Laser Dream Works 6-gun Barque - "La Belle"

[CptJake]

My daughter and I have built a few Laser Dream Works ships and boats.   An ongoing Kickstarter for another company is offering a version 'La Belle'.   I knew LDW also had one, and Matt from LDW contacted me and asked if I would build the kit and review it for him.  After jumping at the chance, Matt very kindly sent me his version of the kit.

The kit comes with two sheets of laser cut plywood holding most of the parts, a handful of precut wood dowels of various diameters and lengths for the masts and bowsprit, a pink foam hull, six metal cannon (each two pieces, carriage and gun tube), one sheet each of rough and fine sand paper (to shape then smooth the hull) and instructions printed in color, which include a sheet which has the length/diameter and an outline for each of the dowels so you know what each is for.

I used Elmer's Wood Glue for the build. 

The first step was to glue the deck to the hull.  Once glued I placed a few books on it and let it dry overnight.  Once dried, I shaped then smoothed the hull using the supplied sandpaper.





Next you add the ribs which will help you align the sidewalls, then you build up the sidewalls and the prow of the ship.   Some folks dislike the stepped appearance this method gives you, but it works really well and builds easily and quickly.  Once painted the 'steps' are less obvious, and honestly they are not too obvious to begin with.  On another kit I used a Dremel with a sanding wheel to smooth out the steps.  I'm not sure I'll do that with this one as I think a good coat of paint will work fine.   We'll see...









The next steps involve the stern and the prow.   The prow is an area you'll want to let glue dry in between steps so you can be sure to align it all right.   It looks really good once done, adding a lot of depth/interest to the model in my opinion.   The stern includes the option of having the ship named La Belle or using the blank side of that part to allow you to name her yourself.









The deck hatches/grates come with some options.  For the rear, you can use just the frame and paint the inside black to represent an open hatch, a grate, or the plank hatch I used.   The front can be left off to aid in figure placement.  I did not glue the front one down as I'm not sure which way I'll want it yet.  I suspect I will glue it down prior to painting as it does look cool.

That is the basic ship.   The next steps involve the bowsprit and the masts.   I did not glue in the masts as it will make painting and storage easier (I'm moving soon and keeping the masts off will make packing this a lot easier).   Due to some minor inconsistency in dowel diameters, many of the pieces for assembly of the masts needed the holes widened a bit.  Matt thinks he knows the cause of the issue (a bad supplier) and will try to address it.  It wan't really a big deal though.  I used a round and a half round file to widen the holes as needed.   The sheet detailing which dowel is which was BIG help.   I need to drill holes in the hull to allow the masts to set in for stability, but unfortunately my drill is currently up at Ft Bragg (don't ask).   So, for the pictures they are just set into the hole in the deck.  A fighting top is provided as an optional piece (I guess the real La Belle did not have one).  I did not glue mine on yet, but very likely will.   Since it is likely my pirates and sailors will be fighting skeleton pirates and other non-historical enemies strict adherence to historical fact is not required.   











The unpainted cannon in the figure below is what LDW provides with the kit.  I dug out some similar painted cannon for the sake of taking pictures.   LDW ran a successful KickStarter which funded the sculpting and molds for the cannon.   







Plenty of room for some swivel guns too!   

I used my Black Scorpion pirates to give a sense of scale.  They are mounted on regular slot type bases.











Instructions are included for rigging, but as I explained, I'm moving soon so that is going to have to wait.   

All in all, the kit was fun and easy to build.  I probably spent less than 3 hours actually working on it, spread out over about 4 days/evenings.

The kit is available here:  http://www.laserdreamworks.com/28mm-6-gun-barque-la-belle/

I think La Belle will provide a nice mid sized ship for gamers.  It is big enough to look great on the table and to use the various brands of figures with, but not so enormous that you can't have other stuff on the table as well.  I really like it.

I've suggested some changes to the provided instructions to make things a bit clearer, but even as is, they are more than adequate for assembly.

I want to thank Matt for providing me with the kit to review.   It was a fun opportunity to help show off a great product from a great company.   

Obviously she needs some paint and to have some glue cleaned up from where I allowed it to ooze out.   

Jake

[CptJake]

Well, looks like I don't need to worry about drilling out the hull for the main mast nor gluing on the fighting top, or deciding to glue or leave off the front hatches for the deck.



Went out to mow the lawn and one of our dogs had decided these parts needed to be chewed into pieces.

 

[folnjir]

Thanks for the review, looks like a good kit.

Sadly not dog proof though 

[LaserDreamWorks]

Yikes!
Thanks for the review Jake.  I will have to get you a few replacement parts.
Matt

[raif]

Great and informational review! Perhaps you could ask your talk how does it taste?  

If i look your pics i would say, it seems that the ship would fit perfect for 15mm games with 15mm crew.

[Dr. Zombie]

Very good review. I buildt and painted the pirate brig that I bought as part of their kickstarter campaign. When first you open up the box it is quite daunting. But everything goes together real easy.

Damn you! Now I am wondering if not I need another ship..

[former user]

this is a beautiful model

I wonder though why the pirate miniatures look so oversized in it? Would it be wiser to use flat transparent acrylic bases?

Or might it have to do with the changed length-width ratio of the original?


is this a typical necessity when making 28mm ships?

I am just asking because I am into historical ships too

[CptJake]

I think the bases add to already big Black Scorpion figures, making them oversized for the ship.   I have over 50 painted Black Scorpion figures though, so starting over with a different brand isn't going to happen (though some of the new North Star figures are tempting).

With the cannon having no bases, the figure bases really do make the figures look towering.   At some point I may rebase them on washers or some other thinner bases.   

Jake

[Bergil]

It looks very nice.

I was just thinking you might be able to ask them to supply a larger version to suit the scale of your figures. It would be a simple matter of resizing the image.

[former user]

did You use the original measurments? the ratio still seems different

[CptJake]

It looks very nice.

I was just thinking you might be able to ask them to supply a larger version to suit the scale of your figures. It would be a simple matter of resizing the image.

I don't think it is exactly that simple.   The layout of the parts on the plywood sheets is already crowded.   I suspect growing the size of the ship would require a new layout and possibly expand the kit to three sheets (increasing labor and material costs).   There are only so many square inches per sheet the laser can cut.

[former user]

oh, so it is the size of the sheets that is a limiting factor....
that a bigger version needs more square inches is obvious

anyway, I could imagine that the 28mm bulk of certain details (like thickness of the hull bulkheads) already crowds the ship

[axabrax]

Very nice ship. The Black scorpion figures are way too big for it. I think 25mm fiigs would be the way to go. I wish that these ships would come with sails. Never been able to make any myself thst didn't look cheesy.

[LaserDreamWorks]

A few notes on scale.

Scaling the ships I design has always been a bit of a problem.  The challange comes with the size of the figure in relationship to its base.  Depending on the sculpt, 28mm is normally scaled to the eyes of a model so for an average human male of the period, 5'6" is about right if not on the tall side with eyeballs behing about 6" down from the top of the head.  So a figure on a 25mm round (as shown here) is occupying about 5 feet by 5 feet of deck space. Put that guy on a 3mm tall base and he is standing on a 6" platform shoes that make him tower over cannon and railings.  When figure sculpts stretch the 28mm scale into the 32mm heroic ranges that effect is even more exagerated.

Ultimately I chose to keep the scale of the ships relatively consistant with "28mm to the eyes" equals five feet rule.  And accept that I will never get a full crew on board.  In some cases I do shring the ship a few feet to get it into the constraints of the 24" laser cutter constraints or so that it will fit on a half sheet.  Doing this makes production and shipping costs much more manageable.

Sadly scaling a ship up is not as simple as grabbing the corner with a mouse and stretching it.  That works for x and y axis of the plan, but it does nothing to change the z axis which is fixed by the thickness of the wood.  In this case 3mm baltic birch.  So any part that  fits into another on the z axis has to be completely reworked. Moreover some of the layers have to be completely eleminated or added to compensate for height.  With that said, I have done that for most of the ships in our range.  We have many of our 28mm ships already shrunk down to an 18mm scale, and are having great sucess with a 10mm range as well.

[CptJake]

And I admittedly do a disservice by using Big Ol' Black Scorpion figs on Ginormous bases in the pictures.



 

(Having said that, I do use them and try to be clear about what I am using so folks can make informed decisions about what will work for them.)

But you know, those figs WILL crew those ships on my table.