblehome take part in the framework, and thus they can be pulled out, showing a “naked” ship. We’ve seen cut-away models but nothing so modular as this, I think. Because I’m using cb4’s technique (although extended, of course) which is rather space-efficient, the interior is going to be pretty decent as well, and to the scale. Not only the build is supposed to be historical accurate as are also the construction methods employed. I'll be taking pretty detailed photos because there aren't many brick-built ships around. I do not intend to make this a tutorial but at least a useful and complete guide for anyone interested in building a full-ship. I started by laying out the keel and measuring each cross-section with the scale-printed plans. Then I've started planking and added the black beams, which consist the framework of the ship. They are to be connected lengthwise, making a strong structure. The upper holes in the planking consist on the sections which are going to be removable (they are perfectly irrelevant to the structure). On a small technical note, I've developed a new hinge-structure which you can see here: It has the advantage of being tremendously stronger (more than the original-3-4-5 triangles cb4 used) and allows for a clear framework, which then makes the interior possible, as you will soon see. Stay tuned, more updates will come in the next few days.
