Here’s my latest craft project: a laser-cut metal miniature pirate ship!
The entire kit is cut from two sheets of strong-but-flexible metal, and is hand assembled using minimal tools (pliers & tweezers) and the patience of a saint! Here’s a close up of some of the pieces before removal from their sheet:
And here’s the first piece – the rigging – to give an idea of scale:
The masts were completed by slotting in three other pieces perpendicular to the first, and ‘locking’ them using little crows nest pieces at the top. The locking tabs were about (and I’m not exaggerating) 0.5 square mm in area, and almost impossible to grab with my tweezers. Furthermore the mast pieces often did not slit correctly or did not line up well without force that bent them and had to be corrected. It was frustrating, and I almost gave up!
If only I had, since the worst was yet to come!
The above shot shows the instructions. Observe the command to curve the hull piece, whilst simultaneously maintaining a straight edge at the top to meet the deck. How exactly is that done? Who knows, but I was able to – with considerable patience – get it working well enough to finish the solid structure of the ship:
And then came the sails. You can see them in their pre-curved state in the shot above of the pieces before removal. Adding them one at a time required very specific, not always circular bend radii (deduced via trial and error) coupled with occasional rigging deformation just to get them in place. The process was…
Remember that video from years ago where I made a Millennium Falcon model only to destroy it immediately upon completion? Well I certainly do, because adding the sails to this guy kept the frustration of that build foremost in my mind!
Let’s just say that a few hours of rage coupled with my usual dogged stubbornness led me to eventual success:
And another shot of the finished product for scale:
Yes, it looks great. Even better in person! And it was also quite inexpensive (about $12). And I’m glad I got it together so well.
But I have to say this was one of – if not the – most frustrating builds of any model I’ve ever done. For that reason alone, I wouldn’t recommend one of these to anyone but the most patient 🙂
Looks great!