Shipshape

Rear, back blunt end ,Stern view of the three ships.

So this week has seen a sudden burst of enthusiasm for conversions of my pirate ships, probably brought on by lighter evenings and better health. I now have three ships, all of which I wanted to be distinctly different to one another. With this in mind I decided to leave the first model in its original state (more or less); the second ship I'd convert to some sort of single masted sloop thing whilst the third would be converted into a larger three masted vessel (utilising the spare mast). This latter idea was quickly abandoned  when I realised that once more I would have too large a vessel than I wanted .

The larger ship conversion was cut in two flush with the rear stairs, if I was converting another I'd go instead for a central cut.
In the top photograph you can see the piece of plastic I used as a keel joining the the two parts of the extended hull.
Two of the ships would have extended work done on their rear deck, namely cutting away the hideous pedestal.(One attempt was slightly more successful than the other)

Not such a successful cut-job.

Two masts successfully removed!

Cutting the two masts off, to leave their bases flush with the deck  was a bit tricky , due to the sides of the ship getting in the way, however I did manage to utilise the open rear cabin door  to slide my hack-saw in and slowly cut through each base of the two masts..

The key (hole) to cutting the masts flush with the deck.

Before....

The crows next as is, isn't really usable at all; the raised mounting in the middle is for a small pole with pennant on , that doesn't really leave enough space for a figure.
My solution to still to use these crow's nests was to cut the interior flat and cut the whole crow's nest from the mast to be mounted in an alternative position against the mast, rather than atop it. Cutting away a couple of pieces of guard-rail enable me to get access to cut the base flush (scalpel and file).

...and after.

Hull piece

The hull extension was a piece of soft card (back of a notepad) roughly shaped, Two piece of plastic glued just beneath the rear and forward decks gave the foundation for the piece of card I used as a deck, scribed with 'planks' to reinforce the sides and to give a comparable thickness to the sides of the ship two further pieces of card were glued in place.

Extended vessel.

Obligatory blurry photo

 The rear decks would also be all slightly different, one I've covered in paper; a second I've used filler on, whilst the third will probably end up having a coffee-stirrer deck!
In case you're wondering about all the white filler stuff on the masts, the rear of the masts each have  slot along their entire height that I wanted filling (it can be seen on a couple of the photos).
There's still a lot to do on these models, but I'm very happy with the progress made so far and knowing that I do have an end product in mind. 

In other news, with the departure of my daughter and her family I should have a lot more space for hobby-related projects rather than just my cutting board on my lap!.

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