The Pearl Has A Nose Now

Hello,

And welcome back! Yes, the title is right, the Black (or Brown) Pearl has now a nose. I have started to work on the masts and the bowsprit was the first. You can admire the Pearl with her new nose in the next pictures.

Some of you, with better eyes might have noticed a bottle somewhere in the picture. I did not forget it, it is there intentionally to give you a better idea about the size of the Pearl. Most of the people I asked about what could be used for that agreed that everybody knows how big a beer bottle is. Since we are in a globalized period, i should mention, for those of you from Belgium or outside Europe, that it is a 500ml bottle :-).

Now, back to the important things. Some of you might also notice that the Pearl's nose is a bit on the long side. I have also noticed, so I have started to do a little homework about the masts' sizes. There was no big surprise to find out that the kit makers where (again) wrong. So, using various internet resources and books, I was back to the drawing board to recalculate the masts sizes.

Because more research work is involved (not only the size is important, but also the construction method) I had to stop working on the masts until I get all the needed details figured out.

So, I started to explore other parts of the construction that can be handled with my current level of skill and knowledge. The legend says, the Black Pearl is "a ship with black sails that's crewed by the damned, and captained by a man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out". That means the Pearl will have black sails. And I did a small try at that, I was curious to see how the black sails could look like. Because the kit provided ones where white, I painted them with some washed black. I am quite happy with the result.

Also, preparing the next step after the masts construction, I have painted some of the dead eyes and blocks needed for rigging.

And prepared the guns carriages for the lower deck guns. You might remember that I have already did that once, but because most of them got broken when I sanded the hull, I have unglued and remade all of them. Also, I painted them with the same washed black as the sails. This changes a lot the aspect, giving them a more old and weathered look, not far probably from the real look.

The brass guns provided with the kit where quite far away from the real guns color. I painted them with black and tried to see how they look like. I think they will look really well on the ship. But now I learned my lesson, and they will be fitted in only after the second layer of varnish is applied to the hull. I even consider gluing just the carriages now and put the guns later, after everything else is in its place (I mean here all the deck details and the rigging).

This is it for tonight. I hope you enjoyed your time here and be back for updates in the next days.

And don't forget, the feedback is appreciated, so don't be shy and comment :-)

Till next time,
Daniel