Shipshape

As promised last week, here's the toy pirate ship I bought via Evil-bay a few weeks ago.
I hunted down this model having first seen it on fellow blogger Ptr's site Hugg Och Slag a couple of years ago. 
I must admit that on first sight it does look very usable (even more so on Ptr's blog), but unfortunately it's a little too small, even compared to the rather small toy ships I worked on recently.
Nevertheless I have a couple of ideas how I'll use it.

Fresh out of the Packaging

So here's what I found unboxing and 'disecting' the model:
It is quite an attractive model, despite its proliferation of stickers and very soft plastic bits (the orange parts).
There are no deck cannon, but the figurehead is good, as is the rear cabin decoration.

Pointy end figurehead (looks better of you squint in subdued lighting)

The blunt end - no silver !

"Yarr, we be calling you  'Short-arse' '"

The figure included are of course oversized for the model (I do wonder though why manufacturers continually do this sort of thing - but I guess it's a toy thing).
In their defence the figures are easily recognisable as to what they're meant to be despite their lack of eye-patches and peg-legs! 

"Room for two - just" ?

All the upper bits stripped from the hull,,,

...leaving access to the bare bones of the hull

The relative scale problems can be more readily seen when a 28mm figure is place on board.
The photograph to the right show a 28mm figure at the ships wheel (fairly good sized wheel btw), but with little to no room for anyone else  - and stay away from those very low sides!
The problem is magnified when trying to get cannon on the decks (with or without figures), as the same problems emerge.

"It be a bit  tight getting through that doorway"

Two cannon on deck and it's full!

It should be obvious from the last few photo graphs that as the model stands, it's completely unusable in it's current from with 28mm figure, though I suspect that it would be an ideal size for use with 15mm figures *unless they too have also fallen foul of scale-creep)
I haven't completely given up on using this toy and have a couple of ideas how I'll use it,  after some severe conversion, so onwards with the dissembling...

All the remaining bits separated out (obligatory boring pic)

Equally boring pic

So what are my plans for this ? Well it's obvious to me at least that it can't deploy a broadside of cannon, but could mount a couple of swivel guns or maybe a small chaser. If I use the original deck, it will have to have either raised sides (health and safety) or the deck itself will have to be lowered -(maybe a combination of the two)
The aft deck will have the ships wheel removed; in any event ships' wheels were not commonplace until well after the golden age of piracy and were introduced in about the 1720's.- Blackbeard probably never saw one!
So currently I have two ideas for this model:
Firstly turn it into a small civilian coastal vessel, a yacht, small sloop or similar, where the rear deck would be nothing more than a roof for the rear cabin (not unlike a Bermuda sloop)  
The second idea and the one I currently favour, is turning it into a governors barge. The rear deck would be removed as above, the vessel would maybe have a lateen (slanting) sail on a central mast and  the gun-ports would be utilised for oars (Rollocks !  - no honestly they would!)
Of course I'm always open to suggestions.... (hint, hint)

8 foot by 4 foot - in case you were wondering...

In other news:
I made up my mind to complete the tidying up of my games room, now that the shelving had been sorted, so I now have a table usable for games, though currently I'm working on palm trees and jungle and may have to hold off on games - more on that next time.

...and converted quickly to the Caribbean for this photo-session)

Next time I'll be posting the results of some palm-tree experiments and the progress I've made on my jungle terrain, plus for the first time in over a year I've slapped some paint on some 28mm figures, though not Pirates (or Zombie related for that matter) - more news on that particular foray when they're finished!.

So that's it for this week, thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Lounging about

'L' shape settees (sofas/loungers?) and coffee tables.

Once more, over the last week, other than carrying on with the seemingly never-ending task of trying to get my games room up to a usable state (nearly there) and putting my pirate rule ideas in type, I've done little to nothing ! I have however received some more 'furniture' items from China, which I present to you this week (the last of them arriving just before I started this post!).
Where appropriate I've shown vies of the items themselves, their reverse view and the underneath.

Single beds that match the style of the 'double' ones.

Bed-side drawers

 

Bathroom accessories

 Maybe I'm a bit weird but the three items of bathroom furniture were the ones I was most excited about.
Whilst I have made lots of toilets and the odd sink or bath as the need arised having them all identical is a big plus when it comes to those  places  that would have such uniformity. I'm thinking here of hotels, public buildings and the like - I doubt very much that no two of my scratch-built toilets are anywhere near the same!

TV units with great detail.

Wardrobes (!*? - wtf?!

 The TV unit shown above is a super little model and the centre section could easily be cut from the unit to give a little more variety.
The last photograph shows what arrived instead of the wardrobes I ordered! I knew it was all going far too swimmingly! 
Just in case you can't make out what they are, they're wired street lamps with working lights - great for railway modellers, but having no place in a wargame imho.



Other than the above mentioned hiccup with the wardrobes (which will be rectified soon) I'm more than happy with my purchases. The delivery times are advertised at anywhere between 4 to 6 weeks, but I doubt I waited more than a fortnight for anything I've ordered. It also pays to shop around as the prices vary wildly, a firm in Germany advertised the three bathroom items at about £4 whilst my 10 sets of three cost under £8  - quite a saving.  As mentioned in a reply to dGG in last week's comments I searched Ebay using "1/50 doll house furniture" and got great results.

That's it for this week, as I can't see any great progress over the next week, I probably post about another (different) pirate ship toy that I purchased recently, but more on that next time.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and I hope something here has caught your interest.
As always your comments are both welcomed and truly appreciated.

Sofa so good

Sofa and chairs (duh!)

I haven't managed to do anything hobby related this week, save for opening the occasional parcel from China. I've been perusing the various options for 1/50 Doll |House furniture on Evil-Bay and secured, (to my mind at least) some of the more choice items and here are some of the results (I am still waiting for more to arrive too).
The models themselves are fairly simple and it wouldn't be that difficult to replicate them by scratch-building, but getting consistency is of course more difficult. (and making chairs is a pain)
Here are more results of some of my purchases:

Chairs (who would have guessed ?)

Round Tables (some assembly required)

Rectangular Tables

Shelving, but notice the sloping shelves!

Tub-chairs, great for offices, waiting rooms etc.

Some sort of shop or reception counter

'Supermarket' checkout.

The supermarket checkout style tills are probably my favourite items (so far) in this particular selection. They're a good size and could feature in any shop/store, not just a supermarket. The till itself is so obviously modern with the electronic display being so prominent. They come in three parts, the main unit counter with till, a drawer and what I've taken to be a packaging area.- but I'm just guessing.  Like everyone I know that's 'into' zombie gaming, we all want, have  or are planning a shopping mall and as each store would require a checkout of some description these are ideal quick fillers for the job.

Kitchen unit.

Sink and cooking hob

The most complex set I've bought is a kitchen unit (shown above in its component parts).
 It comprises several elements of a modern kitchen, though it probably could also be used for earlier eras.
The various location lugs and slots on the model make assembly easy, with minimal thought, but they don't lock the pieces together (hence no assembled model).
When assembled the whole thing makes a substantial 'L' shaped kitchen and imho is very impressive,

Cooking hob, showing detailing.

+7o

 I'm still awaiting several more packages, which will include some single beds, bed-side tables, some TV-table units, wardrobes and to me at leas the most exciting of all some bathroom sets. The latter consists of a bath, a sink and a toilet.

Whilst I may not have managed any productivity on the hobby front in this last week, with the departure of my daughter and her family to their new home, I have been slowly getting my games room sorted, which along with the acquisition of a new laptop should make things a lot easier in the future.

That's it then for this week, as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Flora

Not much done this last week, not because of the lack of enthusiasm (for a change), but because I've been ill, culminating in a day in bed - hence no blog post on my regular Monday blog-post.
So, as they say "here's some I did earlier" (or words to that effect)
At the commencement of work on my new toy pirate ships I spied a use for the overly-large treasure chests.
The photograph on the right shows one of the end products, whilst the one below shows the original chest.

Rather than opting for a concrete style high-street type of base I decided that a wooden one would give a greater range of use in both contemporary and historic settings.
The 'flowers' came from one of my evil-bay purchases from China.(plastic flowering plants) and are very cheap.

My latest purchase from China (again via Evil-bay) were two 'mats' of 'grass'. They're smaller versions of some I already have, but worse for that.
The piccy on the right shows one of the two mats, partially 'pruned'.
There are 81 plants on the 9 x 9 grid, and they will give greater variety to my jungle terrain.
The pic belows shows the results of just one of these 'mats' stripped off.

There is a slight problem with these, though by no means insurmountable and in fact is a really easy fix.
The photograph on the right should illustrate the 'problem'. The 'bush' on the right shows the cup-like base (hard to hide imo) and my solution of cutting through the four supports.
I could just as easily have cut  through the stems leaving a smaller-stalked plant, but this gives me the option to glue four in place at once.and still allows for single stems to be placed
So where are these plants and the rest of my 'jungle' pieces being affixed ?
Well, my cheap-skate answer is pizza bases - they're cheap (they come free with a pizza!),  made of light-weight foam and easy to work with. I've been collecting these for several months, ever since I originally thought of their use.

Out of a single pizza base it's obvious that many different sizes and shapes of base can be cut.
Once roughly cut out I bevelled the edges down using a 9" file. There was little to no problem with this save the once I tried to file an inverted 'base'. It appeared to me that these foam bases are slightly different filing from the top or the bottom!

  Here's the majority of the bases I've done (I found a few more after taking the photograph) and hopefully the beveled edges can clearly seen. The 30cm ruler gives some idea (hopefully) of the intended coverage, which combined with the bases I've already done should be sufficient to cover an area of about 6 ft x 4ft.
These will be completed the same as previously, using filler and painted, though this time around I'll be doing each base bit by bit as putting all the foliage etc. in place to begin with amkes painting the central bits in the larger pieces more difficult.

 
This next week I'll be trying to work on my games room as my shelving ahs finally been completed and I'll be reclaiming a small bedroom I use for my desktop computer. I'm also envisaging buying a new lap-top, taking advantage of any Easter sales!

That's it then for this week and even if a day late I hope you've found something of interest.
As always, your comments are both welcomes and appreciated.

Schooner (?)

Pointy end view

This is the third of my ships that I've finished, as far as I'm concerned and ready for the tabletop.
The reason behind the question mark in the title is simple because I really don't know what to classify the vessel as, but as it's small and  has two masts, like a schooner (about the only similarities), I plumped for calling it a schooner, but no doubt it'll be used as a fluke or some other vessel as the need arises.
This particular model is probably the closest to the original toy; I took the horrible looking 'pulpit' from the rear, but left the two supporting stanchions,. The bowsprit (sticky out wooden bit at the front for those who like techy stuff) was added, but the mast are more or less the originals ones.. The rear lanterns all came from the kit, as did the figurehead of a seagull (?), but goodness knows where or how it was meant to be used with the original model (I'd have liked figureheads on them all, but can't find anything suitable atm

The original  toy.

. 

View of the other side (Technically the 'right' side)

As with the other two models,  I did add  a few additional bits to the deck, two ropes, a deck hatch and an access hatch to the front cabin bit.
The picture on the left shows a flat coil of rope; deliberately flat so that a figure can stand on it. The other coiled rope is hanging on the front mast and well out of the way pf figures.
The centre deck hatch is a one of many pieces originally cast as windows by my mate Captain Jack.
The photograph also shows where the rear pulpit-thing was.

Front mast (technical term), with rope. (*yawn)

Front view of the figurehead (Seagull or a Shag?

Fairly boring side-view of the figurehead.

Left side view with figures (in an attempt to ease boredom)

Top-down(ish) view, still a bit boring

Nothing much to see here (the blunt end view)

Another view, showing stuff

Two ships sizing up to each other. (There's a dozen figures on each)

Kapok 'smoke' added for twee-ness

All three completed ships, all suitably different imo

Another view.

Not a lot more to say about these, they're all sufficiently differing to be able to tell them apart and I'm happy enough with them. With a dozen figures on board they look very busy, but there's a lot of room for more. The total cost of the three ships was about £30,  money well spent I'd say.

That's it then for this week; currently I'm working on my jungle terrain, but I've also purchased a few bits and pieces for my modern terrain.

As always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.