The pirated Black Pearl

[Nietslim]

I just read your logg, and i understand you have bought the cheap Chinese version.
I did the same, bought it last year and by a lot of reading here from the guys who bought it at zhl i build it.
I gladly got pictures by Vfordyce of the building plans, otherwise i had nothing on paper to look at , but...You are doing great actually.
And go on building. It is a challenge some days
i know some missing parts you have to look for in otherways (example ; the lanterns on the back at mine pearl are railroad lanterns)
It is maybe the cheaper version
but when finished its still a great ship to have.
(I know at mine not all lights are working)

 

[matweaver]

Thank you for the encouragement, you have a very nice looking ship there

I just read your logg, and i understand you have bought the cheap Chinese version.
I did the same, bought it last year and by a lot of reading here from the guys who bought it at zhl i build it.
I gladly got pictures by Vfordyce of the building plans, otherwise i had nothing on paper to look at , but...You are doing great actually.
And go on building. It is a challenge some days
i know some missing parts you have to look for in otherways (example ; the lanterns on the back at mine pearl are railroad lanterns)
It is maybe the cheaper version
but when finished its still a great ship to have.
(I know at mine not all lights are working)

 

[matweaver]

I was once asked by my daughter "What's the difference between a boat and a ship?" I replied "a boat can't carry a ship"... Ok it wasn't actually me, it was Edward Kenway and I was playing Assassin Creed: Black Flag at the time.

So... let's make some boats.

So we start with the usual issues, the frames for the life boat hulls are flaking and breaking, the laser had charred the ply which left it far weaker than it should have been.

But once locked into shape, the glue did its job and reinforced the structure pretty well. This time I actually decided to soak the veneer before trying to shape it, this seemed to do the job.

The oar lock horns were simply made from bent modelling wire.


I had originally left the paddles as they were, but looking through everyone else's here I liked the way people had shaped them, so I set to them with a craft knife ane they were done.. So small, but actually a very large job.

 

[Nietslim]

Thank you for the encouragement, you have a very nice looking ship there

It is the same one as you, cheap Chinese version. I did buy the inside stuff also on the Internet, (same chinese site) and all the ornaments i found a guy who printed them 3d for me. It is a fantasy ship so you don't need to follow it by the letter.

 

[Rowboat]

The hand rails and stairs..
The supplies to the ship are seriously dwindling, what I have doesn't seem to match the plans, what I don't have seems to be only what I need. It's HMS Terror all over again!
So using 5*5 Balsa, I tried fabricating the post that would hold up the rail.
View attachment 217981
Which just looked wrong, so I figured I'd disguise the mess with a rope or chain that could hang from the tops.
View attachment 217989
I experimented with the eyelets, I didn't fancy drilling through the wood as it's almost unworkable at this size. I decided on modelling wire, coiled around a 2mm Dia pin. I snipped the end of at an angle and used the sharp end to pierce through the end grain.
View attachment 217988

Glued and painted black, it seems to work... in a really rough way, but better with the eyelets dry brushed .

View attachment 217985View attachment 217984
Now the sides of the ship, again no posts here, so I whittled.
View attachment 217987
And crushed and bent and glued.
View attachment 217982
Time to bring you up to date!!
So last week and this week I've been on the steps.
View attachment 217993
The great thing here is that I had tonnes of stairs but no bloody instructions for them.. and of course I ballsed this up by using the wrong size in the wrong place..
View attachment 217992
Which meant having to remake all the parts just by looking at the various photos of the completed build around the net.
View attachment 217991
I did, however have some lovely bannisters.. too large but nothing a knife and file couldn't sort out. What's 5mm between friends?
View attachment 217999
Oh and they didn't give me enough of them! Of course.
View attachment 218000View attachment 217997View attachment 217998View attachment 217996View attachment 217995
Thank God it's the BLACK pearl... This paint will cover up everything!

Lots of custom work you are doing on this project.
The build is coming along nicely.

 

[Rowboat]

I was once asked by my daughter "What's the difference between a boat and a ship?" I replied "a boat can't carry a ship"... Ok it wasn't actually me, it was Edward Kenway and I was playing Assassin Creed: Black Flag at the time.

So... let's make some boats.
View attachment 287041
So we start with the usual issues, the frames for the life boat hulls are flaking and breaking, the laser had charred the ply which left it far weaker than it should have been.
View attachment 287042
But once locked into shape, the glue did its job and reinforced the structure pretty well. This time I actually decided to soak the veneer before trying to shape it, this seemed to do the job.
View attachment 287043View attachment 287044View attachment 287045
The oar lock horns were simply made from bent modelling wire.
View attachment 287035
View attachment 287036View attachment 287039
I had originally left the paddles as they were, but looking through everyone else's here I liked the way people had shaped them, so I set to them with a craft knife ane they were done.. So small, but actually a very large job.
View attachment 287040

Were these mini "ships" , ie.. the rowboats, part of the kit or did you make them from scratch.

 

[matweaver]

Were these mini "ships" , ie.. the rowboats, part of the kit or did you make them from scratch.

A bit of both. Like the rest of the content, I have most of the frames intact, some are charred and burnt out. Once I have the scale I build what I can and try to craft (fabricate) the rest. For the rowboats I had the skeletal frames for about 1.5.

 

[matweaver]

Chains and Tops

So the issue here, I need to glue the chains (the platform that holds the lines to the hull?) the wood supplied obviously not to the correct profile due to me having changed it earlier on in the build. Luckily I've got the Draper profile pins, great for skirting and dido rails, also works for hulls.

And with my hobby tool (A floor mounted reciprocating bobbin sander) I got the profiles needed to achieve a solid(ish) fit.

The Tops or Fighting Tops were of course wrong, either my mast replacements were too large or the kit was mis aligned, most likely a little bit of both.
At least the parts were well labelled though, this one (Number 5) had it cut right the way through the material.

And these parts were just completely wrong.

But luckily I had the old Laser Cutter to hand and those pieces were getting replaced as quickly as the rubbish ones were being produced>


Not too bad if you've got the equipment, head bangingly painful is you haven't.

 

[Nietslim]

Nice the laser. Think a lot here wish to have one. , it is right some (a lot) parts don't fit as they should. But you are making it great and very interesting to follow

 

[Uwek]

I thought I'd keep a log of my experiences in; being cheap, buying third rate goods, being too lazy to ask for a refund and just trying to fix up what might simply be a floating lemon.

(I'm about 2 weeks in, so the tenses may change in a few posts time.)

Straight to the point -> I asked my wife to buy me a Black Pearl kit from a dodgy drop shipping company, she did, and when it arrived it was junk in a box. It was a "copy" of the ZHL full senario, but seeing as how they copy other companies I continued on the premise that two wrongs don't make a right but so what, it's most likely some poor factory worker raiding the bins.

It arrived.
View attachment 131039
Burnt out, stinking, ripped up and half there.

Challenge accepted!

Hallo @matweaver
we wish you all the BEST and a HAPPY BIRTHDAY

 

[matweaver]

2026!!
Where did all that time go?

Well after being medically diagnosed as having ADHD at a tender age of 47 I started taking the associated meds. Suddenly, and I mean within 20mins, I was able to focus without the need to get into a trance like hyper focus, which the Black Pearl provided. As such, I was able to move forwards in work and ended up taking on far more challenges.. mainly robotics.
And so the Black Pearl, coasted on the calm waters of being shelved.
Until yesterday, when I actually sat down I made a conscious to start up again.


So casting back, I had the rigging made, but none of the pulleys. These were the little scallywags that had almost finished me off 2 years back when I attempted to get back into the modeling.

Steel wire twisted around a 5mm wooden disc. And I had made umpteen of them.

Where possible, these were pinned to the hull using brass tacks, where the hull is cut away, they needed to be glued in.
But I'm already seeing the effects of time on the glue. The port holes are brittle and the 'hinges' are now so delicate.


So tie up the rigging, and fix the pulleys.

And start to thread the lines (waxed cotton) through the eyes.

The years have not been kind to my eye sight, what used to be a breeze became thread cotton through the eye of a pulley in pea soup. I had initially thought to paint the pulleys, but the paint choked up the eyelets made the process impossible. I'm thinking that a black paint wash will have do to after the lines have been placed.

Seems to work. Over the Christmas break I had a little walk through a few model shops, I found the ZHL Black Pearl, not sure which version.. Doesn't look as though you actually need to do this in the official build, I saw pre cut metal.. not completely sure about that though, seems odd.

With the cotton, you seem to get a little more variety/ chaos, the lengths are different, the twist and of course the quality.

And yes, I had to fabricate most of the crazily small pulleys myself. I'm hoping the paint will remove the 90deg hard corners.

Next the sails.

 

[matweaver]

So the problem with having a 4 year break is all sequence goes over board. I completed the (nearly) rigging but forgot about the top mast rigging, which now means I need to gently wind cotton around the main mast lower half and tie 6 lines to the top.. this is going to be a pain in the bow.

Best to work on the sails instead, that way I can forget.
I had a load of Calico in the textiles room, this is linen, cotton that once wet shrinks about 10% or more.. I've been sting by this before, so it's best to dye/ soak etc before you start cutting to shape.

I found a few old dyes lying about, red, green, beige and because I have a limited window of time, I thought best to start with what I have and fix the actual colour later.

So with a little hot water,

I proceeded to soak the fabric.

and dry what now looked like a serial killers scarf.

The colour is way off, but I'm thinking it's all about layers. So I'm very pleased with how it turned out.... I'll spray it, probably.
The massive issue are the dimensions for the sails. I saw online the ZHL provide replacement sails, but these are cut to look like sails with the wind behind them (checked the physics, apparently its the wind in-front of them causing a low pressure) but I don't have time for this, I need sails that aren't off in scale and look like they're going to work.
So I print off what looks to be a scale drawing and try to do some maths.

Maths based on the model I have.

The plan is to fold the edges over and sew them down, this will give them more structure.

But I realise that I can actually push modelling wire through the folds and bend/ form them into the shape.

So that's what I'll do. I'll get aluminium modelling wire, bend the sails to shape for wind and spray them with paint.