Setting sail on the seven seas...

Hobbycraft really is a great store. I visited the branch in Basildon today and picked up lots of bits that I needed to get some of my pirate ships ready for action for the new Legends of the High Seas campaign at my club.

Mike White (club president and all-round nutty hobbyist) recently bought a load of cheap toy pirate ships and brought them to the club for us to buy off him. I bought a £3 ship off him that although a little small in scale compared to the 28mm models we use, is not that different to stop me using it in the game. Here's a pic of it in the box...

As you can see, although the basic shape was okay, it needed some work. First thing I did was to remove all the masts, sails and rigging - all those bits would get in the way when playing with models based on 25mm bases. I also trimmed the gun barrels away from the sides of the ship and cut away the wheels underneath it.

Thanks to the bits I bought from Hobbycraft, I could then set to work. I covered all the gun ports with bits of balsa and replaced the masts with wooden dowels. I also filled in the holes on one side of the ship that were there to allow the two halves of the ship to be screwed together. The last thing I did was to glue the crow's nest to the top of the centre mast. This is how she looks now:

All I need to do to it now is spray it with a black undercoat and get it painted ready for the 30th when the campaign starts!