1.1.1: Shaping the bow
Nov. 13th, 2021 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jae_buildsOk, I think if I'm going to do more than just post occasional photos, I need to start by defining some terminology. No, that's a lie, I need to start by acknowledging that I was only fooling myself when I said I'd wait for the table to get here, because of course last night I started on the build like you all knew I was going to. But now that's out of the way, I can define some terminology. There may be pre-existing terminology that the Lego builder community uses; for all my enthusiasm for actually building, I don't really follow the scene at all. And also I don't actually need to define terms, I just want to. If you're just here for the pretty pictures, feel free to skip ahead.
Large lego kits come in numbered bags. (Sorry if you already know some of this, which you probably do if you've ever built a Lego set. I'm having just as much fun with this blog as I am with the actual build, and I feel like over-explaining, but like I said, feel free to skip ahead if you just want the build photos.) The instructions tell you to open and build all the bags of one number (of which there may be more than one) before moving on to the next number. This exceptionally large lego kit comes in three separate boxes, as you saw in my previous post, with each box having its own individually numbered set of bags. (Or, well, I haven't technically confirmed that; it's possible that in this kit, the bags are numbered sequentially through the whole build. But if it's like the other multi-box kits Lego has released, each box will start over with 1.) The building instructions also are split up into separate sections, with each section consisting of multiple sets of bags; it looks like there are two in the first box (or at least "Section 2" starts about halfway through the first box's build instructions). This is neat; I have not seen build instructions explicitly label sections like this before, and each one has a brief written description of what it contains, which I appreciate. So the structure is:
* Boxes
** Sections (as labeled in the build instructions)
*** Stages (numbered bags, or sets of bags-with-a-single-number)
**** Steps (individually numbered in the build instructions)
I usually build one full stage in one building session, so I'll likely post about one post per stage; if I come across an especially neat construction element, I may do a separate post about it, and if there's an especially long stage, it might get split up into two separate build sessions, which may (or may not) each get their own post. My posts will be numbered (like this one is) with [Box number].[Section number].[Stage number], assuming they're each one stage as I expect them to be.
So, anyway, that needlessly long explanation out of the way, let's get on to last night's build:
This is the Section Heading I described above; I won't post a photo of each one (unless y'all want me to; let me know in the comments), but I wanted to show you what I meant above.
When I start a new stage, I like to lay out the pieces in a sort of Lego mise en place; creating it is soothing, and it helps me find what I need more easily throughout the stage. Most stages have one or more bags of tiny parts, which is what that plate is. (The blue tape is just because I'm building on a third-hand Ikea desk that is missing its hutch, so there are holes for the hutch dowels that I covered so small pieces won't fall in them; once my table is delivered, the ugly desk will go away.)
I thought this was kind of neat. You can see the profile of the bow starting to take shape, but the thing I wanted to highlight was the hinged bit of this internal support, which in the final build will be completely covered. I like when Lego builds use clever engineering to create shapes that one wouldn't necessarily expect from Lego; this isn't wildly unexpected, given that the underlying platform is one single Lego piece with the same angle, but I still think the hinged bit is neat.
Writing Lego assembly instructions requires a subtle sense of humor. I'm really amused by steps like this, especially when they come right after a complicated step that involves, e.g., fitting two sub-assemblies together in four separate connection points at once, or placing a bunch of little 1x1 or 1x2 pieces on an already-crowded section all in one step.
The next set of four photos is another bit I thought was some clever engineering. I built two little curved thingies with bits sticking off, which I then stuck sideways to the underside of the 2x8 brick in the photo above. Then I flipped that whole thing back over and used it as the front of the stem, with more curved blocks wrapping around it to create the actual shape of the stem.
And here you can see why those hinged pieces were important, and how they created a level surface on which to place the scaffolding that will support the skin of the ship.
And the last cool bit from this stage was this set of curved pieces that, turned sideways and attached to that scaffolding, create the profile of the bow.
Thanks for reading! Let me know if you like this format, or if you want, e.g., less description, or photos of other things, etc. Or just comment to say hi! Here's a prompt if you want one: What's the largest ship (or other vehicle) you've been on? For me, it was the ship we took from Greece to Israel on a Jewish youth group trip in high school, so certainly nowhere near as big as the Titanic.
Large lego kits come in numbered bags. (Sorry if you already know some of this, which you probably do if you've ever built a Lego set. I'm having just as much fun with this blog as I am with the actual build, and I feel like over-explaining, but like I said, feel free to skip ahead if you just want the build photos.) The instructions tell you to open and build all the bags of one number (of which there may be more than one) before moving on to the next number. This exceptionally large lego kit comes in three separate boxes, as you saw in my previous post, with each box having its own individually numbered set of bags. (Or, well, I haven't technically confirmed that; it's possible that in this kit, the bags are numbered sequentially through the whole build. But if it's like the other multi-box kits Lego has released, each box will start over with 1.) The building instructions also are split up into separate sections, with each section consisting of multiple sets of bags; it looks like there are two in the first box (or at least "Section 2" starts about halfway through the first box's build instructions). This is neat; I have not seen build instructions explicitly label sections like this before, and each one has a brief written description of what it contains, which I appreciate. So the structure is:
* Boxes
** Sections (as labeled in the build instructions)
*** Stages (numbered bags, or sets of bags-with-a-single-number)
**** Steps (individually numbered in the build instructions)
I usually build one full stage in one building session, so I'll likely post about one post per stage; if I come across an especially neat construction element, I may do a separate post about it, and if there's an especially long stage, it might get split up into two separate build sessions, which may (or may not) each get their own post. My posts will be numbered (like this one is) with [Box number].[Section number].[Stage number], assuming they're each one stage as I expect them to be.
So, anyway, that needlessly long explanation out of the way, let's get on to last night's build:
This is the Section Heading I described above; I won't post a photo of each one (unless y'all want me to; let me know in the comments), but I wanted to show you what I meant above.
When I start a new stage, I like to lay out the pieces in a sort of Lego mise en place; creating it is soothing, and it helps me find what I need more easily throughout the stage. Most stages have one or more bags of tiny parts, which is what that plate is. (The blue tape is just because I'm building on a third-hand Ikea desk that is missing its hutch, so there are holes for the hutch dowels that I covered so small pieces won't fall in them; once my table is delivered, the ugly desk will go away.)
I thought this was kind of neat. You can see the profile of the bow starting to take shape, but the thing I wanted to highlight was the hinged bit of this internal support, which in the final build will be completely covered. I like when Lego builds use clever engineering to create shapes that one wouldn't necessarily expect from Lego; this isn't wildly unexpected, given that the underlying platform is one single Lego piece with the same angle, but I still think the hinged bit is neat.
Writing Lego assembly instructions requires a subtle sense of humor. I'm really amused by steps like this, especially when they come right after a complicated step that involves, e.g., fitting two sub-assemblies together in four separate connection points at once, or placing a bunch of little 1x1 or 1x2 pieces on an already-crowded section all in one step.
The next set of four photos is another bit I thought was some clever engineering. I built two little curved thingies with bits sticking off, which I then stuck sideways to the underside of the 2x8 brick in the photo above. Then I flipped that whole thing back over and used it as the front of the stem, with more curved blocks wrapping around it to create the actual shape of the stem.
And here you can see why those hinged pieces were important, and how they created a level surface on which to place the scaffolding that will support the skin of the ship.
And the last cool bit from this stage was this set of curved pieces that, turned sideways and attached to that scaffolding, create the profile of the bow.
Thanks for reading! Let me know if you like this format, or if you want, e.g., less description, or photos of other things, etc. Or just comment to say hi! Here's a prompt if you want one: What's the largest ship (or other vehicle) you've been on? For me, it was the ship we took from Greece to Israel on a Jewish youth group trip in high school, so certainly nowhere near as big as the Titanic.