Pirate ships Or How I stole Metalchaos's idea.

[SamuraiJack]

Ah.. ok

[pocketcthulhu]

Yea I saw that in some of your photos and while it works the sticks bug me a bit,

 

Well, here's another option: Scored mat board. One of my Stormstalkers has a mat board deck, and it works just fine. I prefer black mat board, but if you're painting it anyway, it's not absolutely necessary.

 

1) Cut the mat board to fit the deck. Since you're going to be inserting it into an area flanked by railing, it can be hard to figure out exactly where to cut those lines to fit; I'd suggest using some cheap tracing paper to insert and use a pencil to make a template, then cut out the piece of board to match. Err on the side of cutting the piece too big, because you can always go back and trim down here and there until you've got a snug fit. For the Stormstalker, I left the central mast in place, and just cut a hole for the top of the plug to poke through the deck. For the Black Pearl, I raised the deck enough that I just went ahead and permanently reattached the piece where the mast plugs in onto the deck section itself (with a couple of blocks underneath to fill the gap underneath the "saddle" connector).

 

2) Once you're sure each deck piece fits, take it back out, then use a straight-edge as a guide, and score with a hobby knife to make "gaps" between the planks. At random, on occasion go back and cut a perpendicular line to indicate where a random plank comes to an end, and the next one begins. Then, with lighter cuts, make gently curving lines with a hobby blade to give a rough suggestion of wood grain. These cuts shouldn't be deep; you don't want to cut all the way through the board by any means. You just want it to be deep enough that if you dry-brush the board, the details will show up.

 

3) If the board isn't black, spray-paint it black (or dark grey or dark brown or whatever you please). Once it's dry, dry-brush with your choice of grey, light brown, mossy green, etc., with a larger old brush.

 

4) If the deck piece is spanning a lot of open space (e.g., it's a flat area that's leveling out over a large dip of an area, such as on the interior of the Stormstalker or Black Pearl), you might want to reinforce the underside of the deck in a few places to minimize bowing/compression. A few popsicle sticks would work nicely for this.

 

Note: While I say the deck pieces should be "snug," I really just mean that they should fit in the space without too much gap on either side. You don't really want the mat board fitting into place with PRESSURE against the sides, or else eventually (if not immediately) it will just bow up -- especially thanks to all those weak points made with the scoring for the plank texture.

That could work very nicely, one of my friends is going to take me over to pickup my camaro from the shop and I was going to take her to lunch.... sounds like a stop at the hobby store is in order.

[SamuraiJack]

Maybe the transparent gaming sheets from Gaming Boards would work after the fact?

 

[pocketcthulhu]

After A Very Nasty exchange between me and someone's grandmother who almost hit me in a parking lot crosswalk and trying to figure how in the frak Im supposed to fit a huge sheet of mat board in a camaro I have made it home with my supplies.

Mat board $15.99

120 rather large popsicle sticks 5.99

dremel kit 69.99

I also picked up an heavy acrylic gel that you add paint too, going to use this to fill the holes in the deck.

Now it's time to go sit on the porch and try not to kill myself with my new tiny powertool.

Edited December 7, 2012 by pocketcthulhu

[buglips*the*goblin]

Watch those fingers. You might need those later.

[redambrosia]

This is such a neat idea! I wanted to build a pirate ship one day for all my pirates, I had no idea the lego ships were so perfect! Awesome~!

[pocketcthulhu]

here's some of the work I got done before my eyes got strained from it getting dark.the dremel has settings from 2-10, 2 doesn't do much to the pegs 4 does a decent job which i ended up using 6 cuts through them like butter and is harder to use and frankly 10 scares me.

 

Warning Make sure you do this outdoors as it makes a huge bloody mess and I would suggest some eye protection (I was lucky and it saw it coming) and possibly a mask to cut down on some of the plastic fumes.

 

so the forecastle took about an hour and my advice to anyone doing this type of conversion is get a cutting disk that is rather small, the one i was using was a inch across and caused me a bit of trouble getting the top section of this part of the boat. The disk i was using was rather forgiving Provided you kept the speed down.The middle section only had a little work that needed and the rear piece is about 30% done and will have to wait until monday when i have time to mess with it again.

 

spent the rest of the evening painting the figurehead and goofing around with my bones werewolf, will post a pic of the finished figurehead tomorrow after I get it dull coated, it's Reallly not wanting to stay painted, Iv already had to touch it up three times.

Edited December 8, 2012 by pocketcthulhu

[pocketcthulhu]

Ok so the ships figurehead is done, I was going for a Very beatup weathered look with a lot of the paint missing, something like this.

and here's what I was dealing with to start. (sry best pic could google now that my camera is dead)

 

And this is what I ended up with. (sorry about the glare I wasn't thinking about the white background.)

white primer black base coat with a dark citedel brown dry brushing on all the forward facing sections with sections of intense brown drybushed over that.

 

 

 

btw This was a very fun piece to paint, Great detail in the wings and head/face to play with.

Edited December 10, 2012 by pocketcthulhu

[Metalchaos]

Nice work so far! I didn't take more time to work on my Dark Maiden for a while but seeing your progress is motivating.

[pocketcthulhu]

Nice work so far! I didn't take more time to work on my Dark Maiden for a while but seeing your progress is motivating.

Thanks Iv been Very busy with rl drama and haven't had much spare time to work on the ships, I'm hoping to start on them again soon.

[Girot]

http://www.woodcraft.com/Catalog/CategoryPage.aspx?id=1002239&&Thickness=1/8%22

 

I LOVE the Blood Satin color!!

Edited January 26, 2013 by Girot

[pocketcthulhu]

So my little fiend is alseep and I took a bit to nock out some work on one of my ships.

 

So at this point the sides of the ships have been glued in, the front forcastle and aftcastle(?) arnt glued down yet as they need sanding patching painting and so on.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78059741@N08/8421883237/'>

So I cut out a 9x6 section of matt board and went to work.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78059741@N08/8422963000/'>

lot of cursing later.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78059741@N08/8421866317/'>
I assembled the ship As normal so I could use the normal floor for support and then build up from there, I might go in and add more bricks later.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78059741@N08/8421865977/'>

 

weight test, This scenario Happened a few games ago so I figured why not..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78059741@N08/8421863459/'>

[Darsc Zacal]

Yep. Dinosaur attacks on pirate ships happen a lot more often than the average person realizes.

 

 

 

And I'm finding the theme of these "converting children's toys to grownups toys" threads fascinating to follow. Even if I'm unlikely to ever do so myself.

Edited January 28, 2013 by Darsc Zacal

[pocketcthulhu]

Yep. Dinosaur attacks on pirate ships happen a lot more often than the average person realizes.

 

 

 

And I'm finding the theme of these "converting children's toys to grownups toys" threads fascinating to follow. Even if I'm unlikely to ever do so myself.

Yea it helps when your a kid in your 30's

[nytflyr]

 

Yep. Dinosaur attacks on pirate ships happen a lot more often than the average person realizes.

 

 

 

And I'm finding the theme of these "converting children's toys to grownups toys" threads fascinating to follow. Even if I'm unlikely to ever do so myself.

Yea it helps when your a kid in your 30's

 

 

Get off my lawn! young whippersnapper... kids these days...