gatorzip02

Ahoy! It has been 12 years since I last posted a MOC on Classic Pirates. I'm back and excited to share my latest project. I am re-creating the entire Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This has been done a few times by other builders on a smaller scale, but this one will be very large at 5x10 baseplates with over 100,000 bricks, and most importantly it is going to use real water to move the ride boats through the attraction. Yes, it will even include a drop hill. I started about two years ago by drawing up plans for the ride. Here is the design I finally settled on for the display. It isn't a perfect recreation of the actual ride, but a close approximation. All of the major scenes are included (in order: ride loading area in a fort, bayou, skeleton caves, fort and ship battle, dunking the mayor in the well, auction scene, pillaging pirates, town burning, jail scene with dog and key, and finally Jack Sparrow breaking in to the treasure room). I really struggled with how to contain the water and move it through the ride. I was originally going to try and seal the Lego with some sort of caulk/glue but I really didn't like the idea of ruining that many bricks, and it would make design changes almost impossible. I decided to build a custom table for the display and cut out the path the ride would take. I then laid a sheet of pond liner into the cut-out paths and placed a brick-built canal over the top of the pond liner to completely hide it from view. I built the canals all in black to make the water appear black like it does in the real ride. I played around with making a Lego lift system to make the water flow, but after a few months of trial and failure, I finally just decided to use a pond pump. I hope you will forgive me. I was invited to join a community Pirate build for Bricks and More in Belgium, so I decided to build out the fort and town scene first and display them separate from the table (no water) as part of the larger community display. It was great motivation to get started on the build. I always wanted to build a star-fort so I used some creative liberties to include one in the display. I had a great time displaying at BAM and met some of the incredible ship builders from this forum. Here is our community build (I'm on bottom left) and my contribution. After BAM, I displayed solo at Bricking Bavaria in Nuremberg. By then I was exhausted and took a couple month break from the project. Then I started hearing about Skaerbaek Fan Weekend in Denmark and decided I was going to set a goal of displaying the completed ride at SFW 23 (September 23-24). This motivated me, and I have been diligently working to get it done in time. Here are a few pictures of the current status. I've got the ride function working. Here is a YouTube video I posted showing my first test run a few months ago. It took quite a bit of tweaking to get it running reliably. By the end of that week, I got it to run for 30 minutes without touching it. I've got a little less than two months to go. I haven't started the swamp section yet, the main skeleton cave, or the portion of the town that is burning. Lots to do and so little time, I'll keep updating as I get closer. Is anybody on here planning on going to SFW this year? If you are, I'd love to meet up. Sorry for the long post, thanks for reading! Joel "BrickBuccaneer"

Absolutely a day one buy for me, but I have a question about day one. Before the official announcement, everyone said it would be released to VIPs on 20 Oct. All I have been able to find is that it will be available for pre-order on 1 Nov and purchase on 8 Nov. No info at all about a special VIP release. Am I missing something? Thanks!

Had a blast building this set, took me back to my childhood. It really is so much better in person. I was playing around with it after finishing. What do you think of this "little" mod?? ? One more.

I haven't been this excited about a Lego set in years. I got the Barracuda for Christmas in '89 and have been a massive pirates fan ever since. I ordered mine at midnight with express shipping. Already got shipping confirmation, I'll be building at noon tomorrow! I just saw this awesome Lego pirates nostalgia ad on facebook. I couldn't find it on youtube. I dont know if this link will work, but copy and paste if not.

Thanks for all the compliments. I had a great time displaying her at Brickfair. I do wish there was more pirate representation there, it was kinda slim. I found a photo of my brother and I in front of our Pearls at the show. As you can see, he built his pearl to minifig scale so it kinda dwarfed my "little ship". Lots of the visitors thought mine must be the official Lego kit. Oh well...

Hi, would you please add my Black Pearl MOC to the index, Thanks! http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=63336

Well, after almost 18 months, I've finally finished my pearl! Admittedly, for the majority of those 18 months, she sat alone in a dark room waiting on me to feel motivated to continue her. Fortunately I received inspiration in the form of BrickFair Alabama. My brother and I both displayed our Pearls at the convention and had an absolute blast. (we even dressed up as pirates) I'm just now finally getting around to posting some final pictures. Overall I'm very happy with the way she turned out. I built the custom base to help bring the waterline up 2 bricks. It definately looks much better that way. I will eventually make a brass plate that says "Black Pearl" and secure it on the base in between the two skulls with crossed sabres. I have no intentions of ever taking this model apart, I've convinced my wife to let me display it in our office. It is a great conversation piece. For your viewing pleasure: "Now bring me that horizon" I have really enjoyed building and sharing her and I am already looking forward to my next project. Fair winds and following seas! (PS. Moderators, will you please take the "WIP" out of the title of this thread, thanks!)

Brickfair Alabama is less than a week away (19-20 Jan). Is anyone on this forum planning on attending? I will be going along with my brother. This event gave me the deadline I needed to finally finish my Black Pearl MOC that I started almost 18 months ago: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=63336&hl=%2Bblack+%2Bpearl I'll update the MOC page once I get a chance to take some photos. Hope to see some of you there! (We'll be the ones dressed as pirates) Joel

Greetings, It has been about four months since my first update. As predicted, work and life kept me from making much progress on this ship. In the last few weeks I have had some free time and managed to get some work done. Unfortunately, I was rushing through my initial build in the first post and didn't give much thought to the internal structure. I went back to put in an interior and had to rebuild a good part of the ship to make it work. The big challenge in the stern is the fact that all of the sides are hinged and none of the internal structure can connect to them. Here is a construction photo: I really appreciate everyone's constructive criticism. As a result, I have made lots of changes which have greatly improved the ship. The deck is now dark brown which looks much better. It was difficult because dark brown only comes in 1x2 and 1x4 tiles. A 1x1 would have made my life a lot easier. In response to comments, I also added hatches, hawse holes, and changed the front doors in the forecastle. Here are a few photos of my progress so far: One thing that has always annoyed me with Lego ships are the cannon hatches without cannons behind them. I was determined that every cannon hatch would have a cannon behind it. This Pearl packs a full broadside: I've completed the majority of the interior. I don't have all the parts I need to finish the captain's cabin but here's the gun deck: One comment that I gave a lot of thought to was the waterline of the ship. As others have said, the sides are too high if the waterline is intended to be the bottom of the prefab hulls. I have decided to build a display for the ship that will raise the waterline to the top of the middle prefabs. It will look something like this: That's it for now. Now I need to make a few more bricklink orders and soon I'll get moving on the rigging. I'm still not sure exactly what to make the sails with. Guess its time for some experimenting. Joel

Thanks for the kind words. Right now I would estimate I probably have about $500 into it. That is including all the interior pieces that I haven't installed yet. That would put it right in line with the UCS Millennium Falcon price wise. I had a lot of trouble working with the front of the forecastle. I think a 2-stud door might seem too narrow. Once the headrails, rigging, anchors and a few more details are installed, the doors won't be so obvious. I think it will look better then. If not, I'll work on a re-design. I'm glad you like it. I still need to order some flex-tubing for the headrails. I'm trying to decide if they would be better dark gray or brown. That deck is just temporary. I just wanted something to cover the giant void where the gun deck will be. The final deck will definately have hatches for the crew. Thanks again. I agree that the brown is too light. You can see that I did the deck in front of the forecastle in dark brown and it looks much better. My problem is that as far as I can tell, dark brown only comes in 1x2 and 1x4 tiles. I would definately need lots of 1x1s. Technically I guess it should be black, but I think that would be too much black. Maybe I'll see how much I can do in dark brown.

[pid][/pid] 148A Greetings! UPDATE: 16 April 2013, She's finally done! UPDATE: 18 March 2012 Like many others, I was rather disappointed with the Black Pearl set that Lego released a few months ago. I was hoping that Lego would give the central ship of the series a little bit better treatment. After playing the Pirates of the Caribbean Lego video game, I became enamored with the version of the ship in the game and was determined to bring it to life with actual bricks. The game version: To my absolute elation, fellow Classic Pirates member "Captain" created an amazing LDD version of the Black Pearl that I used as a foundation for my model. (I can't thank you enough, your LDD skills blow me away) I started with two of the Lego Black Pearls: I then make about eight Bricklink orders to get all of the remaining parts I would need: As I was building it, I noticed that the video game and LDD versions have 5 center sections and look a bit "scrunched" I added a 6th center section and feel that it really helps balance the ship out. It allowed me to add an extra stud between every cannon port. This made me change my goal from copying the video game version to creating my interpretation of a UCS (Ultimate Collector Series) Black Pearl. I also had to completely redesign the stern, the LDD version just wasn't nearly strong enough. I made quite a few other modifications, most notably to the forecastle. I've finished the basic exterior of the ship now and wanted to share what I've got done so far: Jack is ready for his ship to be finished: Right now, I'd guess it is about 50-60% done, I still need to create the interior, masts rigging and sails and deck. The solid deck on there now is just temporary, I'll add hatches, grates etc later. Unfortunately, I'm going to be extremely busy for the next month so I doubt I'm going to have any time to work on it. I will post updates as work progresses. Comments and suggestions for improvement are welcome and appreciated. Thanks! Joel [bloggedcp][/bloggedcp]

Captain, you are my hero! That model is amazing. How much time did that take? You have some serious LDD skills. I'll definately be leaning heavily on your design when I finally get around to building it. Thanks for posting this.

Well, I tried two Targets and no luck. I'm only an hour from the Lego store in Orlando, so I may give them a call and see if they have it yet. I'm glad to see several others interested in building the version from the game. Please post lots of pics if you do so I can steal your ideas. I wish there were better pictures online, but I can't find much. I do have the game, so maybe I can just pause it when it shows a good angle. Here are three more photos I found:

So, has anybody seen this anywhere in the US yet? Any word if the Lego stores may get it before the retail chains? I'm hoping to grab two so I can combine them (along with lots of black bricks) into to the one from the games. From what I can tell, it looks like it was designed using real legos. I'd love to find a LDD model of it, anyone heard of one?

Thanks for all the replies. I have updated the review to include photos of the minifig heads for those who are curious about the 2-sided ones. Tonight I'll be building the QAR and then I'll start to mod the Tavern to give it four walls and a proper roof. Thats what I like about Lego, if you don't like something about a set, you can just fix it yourself. Cheers, - Joel

Greetings, Please bear with me as this is my first Lego review. If the Mods would please add a poll, I would greatly appreciate it. I just got back from Toys-R-Us and took advantage of the buy one get one 1/2 off deal to get several of the new Pirates of the Caribbean sets. As London Escape has not yet been run through the Classic-Pirates wringer, I thought I'd give it a whirl. So without further ado, here we go: The Basics: Set Number: 4193 Set Name: The London Escape Theme: Pirates of the Caribbean Sub-Theme: On Stranger Tides Release Date: April 2011 Pieces: 463 Minifigs: 5 Price: $49.99 (USD) retail Initial Impressions: Back when these sets were first announced, I decided that I definitely wanted to get the London Escape. I enjoy setting up my Pirate sets to play a Lego floor game, and I thought it would add nicely to my setup: Lego Pirate Floor Game I also build a winter Lego Christmas village train every year and I thought it would work well in that capacity as well. (more on that later) I have always been frustrated at the lack of "civilian" structures in the Pirate line. This set gives us a tavern and two carriages which will fit right in to any pirate fort or town. Box: The box does a great job of giving an overall impression of the set. My only real gripe is the picture of the shiny gold bars on the back of the box. As everyone is well aware by now, what you see is definitely NOT what you get. In the Box: The set is divided into four numbered bags to simplify construction. There are two instruction booklets and a playing card featuring Gibbs. Finally, there is a poster showing a rendering of the set. Minifigs: This set comes with five minifigs, you get Jack Sparrow, Joshamee Gibbs, Horse Coach Driver, King George's Soldier, and King George's Officer. The big standouts here in this set are the two Redcoats. These are the only two Redcoats in the entire POTC line and they are the first appearance of "fleshie" Redcoats. The Officer features a coat which is only available in this set. (I believe, please correct me if I am wrong) He also has a white scabbard which is also only available in this set. In addition, the tricorn hats have a white trim painted along the top. You get the same Jack as in the QAR and Whiecap Bay. I believe Gibbs is only available in this set, his grey hairpiece is probably fairly rare. The buggy driver is one of the first dedicated pirate "civilians" he should prove very useful for the MOCers out there. Overall, I would say it is a good number of figures. I like to see at least one figure for each 100 pieces in larger sets and this one is right on the money. Comparison of yellow minifig from Imperial Flagship with new fleshies Close-up of what I view as the most important parts of the minifigs Heads of all five minifigs. Gibbs and Jack are both 2-sided Back side of Gibbs and Jack New and special Parts: There aren't many new parts in this set. The big ones are the shutters for the windows (2), the bottles (2), the bucket, the sign (printed, NOT a sticker), and the painting (also printed). All of these will be very useful for MOCs. The majority of the other parts are fairly standard. Nothing to get too excited about. THE BUILD: This set is really three sets in one. It is composed of a Tavern, a carriage, and what appears to be a cart filled with coal. I will tackle each of these individually. The Carriage: If there is anything Lego should have mastered by now, it is the horse pulling a carriage or cart of some type. God only knows how many of these have been put out for the various Castle themes. Goes to show how far transportation advanced over a 1700 year period. (I'm pretty sure the Romans got this figured out pretty well around year 1) This set marks the first time a horse appears in a pirate set. (I think) The carriage is very sturdy and should survive well in rough play. Both the left and right doors on the carriage swing open. The back of the carriage holds a treasure chest filled with "gold". The set comes with one bar and six coins. These things really are hideous in person. I'd really like to know why Lego didn't go with the gold plate shown on the box. It does have an "action feature". The roof of the carriage can be flicked up to send a minifig flying off the top of the carriage. (and all this time I thought K.I.T.T. had the first ejection seat) The Coal Wagon: The Coal Wagon is a cart for hauling coal. I like the techniques Lego used to model the coal. I think I might modify the coal tender on my Lego steam engine to mimic this. The cart has a rather interesting action feature. The center of the cart can be spun around so that the cart can catch fire. The effect is impressive and definitely adds to the play value. Tavern: The tavern is the highlight of this set. It is very well detailed and contains most of the new pieces. I have been building pirate Lego sets ever since they were first released in 1989. (I got my first set, the Caribbean Clipper, for my ninth birthday). This set shows how far the Lego group has come with their buildings in the past 22 years. All of the early pirate buildings depended heavily on boring wall panels and had very little architectural detail. While this set is smaller than I would prefer, it is very well detailed and looks like a ramshackle tavern you would expect to find in a port town. The interior features several barrels and a table. The small second floor has a few additional details added. The Tavern also has an "action feature” The torch behind the barrels can be removed and the barrels come cascading down on whatever poor unfortunate soul may be in their path. I assume something similar must take place in the forthcoming movie. The side of the building folds down so you can reload the barrels. Not very exciting, but I guess better than nothing. OVERALL: Finally we have civilians for our Pirates to pillage and steal from! Now that I have had the opportunity to build this set and spend some time with it, I would have to say that I am still glad I bought it. I'll probably modify the tavern a bit to make it larger and to fit into both my pirate game and my Christmas village. If you choose to get this set, I would also highly recommend picking up the Medieval Market Village. It fits very well with the London tavern: (I replaced the black roof pieces on the MMV with white to simulate snow in my Christmas village Lego train display) Final Thoughts: Playability: 8/10 (Good variety of minifigs and three separate builds lend good playability to this set.) Design: 7/10 (Overall I would say the design of the two buggies is rather bland, the tavern is nice, but on the small side) Price: 7/10 (This set should really be priced in the $40 - $45 range, it isn't too far off, but it definitely isn't a deal.) Overall: 7/10 (Good minifigs and playability are the big redeemers here, it works well for what I need. MOCers should find plenty to like) Thanks for reading my review. If you have any other questions, or would like a closeup photo of anything just ask. If I have made any factual errors, let me know and I'll edit this post. - Joel

Hello, If you're like me you have a lot of great looking Pirate Lego sets that just collect dust on a shelf. I wanted a way to get them off the shelf and down onto the floor into battles and adventures like they were intended for. Unfortunately, my wife and friends tended to "frown" on Lego play. Not any more! We now actually have couples asking us when they can come over and "play with the Legos" again. Read on to find out how you too can get your sets off the shelf and into action. Many of you may be familiar with the "Evil Stevie" pirate game. I thought that this game could be the answer to my problem, but after trying to decipher the rules, I realized that it is just too complex for casual gamers and really needs a large group of people to play. I was looking for something relatively simple for 2-4 players. A search on Amazon turned up the answer to my search. A board game called Pirate's Cove: The basic premise of the game is that you set off in your pirate ship and plunder a set of seven islands. While you are plundering these islands, you also use them to purchase upgrades (cannon, crew, hull and sail) for your ship. If two pirates try to plunder the same island, they engage in combat and to the victor go the spoils. The loser limps off to Pirate's Cove to repair. You gain fame points by sinking other pirates, burying treasure and plundering islands. At the end of eight rounds of play, the pirate with the most fame wins the game. I simply replaced the little plastic ships in the game with Lego Pirate ships and replaced the islands in the game with Lego Islands. In the game there are seven islands. Treasure island is used for burying treasure when your hull's are filled to the brim and can't hold any more. I use a Forbidden Island base, lots of foliage and about 30 treasure chests for Treasure Island. Pirate's Cove is used for repairing ships after a loss in battle. I use Rock Island Refuge as Pirate's Cove because it looks the part. Tavern Island is used to purchase tavern cards which provide bonuses in combat. I use the Imperial Trading Post for tavern island since it is the most "town like". Sail island is used to upgrade the ship's sails. I use Forbidden Island as sail island because it has a mast. Hull island upgrades the ship's hull. Shipwreck Island would be perfect for this island, but since I don't have it, I made my own island with an original Imperial Flagship washed up on some rocks. Cannon Island is used to upgrade the ship's cannons. I use the Eldorado fortress as cannon island. Crew island is used to increase the size of your ship's crew. I made a prison island that I use as crew island. When plundering this island you can break your new crew members out of the large prison (made easy by a hinge away wall). The original gameboard showing all seven islands, Pirates Cove, Tavern Island and Treasure Island: Cannon Island, Hull Island, Crew Island, Sail Island: I use six ships to play the game. Four ships are used as the individual player's ships. These are the Black Seas Barracuda, The Skull's Eye Schooner, Red Beard Runner and Brickbeard's Bounty. The two other ships are game controlled kind of like computer opponents. The first is a British ship which hunts the pirates. I use the Caribbean Clipper for this ship. The second is the "Legendary Pirate" which represents a fearsome pirate who randomly roams the islands. Pity the poor pirate who crosses the legendary Pirate's path. I needed an imposing ship here so I had no choice but to turn the new Imperial Flagship into a fearsome Pirate vessel. Here's my fleet: To actually play the game, you need a pretty large open area. Preferably about 15' x 15'. You can play in a smaller area, but with four people crawling between island pushing lego ships, it can get tight. I compressed things a bit in these photos to give a general idea of the layout: So far I have played the game about seven times with friends and family. I have played with just my wife and with up to four total players. Each time I have slightly modified the rules to adapt them better for Lego play and to try and remove as much of the randomness involved in the ship battles. Every time we have played, it has been a huge success. It is so much fun to see four adults crawling around on the floor speaking like pirates and getting into the theme. I usually have one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies on the TV while we play to help set the mood. As mentioned earlier, everyone who has played wants to come back and play again. I played with my brother and his wife and he is now building up his own Lego armada so he can play the game with his friends. While I am using some fairly large ships and islands to play, nothing says it is necessary. You could play this game with four lifeboats and a few of the smaller island sets if that's what you have. It would be just as fun. If you are looking for a way to get some use out of your Legos, I'd highly reccomend you pick up a copy of Pirate's Cove and build yourself a game. I absolutely guarantee you won't regret it! Joel Here's all the sets put away in our game closet: