My detailing work so far (Jolly Roger)

BTW love the detail Shipmate. I have completed about all of the deck and canno assembly except for the minor bits. I plan to spary some some flat black on the hull haves tonight. I have washed the parts and I don't plan on priming the hull. I think I am going with a primarily black hull with green trim along the side and around the windos in back. I printed off a lot of copies of the last page of the instructions and have been using color pencils to decide on color. Just when I decided on a black and red scheme and thenI find that passage about green. So this one I'll do green then I will go all out with a fanciful red and black one probably using the Gouda kit as the basis. I normally light sci fi kits so this roger will be lit. I found some battery powered tea lights that flicker like candles at a new craft store yesturday along with some interesting bases I could use.

Not to move the subject around, but, Johnny Depp has to be one of the most versatile and humble actors out there.  His range is incredible.  And you can see he has a soft spot for the pirate, judging by the total of 4 movies he has done (4 counting the third POC movie that's coming) that have something to do with the subject.

But, modelling fictitious ships is a very interesting hobby.  A good Flying Dutchman (not some glow-in-th-dark re-issue of another kit) would be very nice to see...

Oh, dear.  It seems the ship in the book was a brig.  A brig has two masts.  La Flore had three.  So does the Lindberg kit.

Peter Pan is a wonderful piece of literature.  It's hard to imagine growing up without it.  Some years ago I read a fascinating book called Under the Black Flag, by David Cordingly.  He examines the history of piracy - and, just as interestingly, the public image of piracy.  I was a little surprised to learn that the original version of Peter Pan wasn't a book; it was a stage play.  (The original stage directions called for a huge reducing lens to follow Tinkerbell around, so she'd look smaller to the audience.)  The book came later.  For anybody who's interested in such things, I highly recommend the movie "Finding Neverland."  It tells the story of James Barrie and how he came to conceive the play.  The casting, for those interested in matters piratical, is interesting.  Barrie is played by Johnny Depp, and the owner of the theater, who has grave doubts about bankrolling the project, is Dustin Hoffman.

Building models of ships that never existed, on the basis of verbal descriptions written by people who didn't know much about real ships (which Mr. Barrie obviously didn't), is a hobby about which I know absolutely nothing.  (That's not a criticism; it's just an acknowledgment that we're talking about a different hobby than mine.)  That being the case, I'd better refrain from offering any suggestions.

Nice job! I'm building one as well. I was trimming the flash in my windows just last night. It never occured to me they were out of scale. I may try to fix them I am trying to have mine finnished by next friday. There is a contest I want to enter it in. What color are you painting the hull? i just started reading the book Peter Pan about a week ago. I was going with black trimmed in red. but then I found this passage in the opening of Chapter 14:

"One green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of the pirate river, marked where the brig, the JOLLY ROGER, lay, low in the water; a rakish-looking [speedy-looking] craft foul to the hull, every beam in her detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she floated immune in the horror of her name.

She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her could have reached the shore. "

The La Flore seems a close enough fit as far as "rakish looking" but do I take this to mean that the ship is actually green? It's the only reference I have found so far as to the ships appearence. This would explain why the ship is green on the Lindburg box (I thought it was an error or the reuse of an old photo). Was the La Flore green as well? In all the movies and such the vessel is red or wood tone but of course these were all extravagantly done vessels which enphasized fantasy over realism...

I actually found this kit on clearance at a store last night.  Got it for $5.  I'll try the dremel trick and see how I do.  I can already tell that strip styrene or the decal method might be a better method, but I'll let everyone know how it comes out.

Actually, this isn't a bad little kit.  This was originally a french ship, right?  I might squeeze this in between my bigger projects.

Phil

Very nice-looking - very neat paintwork on the gilded decoration. What paint did you use? Acrylic or enamel?

A possible solution to the frames would be to replace them with thin styrene strip (Evergreen or similar).

If I were trying to fix those windows, my approach probably would be to cut away the frames completely (a five-minute job for an Xacto knife), shave down the inside of the transom, glue a sheet of thin clear styrene over it to represent the glass, and cut lengths of gold, waterslide decal stripes (such as are sold to model railroaders) to represent the window frames.  But when you start doing things like that you open a can of worms.  If I remember correctly, the windows on the quarter galleries of that kit are compound curves - much more difficult to handle with clear plastic sheet.  And if one "fixes" one feature of an old kit like that, where does one stop?  Before you know it, you're planning out a project that will take ten years.

On tiny scales like that I actually rather prefer the way Revell handled the problem of the windows in its small-scale Constitution and Victory kits.  They molded the window "glass" solid, with remarkably fine "frames" cast in relief.  On a tiny model like that it's almost impossible to see anything through transparent windows anyway; careful painting, with a very dark, high-gloss blue or black for the "glass," creates a pretty good illusion.

One major manufacturer, Dragon, has recently been creating quite a stir in the world of twentieth-century ship model kits by molding the planes in its 1/700 aircraft carrier kits in clear plastic.  The modeler paints everything but the canopy.  Heller was on the right track when it made the stern lanterns of its 1/100 Victory  in clear plastic.  (The skylight on the poop deck is made the same way, but there somebody goofed:  the top doesn't have any camber in it.)  We can dream of the day when an enlightened manufacturer molds a ship's complete transom and quarter galleries in clear plastic.  But I'm not holding my breath in anticipation.

I agree with JTilley on the scale of the windows.  The frames are way too thick.  But the paint job is gorgeous.  I love the contrast of the colors.  The gold is striking.

I may try this kit and use my trusty dremel and blade to cut the window framing into a better scale.  Heck, it wouldn't take much work to remove the framing altogether and scratch build new ones.

Keep posting pics.   Your build is going to be beautiful...

Looks mighty fine to me.  The window frames, of course, are way out of scale, but that obviously isn't your fault.  Trimming them down to scale size, and keeping them all even in the process, would be a real challenge; if I were to try it I'd probably end up with somthing that looked considerably worse.  Best to leave well enough alone.  That's the sort of thing that's endemic to a kit made in the sixties.

In the original issue, the oval under the center window contained the ship's name, La Flore.  Did Lindberg blank that out for the "Jolly Roger" reissue?

Good luck.

I think it looks great. I hope mine comes out that well. You sure have a steady hand!