RichardD

I get to open mine today, as it's my birthday :)

Down = hole the enemy below the water line, so they sink faster. Up might have been useful for chainshot as ships closed for battle, but once you're in the thick of things level (or down a bit) is the way to go, I believe. Though some of the "up or down" issue would be taken care of by timing the shots with the ship's roll.

I bought a SES about eight years ago - it was pretty dusty and faded when I got it, and only got worse as a result of sitting on my shelf. I washed it in lukewarm water and some car shampoo, took a nailbrush to most of the larger pieces and plates, and it's come out looking like new. The bricks are nice and tight when assembled, too. Old, dusty models can actually be a good sign - they've been put together and left assembled, rather than constantly built and taken apart. So the bricks might show less wear than a clean example might. Back on topic, £80 is pretty close to top market rate for a BSB if the last two or three weeks on Ebay are anything to go by.

First thing I did :) I've got the Flagship for my birthday next month, so I'm not allowed to open it until then, but I have the 4 extra cannons already. What I don't have yet are the wheels - I can't see the *right* wheels and axles on Pick A Brick, so it'll be back to Bricklink for me. In readiness for next month I've bought a BB, and have reassembled most of my old ships. I was lucky enough to pick up most of the big ones - RBR, SES, BSB, all at retail or less - and I'm now studying how to improve some of them (like the BB deck mod). I spent ages scrubbing all the parts to the SES last week, and they should be nice and dry now, so that's what I'm building on Saturday.

I'll ask, then :) The topside stuff is pretty straightforward, the sides are easy (and FWIW I have the black 1x4/6/10 plates down the sides in a different order to you), but I'm struggling a bit with the foc'sle and the supports underneath fore and aft. I've put it all together, and it looks *mostly* like the pictures (with some obvious variation around the foremast), but I know that I haven't done it *right*, and still have several pieces left over! Still, it'll pass muster. I'd like to figure out a way to have easy access to the hold in the bow (but I'm somewhat piece-deprived, especially anything useful with hinges). First, though, I ought to do something similar for my other ships (in particular the RBR). It definitely gives the BB a more polished, finished look.

The bricks don't have the usual "tide marks" tat you would get if they were exposed to something (the usual culprit is sunlight, but not in this case) while they were assembled. What happened to them looks like it happened while they were unassembled. So my guess is that they've been subjected to a cack-handed attempt to clean them in something that was bad for them. How is the binding strength of the bricks? Do any of them appear to have gone brittle?

Not sure I'm getting a free keyring? But I do know that despite the UK website saying that certain items were backordered until Feb (including some Duplo train track), my complete order - including the flagship - is on it's way to me. I'm currently cleaning and rebuilding all my old ships to get ready for it :)

I don't care how much someone *might* have paid me for it. Car, house, computer, toys - they are all worth precisely what I paid for them (or I wouldn't have bought them), and I paid the money because *I* wanted them. Not because they might be worth more in a few years' time, but because I want to drive/live in/use/play with them. Actually, I didn't pay a *lot* for my BSB - I bought it in a Lego shop sale 8 or so years ago for £40. And when you suggested the base of the mast, I thought "but that was two 2x4 bricks, wasn't it?" :D Four spare corner bricks are never to be sniffed at, though. Thanks for the help, all.

Lego pack pieces by weighing them, and although they provide a few extras of the really tiny pieces (like 1x1 round plates), I have never, in 40 years, discovered so much as a single 1x1 brick extra in a box. I *know* the 4 corner pieces I have been left with belong *somewhere*, I just cannot for the life of me see where!

I'm obviously being a bit thick here. I have a 6285 (well, 10040 actually), it was mint in the box until last week, when I decided that I had to build it! It goes rather well with my RBR, SES (which I got second-hand - it's tatty and faded, but all there), and BB (bought over Xmas). Here's the problem - I've built it, and have four 2x2 corner bricks in black left over. Argh! I've looked over the instructions three times now and STILL can't see where they've been missed out. Plus nothing *looks* missing. I can see the need for two of them in step 13, but there were six in the box and six in the Peeron inventory, so in what steps *should* I have used them?? Nice ship. A little under-gunned, though (my RBR was modified to pack a 5-gun broadside - which was probably overkill). I'll probably re-jig the BSB to have three guns on each side (I have the spare cannons).