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I recently got a laser engraved 8-gun cutter from: http://yhst-131870678834828.stores.yahoo.net/uss-lee--8-gun-cutte8.html

Matt, the gentleman who runs Laser Dream Works was great to deal with. He answered a bunch of questions and sent me the multi-page instructions for the kit as a Word document prior to me buying the kit. Once bought he answered further questions. The kit comes with a color printed hard copy of the instructions. I mentioned I had not worked with shaping pink foam before so Matt included and extra foam hull bottom for me just incase I were to screw up.

I know it is a little too modern for the Golden Age of Piracy, but I liked the model, and the price, and since I may end up with some skeleton pirates which are not all that historical anyway I thought it would work.

I like the ship. I have the assembly ready for paint and thought I would post a few in progress shots and some shots of the completed ship awaiting paint.











I did not glue the mast to the ship as I wanted it removeable for storage. The instructions include a rigging guide, but I am not sure I will rig it because I wouldn't be able to keep the mast removeable. More pictures here:

http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg134/CptJake_Minis/Pirates/

I have cannons and swivel guns from Eureka and Games of War which will fill the deck at some point, and a sloop from Ainsty which will provide an antagonist once it is assembled and painted.

Got some paint on it. Cheap craft paints. A sepia ink (diluted) wash for the decks and masts.

Figures are Black Scorpion to give a sense of size.

Jake









More pictures at: http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg134/CptJake_Minis/Pirates/

They're on a boat! They're on a boat. Srsly tho, that's a pretty nice looking boat Cpt Jake. You should grime it up a bit. Take it to the ocean!

Yeah.... I've lived on/in (and modeled) armor vehicles. I know what they look like grimey.

I've lived in the field and know how uniforms get grimey/dusty/faded and can weather them on figures decently (in my opinion).

Sailing ships? Not so much... I know it needs weathering, I just need to figure out what and how....

Jake

Sailor here... just take a look at the USS Constitution. Its seen a lot in the 200+ years it been afloat. Remember though, the old ironsides and sailing ships had tar on them to prolong the life so the are mostly very dark. same with the decks after years of cleaning. The cleaning of the decks gave them an almost oiled look, might be something to try. Nothing is pristine on a ship, there is grime everywhere. Unless it just came out of the yards, but seeing those and keeping them that way is tough.

Thanks, I'll add that to my list of image searches I intend to knock out this weekend as reference.

Jake

Okay,

I have made her a little more grubby looking, and painted up her main armament. I have 8 cannon from Games of War : http://www.gamesofwar.net/acatalog/Pirate_Supplies_Store.html

And the 8 long barreled cannon are from Eurka Miniatures: http://www.eurekaminusa.com/catalog.aspx?c=Pirates Renaissance FourMusketeers&cid=158&pageIndex=2

The Games Of War cannon are simple two piece castings, the Eureka cannon are four pieces (gun, carriage, 2 metal 'straps' to attach cannon to carriage).

I also have but have not yet painted swivel guns from both of these companies, as well as an anchor and other stuff from Games of War.

The ship is designed to have 8 guns, but as you can see you can also put a couple on the quarterdeck.

Plenty of pictures here:

http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg134/CptJake_Minis/Pirates/







Jake

Nice to see your stuff again CptJake! Looks good!

Thanks. This has been a very FUN project so far. I've really enjoyed working on the ship.

What game system is it for and in what scale?


King Ghidorah

Ghidorah wrote:What game system is it for and in what scale?


King Ghidorah

I haven't decided on a rule set yet. Legends of the High Seas is one I am considering, but I also have Cutlass and a few other rule sets.

I'll be using mostly Black Scorpion minis, which are big 28mm.

Jake

I could be hugely mistaken, but that ship looks kind of small in scale for 28mm. Especially true of "heroic" 28mm. Admittedly, there's very few shots with which to gauge and there's no shot with the cannon and minis, but it seems like it may be more suited to 25mm.

*EDIT*
Having said that and taking a better look at the height of the side rail along the floor, it looks a bit to tall for 25mm. Very odd. I wonder if it's actually in between scales? Does the manufacturer offer any info on the scale?


King Ghidorah

From the Laser Dream Works site:

This laser-cut wooden model kit is a reproduction of the 8-gun cutter USS LEE. Built in 1776 on Lake Champlain, the LEE fought in Battle of Valcour Island. The American fleet, under Benedict Arnold, was defeated and the Lee was run aground and destroyed. However, the battle did halt the British advance and they were not able to continue on to New York City again until the following year. This faithful reproduction is for use with 28mm figures. The ship’s deck is 10” long and 3.5” wide. It’s overall length is 16” and 14” in height. The ship comes with all the materials to build the hull, masts, and yards. It does not include material for the rigging nor does it include the paint, miniatures, or terrain shown in the photos.

http://yhst-131870678834828.stores.yahoo.net/uss-lee--8-gun-cutte8.html

And I posted pictures with some Black Scorpion figs, which are LARGE 28mm (really 30-32mm) and some 25mm round bases to give some scale shots.

Perhaps it isn't the most accurate ship scale wise, I don't know. It will work for me though.

Greetings,

Glidorah asks a great question about scale. As the ships designer, I can give a bit of insight. The Cutter is scaled for use with 28mm figures. I used an average male height of 66 inches as my base. From a cursory study of available data, European men in the late 1700s were about 64inches and those in the colonies averaging 68 - an abundance of food in the colonies accounting for the difference. So 66 seemed like an acceptable middle point. From there the math was reasonably simple. I used the actual builder’s drafts for the cutter as my base in determining the ships dimensions.

Turning an actual ship into something useful to the war gamer is something of a challenge for several reasons. The first is those pesky bases our figures require to stand up. The second is our movie inspired notion of how much empty space there should be on a ship. Errol Flynn and Jack Sparrow are blessed with far more deck space than any real crew could have hoped for. Your average sailor was working in far tighter quarters. Sadly our war gaming bases prohibit us from packing sailors in as close as they would need to be.

CptJakes pictures certainly help illustrate this. Take a look at the two sizes of gun on the deck. The larger is a 12lb cannon. This size gun would have had a crew of between 4 and 8 and would have been found on significantly larger ships than this cutter. (It would be appropriate to our sloop-of-war or British Brig kits). The smaller one shown is much closer to the 4lb cannon that would have been typical of the USS LEE. For our movie inspired minds, those are almost absurdly small cannon whose crew would be tightly packed to operate it.
The Lee actually mounted 1 12lb, 1 9lb, and 4 4lb cannon when she was sunk.
So here is where the war game convention of one figure representing several real life people fits in nicely. The deck has enough space to put a couple of sailors around each of the guns and a few extra to represent officers and deck hands and those up in the rigging, still leaving enough space for an enemy ship to board and have some room to move around - but not much! Fortunately this works well with most of the pirate skirmish games like Cutlass or Legends of the High Seas where crew sizes tend to be in the 10-20 figure range.

As far as basing is concerned, I prefer circular basing as it is easier to move folks around in tight quarters, but the extra 5mm from the standard 20mm square to the 25mm circle eats up a lot of extra space. So I go back in forth in my own mind about what works better. I will say that a thinner base looks better on the ship when possible. Bases that are thicker than a few millimeters start messing with how things like cannon and railings look in relationship to the figure.

I hope that helps a bit. Thanks much to CptJake for sharing his efforts with us.