After my experiment with the birdhouse ship, I tried my hand with building sailing vessels from cardboard. I started with small boats, canoes, and periaguas. I got better at it as I went along.
As I got better at the process and researched more, I built bigger and bigger vessels. Next I made a handful of sloops of ascending size. The largest I hope to model after one of Bellamy's, the Marianne.
I also made a couple two-masted ships, including a large Snow.
All of these ships and boats are probably too wide, and nothing is straight or even but they're serviceable at least for a gaming table. They were extremely inexpensive and easy to make, and fun as well. Most of this I did while sitting on my couch and watching TV, often Black Sails for inspiration. Down the road, I hope to return to this process and attempt to build some of the ships of Bellamy's fleet, the Sultana and the Whydah Gally in particular, as well as some British Ships of the Line, Woodes Rogers' Delicia, and a frigate, a brigantine, and a pink. In the meantime, I'll soon hit these with my dark brown primer and start painting from there, the add the rigging. As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged!
Great ships! Especially given the price of pre-made ones. Can you give a step by step "how to" for that last, complex one?
ReplyDeleteThanks Pan, Im glad you like them. And I was thinking the same thing looking at the prices of manufactures ships online, quite expensive. I will warn that a commenter of TMP mentioned they've tried making cardboard ships in the past and they didn't hold up very long on the game table.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I did not take photos of the steps I took while building these. I'll try to give a quick overview here for the construction of the snow (the last ship). My cardboard ships were inspired by this post I found: https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Cardboard-Pirate-Ship/
However, I made mine quite differently. For one, I waterlined these ships to begin with. I started with the bottom of the ship, cutting out a roughly-tear drop shape (or closer to a rounded diamond or pointed oval, depending on the ship. From there, I cut carboard strips and began wrapping the base, with each layer of strips being longer than the previous to allow for the hull of the ship to slope outward from the base. Then I cut out cross sections the height of the deck, and glued about 3 or 4 of these in to support the hull and to hold up the deck. I cut out the deck shape by tracing the upsidedown hull, and shrinking the size slightly so it fit inside the sides of the hull. Before glueing on the deck, I used a awl to poke holes for where the cannon (in the hull) and masts (in the deck) would go, as well as a line of holes for the risers of the rails. I used a knife to make the holes big enough to accept the dowels and bbg skewers I used. On the snow, there are 2 large masts with a "snow mast" directly behind the main mast to hold the aft sail. I used bbq skewers for the rails, making a bunch of little ones for the risers and longer ones for the rails. Glueing the yards onto the masts was tricky. In some cases, I added glue and tied it on with string to hold it in place, then glued some more.
For rigging I used a needle and thread. I uses a little foam board with holes in it to hold the base of the ladders (where I've made them, I havent added it yet to the snow but I will).
That's the general gist of it. I'll try to take step-by-step photos when I come back and do the bigger ships. For now, I have my little fleat spray-primed and painted with a first coat. In a few weeks I should have them fully painted and perhaps start on the rigging, I'll add an update.
Thanks for your comment and your interest, please share your own projects!