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USS Constellation, Set 398/10021 and some mods
jan kusters posted a topic in General LEGO Discussion
(I was unsure again which forum to use; feel free to move it to a more appropriate spot if need be). Grin, who said history never changes? This ship’s known history changed between 1978 (Lego’s first edition of this set) and the 2003 reissue of this set. Back in 1978 it was thought the now still preserved museum ship was the original 1797 build ship, that underwent a thorough rebuild in 1854. But by the time the 2003 set came out, it was decided the 1854 rebuild was actually a completely new ship, with perhaps a few timbers used from the first ship. (photo by James in Balto, via Wikicommons) Anyway, we do not use timbers. Onto the bricks Mr Baines! (Yep, no box, no instructions, no original set. Just two bags with lots of bricks…) I wanted to build this ship for several reasons. I never knew this Lego set way back when. By the time this one appeared (1978), I was well into my dark ages. So getting this set was not exactly fulfilling a childhood dream. Hence I had no need for originals. A bricklinked set of stones would be fine. Luckily, some vendors offered just that already! No childhood-dream set. But building big sail ships was one of the things I did a lot when I was a kid. Those were all Rainbow Worriers, so to speak, where I would use all colours I had to reach size. Big as possible. And from what I remember, the intricate rigging was what I spend most time on. The rigging was actually needed to keep my masts and spars up and in position. I used little cards with darning wool from mom to make that rigging. I remember the start always being an exercise in patience and frustration-management, with masts and spars collapsing at every touch until I would have the basic rigging up. So building a large sailing ship might be a nice sentimental journey anyway. A chance to finally get it right; all in one colour. And with enough bricks to end what I began. Another reason for getting this set was that, like most Hobby sets from the seventies, it uses very few ‘weird’ or specialized bricks. It is mostly constructed from 2x8 and some smaller standard bricks, 2x8 and 1x8 plates (and quite a lot of smaller plates). Many black bricks and plates, and quite a few yellow plates (both so far rather sparse in my stash). The set would be a nice addition to my basic set of bricks and plates. And finally, I got to check tricks and techniques of the Lego Masterbuilders of those days. The hobby sets are often praised as pretty much the ultimate builds in the old Lego style, and I tend to agree (the cars from that series are fantastic as well). The masts for example are set into the hull by technic axels, one of the few more modern elements in this build. They more or less promise masts that might stand on their own, without the rigging I really needed. The original 398 set was from 1978, the in 2003 reissued set was number 10021. I did not know what I was getting, luckily it turned out to be the 1978 set. The first round was what is now known as knolling; sorting the bricks type by type, in neat stacks, well laid out on a surface. The ideal way to check if you got everything, and it makes for a pretty easy way to handle, find and store bricks. I usually stack bricks with one or two studs free left or right, for easy counting and separating them. It took me 2 afternoons, mixed with reading online, checking the Bricklink inventory lists for this set, and with reading up on the real ship. 978 parts. I was missing a few 1x1 yellow plates, but I had enough in my stash to get that sorted out. (for those in the want: these are all the bricks for the original build, I tend to use pictures like this as sort of bricklists for my own builds) The yellow 1x1 windows mark this as a 398 set, the 10021 set used yellow 1x1 'headlight' bricks because the windows had gone uhm, out the window (perhaps nautical terms are more clear: The yellow windows had gone over the wall? Or is that just Dutch briney?). Building. Round one... I had managed to gather instructions for the set from the internet (taking care to get the right ones for this particular set), and it was time to start building. Reading the (not to big and slightly unsharp) scanned instructions was sometimes hard. This is old fashioned building; counting studs with several steps added per drawing. It took me a few restarts to get it right. As ‘Questforbricks’ once noticed in his blog, the joy of building with Lego is also a matter of timing. Don’t push it, we are doing this for fun. So stopping at the right moment is important. It is nice if something has progressed far enough to show progress, and it is even better to end a session with a product that invites you to work some more on it. So I made a pause at what I hoped would be the right moment. (wreck of the Bayard, South Georgia) Right now, the hull resembles a shipwreck. A ship, run aground by accident or on purpose, and left to fall apart where it stranded because it is not in anybody’s way. In a cold climate, such a ship takes a very long time to fall apart. Yep, things are going swell... No decks and superstructures, but already a recognisable hull, with just a few stumps where the masts used to be (or are going to be), beams and girders bare. That is pretty much how the ship looks now. The keel is laid, from here it is all upward and outward. A good time to leave it for the next round. Second round Although I had to go back and forth a few times on the bow, all-in all things progressed nicely. Most problems I had were with the slightly fuzzy instruction prints I had made; especially with the red and yellow plates, it was not always clear which plates were used. And these are old style instructions, no step by step exploded view. You get a drawing, and in the next drawing, a lot of bricks and plates have been added. It is a matter of counting studs and searching to spot all the differences. Regularly I would concentrate on one part of the ship, and miss steps on the other end of the ship. Back up two or three steps, to see what I missed there, and add those too. All in all I enjoyed this a lot, it is more fun than just brick by brick doing as you are told. An evening of building, and an hour the next day finished the hull. I must say, I am not a fan of canon bristling ships, and not the biggest fan of sailing ships from this period (beginning 19th century), but this is turning out rather nice! The thin white line seems to be the waterline, a bit higher up than I expected, but yes, it seems about right. The overall shape is very good, and the silhouette of the hull works remarkably well. With the black bricks, the blocky appearance of what should be smooth ship curves (the basic Lego problem in building ships) is hidden rather well. It is only in the lighter details, like the gilded bow, that the ships shows its Legoness. The interrupted white band of the gun deck does add a lot of character to the ship. The black brinks also resemble the planks of a wooden hull nicely. And there are a lot of small details that I do love. There are little roof bricks used in slits in the deck, that depict stairs going down to the lower deck. The ships bell is represented by an unprinted minifigure head (back when knolling, I expected it to be part of the figure head of the ship). There is a capstan and a steering wheel, although the capstan is placed a bit awkward between two openings in the deck (a scale problem I expect, a capstan is massive). The one thing I am not too sure about are the glass plates covering part of the gun deck. I expect on the real ship this would have been a grated hatch, and I am thinking about replacing them with black plates. But first I want to build the ship according to instructions… The small yellow windows (one of the things that show this to be a 398 set) add a lot of life to the stern of the ship. And this was a nice point to stop until I had more time... Third round lucky? The masts, spars and sails were a lot less work than expected, and flew on. The masts are a bit massive from the front, but a lot stronger and better connected than anything I did in my youth (rails and plates...). And the stowed sails add quite a bit of life to the masts. The minimal rigging was just that; minimal. And a bit of an embarrassment to be honest This is the ship as intended. Hmmm, the end result is slightly less appealing than I expected. I finished the ship as per instructions, including the very minimal rigging. And all in all it certainly is an impressive build, large and not bad at all… But several parts are screaming at the boat-nerd in me to get corrected. The bulwarks (the sides of the ship above the deck) are too high in some places (technically correct, but it throws off the lines of the hull due to scale effects). I am not a fan of all guns out (there might have been a different opinion had I been 10 year old me). I also discovered it will not be possible to rig the ship properly until I do some serious rebuilding in the hull itself. At the sides of the ships are rests, boards sticking out for the shrouds and stays of the masts, and they are too far forward to set up a realistic rigging. I need to move them back until they are behind the centre of the masts. And when I do that, I might as well close all the canon ports, at least at one side, to make for a smoother hull. (rolls up sleeves, spits in hands, time to get some modding done...) Modding Most urgent; correcting the rests for shrouds and stays on the sides... On the left side the build as instructed, on the right the uhm, right way for shroud and stay boards ( I know I should have stuck to nautical terms)… I closed the gun ports and enlarged the fighting tops in the masts (those are the plateaus at about 1/3 from the bottom of the mast that look a bit like low crows nests). I also lowered the boom on the mizzen mast, so it came closer to the deck. As an addition, I decided to try and make a little more difference between the stowed sails. A few not yet fully stowed, like a ship entering Harbour? I also added some stowed stay sails to the bow sprit. I was a bit unsure whether the half stowed sail looks too blocky or not, but they do add a certain liveliness to the whole. I also experimented with more realistic guns on the deck. But the ones I liked best were too big for the rest of the deck, so I decided to leave them off entirely. The most interesting design would be 3 studs wide, and 4 studs deep (on a deck that is 8 studs wide). Too bad, too big… Rigging Back in the old days when I build Lego sailing ships, rigging it was pretty much the main event. It was not much different this time. All in all, I build the ship in 4 sessions, a few hours each, perhaps 7 or 8 hours in total. Between the instruction-finished model and my own version I had 11 sessions, some just an hour, but several 3 or 4 hour long sessions. Yep, that was the main event alright. I would pester Mom until she would give me a card with darning wool to rig my ships, and spend days at trying to get it right or at least slightly logical. I intended to do the same thing now, using that very same darning wool. Which turned out to be easier said than done. For starters, I could not find anything like that stuff in my town. Don’t people darn their socks any-more? Uhm, well truth be told, I don’t. I wear thin cotton socks these days, and any repairs feel like pebbles in my shoe. Right. Who still darns socks? I tried some some strings, like cotton or knitting wool, but they all turned out too thick to clamp between bricks easily. I really needed that darning wool! Luckily and much to my surprise, those old cards with wool were still readily available in Germany, just across the border. Ha! It took me a while to figure out how to do the rigging best. The big difference between real rigging and a model is the lack of pulley’s, deadeye’s and other bits and bobs that allow to tighten ropes one by one. In Lego, you do one rope right, tighten the next rope, and the earlier rope suddenly show slack… Especially the shrouds (those web like side ropes up into the masts, that sailors climb) took some experimenting to get right. And as always in a model, there are decision points on what to show, and what to leave out. Once I had figured out a way to do it, I removed all the ropes done so far, cleared the masts of all the spars and started anew. It takes some planning to make sure I could reach all the points. Once certain ropes were in place, you could not get everywhere anymore. Basically I had to work from back to front, and from the centreline of the ship to the sides. The ‘running' ropes (moving ropes, used to hoist and lower sails, or trim sails to the wind) are ‘new’, signalled by a light tan (for new or less worn ropes) or a dark brown colour (for older ropes). The stays, shrouds and other ‘fixed’ lines would be tarred, so those are black. All in all this looks a lot more like I hoped for. The ship has proudly resided on my display shelf for over a year, until dust threatened to take over (the ‘hairy’ wool is a great dust-collector, and all the lines and ropes make it virtually impossible to dust the decks and bricks). All in all it has been a pleasure to build, and was quite a sight on my shelf. I plan on building something older in future, but strongly based on these building principles... Might be a while though, for right now I am lost in space... -
Ever since I got the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was almost 10 years ago, I've been wanting to build a dark brown hulled ship. I had to wait for various plates and slopes to become available in this former rare colour. Some dark brown jumpers would have made my life a whole lot easier but I managed without anyway. She's a barque although I did not fit any square sails, these might come later. This could very well be my 50th ship although I can't be sure because I lost my archive when Mocpages.com went down. At full capacity she runs 24 guns, a series of 12-pounders on the main deck and a few 3-pound swivel guns on the quarter. Something that may catch your attention, or better yet, not at all, is that she's not all that fancy. No galleries or ornaments and a pretty dull colour scheme. Yep, ships like that existed too and they were much greater in number. One might get the wrong impression that the fancy, decorated warship was the common one, looking through the Classis Pirates archive. On that note, a fancy decorated warship does look nicer on display. My main sources of inspiration where the Lady Washington and HMS Bounty. This might have been a fast merchant barque, however, a band of pirates found a better use for it... I've been wanting to use those zip line handles on the rigging for ages now, it took me a while to gather such an amount (there are 30 on this ship). I'm satisfied with the effect but It'd be cool to have those in brown or dark tan. The Harry Potter wands for tying the rigging was another experiment but not really a succes in my opinion. It's pretty tricky to find a good interface with the ship. I think I'll go for simple 3L bars with clip plates next time. Recycling swivel guns and capstan from an older ship... I mean, why change something if it works well? Hehe, I've been using that 12-pounder design for like, forever ... Same argument as above! Well, that was it for now. I might fit some square sails later although I have a lot of other projects going on, it will probably take a while before I give this ship some attention again. Jeez, so many MOC ships around nowadays, It's a challenge to stand out . P.S.: I've got a couple of higher quality pictures at my Flickr photo stream, incase one wants to really zoom in on some of the details.
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Hello fellow builders, I present you the Flying Dutchman, the infamous ghost ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, in LEGO! The idea came to me a year ago, while I was sitting at my desk when I cast me eyes upon the 3 official LEGO POTC ships on the top of my shelf: The Black Pearl, The Queen Anne's Revenge, and The Silent Mary. For years I had been waiting for LEGO to release a Flying Dutchman, but to no avail it never came out. Determined to build the ship myself, I embarked on an exciting, challenging but rewarding journey to produce a MOC which would take up its rightful place among my fleet and make it complete. More information can be found here at LEGO IDEAS. If you like it, feel free to support! Here are some renders below (more can be found on my Flickr page): LEGO Flying Dutchman - 1 by Scarvia LEGO Flying Dutchman - 2 by Scarvia LEGO Flying Dutchman - 4 by Scarvia And with the crew: LEGO Flying Dutchman - 6 by Scarvia The infamous triple-barrelled chasers in the bow: Triple-barrelled chasers (Out) by Scarvia Triple-barrelled chasers (In) by Scarvia Thank you for your time.
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Hey all, it's been quite awhile since I was last able to build, but I just couldn't miss the Colossal Castle Contest - especially with a warship category this year. So, Instead of building a handful of rushed entries, I decided instead to pour my heart and soul into a single entry. (Pictures link to Flickr) I decided to revisit an idea I had when I built my first ship a couple years ago. I hadn't managed to make it work then, but I have come a long way as a builder since then. The technique ended up working even better than I had hoped, allowing me to build a sturdy, frustration-free hull with multidirectional curvature and minimal attachment points. This enabled me to make the sides of the hull removable, and to add an interior. The walls you see belowdecks are actually attached to the backside of the ship's frame, meaning that no matter which side is removed, the cabin will always appear as a complete cross-section. In addition, the entire ship is modular, allowing for the removal of the mast and rigging, forecastle, stern decks, hull, and even the main deck, which slides up over the mast. I really wanted to go all-out this year, and, inspired by JKBrickworks' working torsion-spring ballista, I decided to add a functional artillery piece to the deck. This was very challenging, as JKBrickworks' model is over 16 studs wide (much too big for mounting on the ship). Effective torsion springs took up too much space, so I instead lashed together flex tubes and built a scaled-down winding/ratcheting system that is similar to JKBrickworks' original design. It worked, and the ballista you see will wind, hold, and launch multiple projectiles across a desk. Finally, the ship features a working rudder and tiller, all-LEGO rigging (including the rat-lines, which are cut and sewn-together nets), deployable anchors, three projectile types for the ballista (bolt, harpoon, and ball-and-chain), crow's nest mounted crossbow, working doors and hatch, and a full crew including the VIP passengers, captain, navigator, sailors, cook, naval warfare officer, ballista crewmen, marine detachment commander, marine boarder, "Leatherhead" marine sharpshooter, and expeditionary marine. I hope you enjoy this build as much as I enjoyed building it! As always, comments and criticism are welcome and appreciated, and there are (and will be) more pictures on Flickr. Happy New Year!
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Explanation I have, for years, observed builders who struggle with rigging, while others meet with limited success or don’t try at all. I myself suffered repeated failures before scraping together enough information to develop this technique. The guiding principal is to emulate the real thing as to take advantage of the thousands of years of convention on sailing rather than “reinventing the wheel”. For many the “just make it look good” attitude works well but I have found the prevailing reason for this attitude was a belief that string rigging would be too costly and time consuming. Whereas I won’t lie to you and let you think it doesn’t require patience, I do intend to dispel those myths. It can be, not only affordable, but down right cheap. Once you grasp the concept you may also find that it really is just a series of repeated steps which can be done rather quickly once you’ve figured out your knots and jigs. Expectations This will be less of a tutorial and more of a guide. The goal is not to lead you through the process of copying one rig in particular but to give you the tools and techniques you can use to build your own to suit your needs. The hull(s) you’ll see in this treatise are unconventional constructions and not required to apply these lessons. This essay is not about hull building and will not cover the subject except to illustrate specific needs such as stability. So long as YOUR design can withstand the pressure the rigging will apply to it, it will work for you. Where this author does, wholeheartedly, ascribe to the belief that there is only one “right way” to do a thing, it is not contradictory to consider the subtle nuances of that method as particular to the user. Because of this I leave a lot open to your interpretation, like materials. I’ll tell you what I use, and why, but substitutions are up to you all on an individual basis. Necessity is the mother of invention and that’s exactly how I came up with many of the tools and materials I use. Simply, they are what I had available. The primary subject of this series will be a topsail schooner of the Baltimore Clipper variety. The actual sail plan is my own design, heavily inspired by contemporary replica Pride of Baltimore II and others. This rig was chosen for both its simplicity as well as it inclusion of multiple types of sails, useful to builders like you. Through this process you will not only learn to apply rigging to Lego, but garner something of a basic education on rigging in general. Needs Materials String, and lots of it: I use embroidery thread available from any arts and craft or hobby store. Many other types of retailer carry it as well, such as Walmart. I find it useful as it is not only ridiculously cheap, but comes in several gauges and myriad colors. For our purposes on this build I’ll be using two different gauges of black to simulate tarred rope in the standing rigging and beige to mimic the color of hemp rope in the running rig. Fabric for sails: More later Glue: While I insist tying knots is essential to the process I do often ensure their stability with a dab of glue as one of the weaknesses of the thread I use is a tendency to slip. The glue is also useful for wicking the ends of your string so it can be easily passed through narrow openings or just stop it from fraying between uses. Tools -Scissors -Tweezers -Forceps -Hobby knife -Probe/pick set -A clean and well-lit work space -Plenty of light -Plenty of patience -1/8” dowel: Not necessary but may make your life a lot easier. More on that later -A hull which meets the parameters mentioned in the forward. -Bricks and Plates: pieces set aside to construct jigs around which many of your knots will be tied. What you need to know Useful Knots (bends, seizing and splices) Vocabulary This list will grow with time as the tutorial develops and even more terms will be worked in to the lessons as we go, but here’s a few to get you started. Bend- aboard ship, never a knot. Knots are accidental, bends are intentional Fast- not a reference to speed but short for fastened as in tied securely. Half-fast not half a… well you get it. It means poorly executed. Belay- Temporally secured but not knotted Cord- what lubbers call rope. Rigging-The rigging or “rig” of a ship is essentially the drive system of the vessel. It harnesses the wind to create a differential in atmospheric pressure which compels the hull through the water. Rigging is made of three major systems; the rigid, semi-rigid and soft. The rigid comprises all the members made of wood, metal and other hard materials which you’ll be simulating with Lego. These include, masts, spars, blocks, ring bolts and many other such elements. The semi-rigid is the standing rigging. Made of initially flexible rope, these members are placed under constant tension and provide additional support to the rigid portions. Because they are not intended to move or change they are often tarred and served with additional cord, which increases the rigidity and adds to their strength. The soft members are the likes of control lines such as halyards, tacks and sheets. Lacings between blocks, and the sails themselves also comprise the soft portion. The relationship of these elements in the machine that is a ship is interdependent and it has been the observation of this author that no one will work (well) without the others. Block-and-tackle-The term block and tackle refers to a number of devices which increase mechanical advantage and are comprised of both rigid and flexible elements such as a pulley. The rigid portion is the “block” of either the eye or pulley variety. The tackle is the lacing, a rope run through the block to create the action. Eyes are used primarily to increase friction in order to hold elements of rigging fast but can also serve to change the direction of a running line. Pulleys reduce friction and increase lifting/pulling power. Most commonly used in running rigging to lift heavy elements or control sails against the power of the wind. If you have any comments, questions or concerns about the tutorial, please take them over to the Discussion Thread. Thank you.
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A large shipyard like mine needs its resources split to be ready for all eventualities! So I decided to have part of my shipyard in Elysabethtown (coming at some point) and in Quinnsville (more coming at some point too). For today we are showing you around in the outfittery in Quinsville - we are installing the masts, installing the rigging, and, in the case of a Warship, installing many guns. Let's take a look at my new Heavy War Brig being outfitted! Hey you guys! We need to wait with the last 4 guns for the forecastle and Quarterdeck! We need to get the gundeck filled first! (guy in the grey suit) Why do we have to scrub the sidewalls again? You were the one being stupid, you ...! (guy with the beard and no hair) ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT, ROWADY ROWADY YOUR BOAT (guy rowing the green boat) YOU CAN'T SING, SHUT UP! (guy steering the boat) PULL! PULL! (guy holding the rope to pull up the upper foremast) You are almost there, just a few meters more! (guy with the green pants on top of the mast) Holding it! (guy holding onto the mast not helping) Stop this! (guy with the beard) Are you allowed to build a ship here? (one of the Corrington Soldiers) Yes, here, check the papers. (Jerome Monezterell) Total area. I'm not sure if I should license this as a medium artisan and finish the brig or use the hull for another ship (tear this one down) and license this as a large artisan, as this build covers 64x48 studs, more than enough for it. I'll add some pictures of the Heavy War Brig (that doesn't fit into any definition, as it has 10 24 pounder carronades (the classical cannons you can see), 6 9 pounders on the upper part as well as 4 9 pounder chase guns. I feel like it is to small for a 5HA, and 5LA wouldn't fit as this isn't exactly a fast ship, and a 4HA doesn't exist. Oh well...) once my upload works again. A total of 56 minifigures are participating in this build:D
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Ok, before i start i should say that rigging a ship takes a lot of time and patience. I will explain my technique in the following pictures. First the rope, this time i use household rope from the local grocery store. You can use any rope you like, it should be about 2mm thick. Next we need some parts, in the upper left you see parts i build in the hull, to tie the rope. On the right there's the planking to make the rope ladders, red being the hull. The pins are to add thickness to the lower end of the rope ladders, it makes it look like it's smeired in with tar. We'll start withe the rope ladders in the lower section. Take one rope for the entire ladder, so here i needed 5 times one length. Use the pins in the lower end as shown, be shure to tie them tight, when finished it should look like this: Now to make the ropes even we tie a rope around the top end as shown: When you have done all the masts it should look like this: Now we shall tie down the bowsprite as shown in the picture: Next we'll take a long rope to fit all around the top of the masts to the back of the ship. Start by makin a small loop at one end: Now tie a rope around the lower bow, with the loop end in the middle: Now go all the way around the ship, note the black catroll in the rear: Now we'll tie down the masts in the middle, be sure the ropes don't hinder the sails / yards: Now we'll add a rope to the top of the bowsprite: Now we'll tie down the foremast as shown, again beware not to hinder the yards. I haven't used catrolls here, so i can simply add the foresails later: Now tie down the masts on the sides, note the ropes with the black catrolls, do this for all the masts: Now for the second part of the rope ladders, note the start point, the black antenna on the side of the platform and the long black pins: For the third and last part of the ladders we'll add the ratlines. Just tie 'm off with a single nut, weave them in and tie them of with a single nut on the other end. Be sure to tighten everything, cause errors are hard to re do...: Next we'll tie down the yards, in the picture is the one on the bowsprite, do this for every yard: Well this covers the basics, you can always add rope as you see fit. I do add a lot more, i just wanted to show you the basics. After all the steps it should look something like this: Well i hope this was helpfull, good luck!
