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Pirate Project - Disassembly Complete! - Part 4

I finished making that last separation and I think I have finished disassembly the ship. Its at least down to a workable level. It looks like the most difficult part is right here at the bow. The bowsprit needs to come off with the rest of the deck since a good chunk of the standing rigging starts here. That means figuring out to make that whole front of the deck lift off. I'll have to deal with the figure head since it is an integral part of this whole assembly, unless I leave the whole section as a single piece.

This is what the hull looks like with all the decks, finally, removed.

The bow and forecastle are the same casting with the deck sliding in underneath the forecastle.

You can get an idea how these go together here. Its going to be almost impossible to remove them without cutting something up.

I'm going to leave these pieces intact at this point. This section incorporates both the forward mast and the bowsprit so there is a lot going on here from a rigging standpoint. The straight edge from the bow piece also forms one side of the two forward cannon ports. I think I'm going to fill these ports in and reduce the number of cannons on the gun deck.

Here's a look at how the bowsprit support goes together. Three pieces come together here and the joint is not particularly good. Since I'm not going to take it apart I'm going to have to fill the gaps.

From the head on view you can see that the left side has a pretty big gap, the right side joint is much better. Leaving all of this intact also resolves the issue with the figurehead. That can just be glued in place without a problem now.

Now that its in pieces, its time to figure out how to get it back together!

Pirate Project - The disassembly continues Part 3

I managed to steal a bit of time and continued the disassembly of Sophie's Revenge. This time I focused on trying to separate the upper deck from the hull walls. It wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting but there were definitely a few areas that presented some difficulties.

The main hull and top deck come assembled from the factory. The deck is actually made from two different types of plastic. The hull walls and the front and back of the upper deck are made from the traditional bendy bones material (very bendy in this case). The two center sections of the deck and the two main supports are from a much harder plastic, similar to what you find in a regular model kit (but yet not quite, much like the tea served on the Heart of Gold from the Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea" from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams).

For the most part the glue was pretty light except in a couple of areas and I managed to only  break one small piece of the deck. I did elect to make a couple of cuts rather than try and break a couple of particularly well glued joints at the front of the hull.

So the hull is almost apart, another 30 minutes should do the trick. Then because of the way the bow is shaped I'll have to figure out where I will actually need to cut things apart to allow the top deck to come off.

Here is how things went today:

I started at the bow because that was the first place I was able to see some separation between the pieces.

However, as I worked my way down the stern ended up being the first section I could work all the way around on and separate from the hull. This is the top of the deck, this is where the quarter and poop deck assemblies will go.

A look at the bottom of the deck. Again all the white are stress fractures and the area with the heaviest glue where the four support beams.

Here is a look at the exposed portion of the hull. The stern piece is actually a separate piece that I won't try and take apart.

And a look at the hull from underneath. The big support beam on the left is made from an entirely different kind of plastic as is the deck section that is still attached to it.

 

Here you can see how much glue was used on those aft support beams. I didn't think I was going to get this to separate without cutting them apart.

Grabbed the rear superstructure just to see how it lines up. It fills the rear deck and overlaps on to the next. The mizzen mast also goes through here. Another piece to figure out.

I also managed to separate part of the railing. I'll be glue that back on! Didn't mean for it to come off.

Here is the next section of deck that I managed to separate, the one just forward of the stern.

This is the section I managed to break. Not bad as far as breaks go and I saved the piece. I should be able to glue that back into place without a problem.

The bottom of the deck. A fair amount of stress fractures here as well. Notice how the railing overlap the decks to help hold things together.

And another look at the hull minus two sections of deck. I will definitely have to add crossbeams to help hold support the decks. Not sure if I will leave or remove those big support cross members or not. I will have to mull that over.

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