matt w

this is why i have started rebuilding the stern - in my head it looked fine - but when i mocked it up it looked horrid i think once i get the hull finished i will end up adding a tumblehome - but i need to figure out how i am gonna do it thanks she's sturdy - i can easily pick it up and it doesnt flex - i used flat bricks on the black sections to "woven" into each other for strength - there is an "inner wall" to go in and the decks as well which i think should stiffen her nicely - there is some flex near the top of the hull at the moment though but from the underneath she is solid thanks for the advice, the stern is a pain, and the bowsprit is only temporary at the moment so i can get an idea of scale/proportion length etc

will you be using lego cannonc - or moccing up your own?? any idea on crew size etc?? very nice ship - i've just posted up my own moc - as we seem to be going along very similar lines please feel free to critique it, i was going to ask for advice once i'd finished the main part of the hull anyways :D

well as it seems a few people are working along the same lines as me, i think i'll post up my progress to date now I was goign to wait till i had a bit more done - but finances have held me up a bit, and i've been tempted to redo the sides anyways so here goes: a while back i found this on a random search online i like the look but thought the proportions were a little out (apologies if this is someone on heres) so i editted it in paint to get a better look: and compared it to my real life source of inspiration: so, i bought up "a few" hull sections and began planning out DAY 01 i planned out my gun spacing and the length of the ship (note the missing hull sections at the moment) and also worked out the rough height to the deck Then i went to bricklink to order up some more bricks DAY 02 still missing a few bricks but i built up the sides to see how it would look and also to allow me to start working out the headroom spacing for the gun crews - at this point i asked you guys for advice (that can be seen above) DAY 03 More bricks turned up - so i filled in the gaps on the hull and then started planning out the internal deck supports i also took the oppurtunity to mock up the masts to get an idea of their overall height - when i get round to the masts i'll have to see what the best option is DAY 04 I re editted my editted pic, removed some of the cannons that were in the wrong place (near the cabin windows) and added some more cabin windows i then started playing around with the rear cabin sections - this is a mock up of what i had thought would work, i have since taken this down and am in the process of getting the parts i need to retry this part I'm also a little concerned that there is no tumblehome on my ship at the moment, i did originally plan on slope bricking the last top rows of black bricks - but i'm not sure if this will be enough Advice/feedback - criticism all greatfully accepted Matt

very nice - much along the same lines as my own creation how many middle hull sections do you think you will need?? if you are looking at a 3 decker - may i suggest that you look at HMS victory, she's still afloat and there are loads of photos of her around all the best Matt

thanks guys - please keep your crew numbers coming i'll look at them all and scale them accordingly to see what it would look like on my MOC Many thanks again for your patience. i know i'm new and asking a lot of questions all the best Matt

many thanks mr buttons sir

looking really nice, hope mine turns out as well once i get that far - 100m of cord think i might need to order some more.... another question (sorry), what is the part number for the (what looks like) technic part you guys use as pulleys between the rigging??

i did look into a 1 stud version, i cant make it work at the mo - and with a 4 stud spacing between the ports i'm struggling with the symmetry - i'll leave them 2 wide for now, but may look at redesigning them once i've actualy finished the ship totally agree - i was thinking about this whilst watching tv last night - it definately shouldnt match the outside pattern (it couldnt with the 3 high slope brick in there anyway) so that only left solid colours i mocked them all up - apologies for the crudeness of the pic, also the package i used didnt have any other colour than grey for the slope column bit i'm tending towards yellow, i think it definately has to be a light colour, i think black or brown would make the ddeck look too dark in an area that is already lacking a lot of light...... thanks for the ideas so far though guys Matt

Hi guys, i've started work on my MOC, she'll be a British ship - Napoleonic era But i've hit a slight snag. I'm working on putting the decks in and i want to try and make it look "realistic" in this way, i want the supports from the sides of the hull that hold up the floors to look like they belong i've mocked up some designs (as seen below) but i cant decide which to use - i'm leaning towards the pillar third from right, but would like some other opinions i'm also unsure what colour to make them (they are multi coloured so that you guys can see what they are made from) my options (i think) are: 01 - all white 02 - all black 03 - yellow and black, matching up to the lines of the exterior any advice is greatly taken Matt

i meant to ask yesterday - what do you guys use for sail material?? for rigging i've bought 1 and 2 mm diameter black waxed cord - i'll see what it looks like and if i dont like it - i'll change to something like what you are using all the best Matt

top notch - cant wait to see the finished ship

Nice to meet you where about are you based?? I think that my ship will probably "sail the line" between properly scaled and building on the "normal lego scale" I'm using the hull sections from the BSB at this time (i've got a 6 of them to play with so far) and am trying to figure out how to do the tumblehome at the moment it's my first ever attempt at a MOC ship on lego hull sections - so as long as it looks proportioned i think i'll be happy - but i'll be open suggestions to improve it and i'll work on it to get a better model, i've seen the string rigging tutorial and for me that is a must, as is custom torsos for realism Big fan of the Napoleonic Royal Navy, so it's got to be british I think i'll probably go with the name of one of the ships captained by Richard Bolitho in the Alexander Kent novels - but dont hold me to that yet Not at all - glad someone's taking an interest I will start a MOC thread in the pirates section soon so i can get some feedback - i'm just getting accustomed to the photo side of things at the moment as i usually use photobucket all the best Matt

apologies, you are quite right - i was thinking along the lines of 4th - 3rd rate ships of the line in the Royal Navy obviously you can "lose" quite a few of the crew on the gun deck, but you'd still have some in the rigging and running around on the top deck thanks for the replies fellas Matt

Hi guys, first real post - so be gentle i'm working on logistics of my first MOC ship, my main collection of lego is in storage so i am buying parts i need as i go one thing that i wondered was, what sort of ratio do you guys use for the crew numbers?? A real ship would have 100's of crew members - but to try to cram them all into a lego ship would be difficult, so was just wondering what sort of crew levels you guys used?? On a side note - i started buying up some of the "soldiers" to use with the crew - blue for naval officers, reds for marines But looking at the custom body stickers on here i think i'd prefer to use some of these instead..... I've been out of the lego loop for a while and the blue torso for some of the torsos is more grey than the blue torsos i grew up with such as the Midshipman could someone point me in the right direction for some cheap, easily available grey/blue torsos? thanks in advance for all your help All the best Matt

thanks guys - there is a wealth of knowledge here on techniques for MOC's i've also signed up for Bonaparte's reviewing college, so i hope to be able to fill in some of the gaps in the (castle set) reviews once i can all the best Matt

i have found them invaluable, i have been a lurker on here for a while and some of the ideas i have taken got from looking through the indexes and reviews have been great

as a child i collected the castle lego - i have a lot of the 80's castle sets boxed away in storage with my parents when the pirate sets started coming out i wanted them, i've always been fascinated with fighting sail - reading books on nelson and trafalgar, reading the alexander kent bolitho series etc so to be able to fight out some battles at sea appealed to me - unfortunately as a child i never managed to get any really large ship sets and so had to construct my own (thinking of them now they werent that bad if a little blocky and mutli coloured ) many years on i have refound my love of the fighting sail and wanted to build a MOC of a nice ship of the line - at first i had considered just buying a wooden kit, but lego started calling so now i'm back - buying up as much as i can to help me get my new model under way all the best Matt

he looks cool i guess i should sort out an avatar soon as well i didnt get the "knitting" remark until i saw an old post with your guys old hair all the best Matt

hello, my name is matt - i used to live on the isle of wight (just off of the south of england) now live in Wales was an avid collector as a kid (as were we all) - mainly castle lego, i have a lot of the castle sets from the 80's in storage then when the pirate stuff came out i started on them, didnt manage to get much of the large stuff - but loved it all the same now, many years on i've come back into it i like naval warfare (napoleonic era) and have thought about building a model of a ship of the line from the era for a while a big task to take on - espcecially if it went wrong, so i decided to try in lego - if i make a mistake i can just take it apart and try again so, my project at the moment is amassing a selection of parts (as my main stash of lego is in storage) to allow me to at least start messing around with try to build a decent size model and i have read through some of the tutorials on here - rigging for example, to get some great ideas to help me with my build all the best Matt

i was searching on google and brickshelf for some "inspiration" for my MOC (i hope that's the right term) and one of the pages that the search brought up was a review on here so i started trawling for ideas - i now have loads of ideas (and parts on the way) and not a lot of money