WIP - Pirate Ship part 3

Hi all

Another quick update as the ship project is now rolling on.  The sails are finished, painted and attached to the now painted hull. I added a staircase to the fo'castle and a crows nest to the main sail. The painting was completed in a couple of sessions using Spice Red emulsion for the red and the sails weathered with some home made washes that gave the sheets that salty spray look, some little stanchions were made from matchsticks to tie the rigging to the masts.

I still need to make the ships wheel and the rudder, more rigging and other bits and pieces like netting etc but it's coming on nicely

Hope you enjoy

dGG

WIP - pirate ship! part 2

Hi all

my apologies if anyone was expecting a Saga batrep in today's post (as I was!) but I've been let down by the Nerd Herd who have not submitted their posts this week.  So instead I thought I would give you another update on my ship building efforts to date...

So following on from last time, I wanted to build a sort of fo'castle.  Having scanned numerous pictures of Chinese Junks and other ships of the Far East.  I made the decision not to have another boxy walled section and instead made it flat - like a fighting platform, not only that I wanted to add a fore mast as well.  With that in mind I wanted a sturdy frame and chose some 3mm balsa from my bits box and made a square

then out came the coffee stirrers (yes Mrs Gobbo does drink that much coffee!!) and the platform was completed.  Using a drill I made a hole for the mast and then added some 5mm balsa supports to hold the platform in place.  I drilled a corresponding hole into the deck below where the platform would be.

I also drilled a whole in the main deck after strengthening it with an MDF 25mm base.  I did the same to the aft'castle.  Keen followers (or not) of the blog will note that I cut off the ladders that poked out of the side of the aft castle and replaced them with a single ladder that faced forward - much better, thanks Joe (Zabadaks Zombie World) and Bryan (Vampifan's World of the Undead) for your comments.

So I've progressed the hull a little more as you can see, not by a lot but I've been pushed for time having just completed a run of 7 x 12 hour shifts in 7 days ending in 2 night shifts so not a lot of time for hobbying!  However I also managed to start with the sails and masts.  Following on from comments from Jez of Carrion Crow fame regarding planters and wallpaper, I remembered that I had some spare dowels in the loft that I had used in a previous games table that would make fabulous main masts and other thinner ones from other projects so didn't take him up on that one, but I did use wallpaper samples for the sails - cheers Jez!  Below is what I've come up with the fore sail.  I'll have 3 masts in total and the mid mast will be bigger.

That's it for now, hopefully the Herd will be shamed into finally submitting their reports (doubtful....) and I will pick up the Saga batreps next week.

hope you enjoy
dGG