In this video we will show you how to make this LEGO HMS Belfast Microscale Town-class light cruiser Warship that was involved in World War 2 D-Day landings. It is currently a tourist museum moored on the Thames River, in the heart of London, England. This is a My Own Creation, MOC, we have designed and built. If you do happen to make this model, or some variation, be sure to post a link below, or on social media (links towards the bottom below), we’d love to see them.
FREE Instructions Download PDF
https://www.mattelder.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MOC-LEGO-HMS-Belfast-Microscale-Warship-Instructions-Family-Bricks-Matt-Elder-01.pdf
HMS Belfast Wikipedia Page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Belfast
Time codes to the Video:
0:00 Introduction
0:36 LEGO Parts Required for the Build
0:50 Step by Step build of HMS Belfast
2:29 Starting the deck build
4:14 – 3 Sections of the Museum
4:52 Sample Instructions & Parts / Inventory List
Transcript from the Show
G’day Everyone, Matt Elder of Family bricks here and in this video we will show you how to make this LEGO HMS Belfast Microscale Town-class light cruiser Warship that was involved in World War 2 D-Day landings. It is currently a tourist museum moored on the Thames River, in the heart of London, England. This is a My Own Creation, MOC, we have designed and built. We have also provided a link to a PDF on our website mattelder.com with FREE instructions you can download to build along with.
This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or if you want to be super awesome, subscribe! Click the bell and select “All”, to be notified of new videos as they are uploaded.
LEGO Parts Required for the Build
Here just showing all the parts needed to build this ship. Most of the parts are pretty standard and nothing too fancy. The white pieces can be any colour. The blue pieces could just as easily be grey. I’ve just used them as a bit of a water line simulation on the hull.
Step by Step build of HMS Belfast
We start off with these 2x2x2/3s 2 sided stud pieces. This will allow us to build the hull in a SNOT technique. These are then doubled up and mirrored to do each side of the hull. They will be floating for a little bit but this will allow for an economical and strong part usage.
We join these together with white 1×6 and 1×8 plates. Again the white can be any colour as it won’t be visible in the final model. Mirroring onto the other side so that the 2x2x2/3 pieces line up. Now just a matter of placing curves, tiles and some more plates.
Thanks to a couple of members of the London AFOLs registered lego users group for some pointers around the SNOT, studs not on top, in the hull. It’s a great LUG group and check out my interview with the founder Richard Selby here as to what he tries to do to keep it a great group.
With the HMS Belfast, it is called a “town” class as it is from a group of ships named after towns in the United Kingdom. It was originally commission in 1939 and in November of that year, hit a German mine and took another 2 years undergoing extensive repairs. In June of 1944, she supported the D-Day landings firing upon the German artillery battery at Ver-sur-Mer while troops were landing.
In this next step, you put a couple of 1×1 plates into the 1×4 slopes just to fill in that little gap.
HMS Belfast saw combat in 1950-1952 during the Korean War and more modernization between 1956 and 1959, before entering into reserve in 1963. In 1967 efforts were started to preserve her from being scraped.
Starting the deck build
Now we join the 2 mirrored halves of the hull together. These are then held in place by a 2×16 plate. If you wanted additional clutch, you could easily include more of those 2x2x2/3 pieces in the hull in the gaps that currently exist – but it isn’t necessary.
From here we can build up the deck in layers or slices.
From 1966 to 1970 the ship served as an accommodation ship while the Imperial War Museum became interested in preserving her as a 6-inch turret, which were disappearing fast at the time. In 1967 when the Gambia was too far gone, Belfast became the most economical and practical to save. However the government decided in 1971 against preservation and she was reduced to disposal to be scrapped.
A private trust was formed in 1971 with those who had served on her becoming pivotal in her preservation. In the meantime, the ship was being stripped of removable equipment while the trust put together a proposal. In October 1971, HMS Belfast was towed to London where a hole had been dredged for her in the river bed Thames in her current position, right near London’s Iconic Tower Bridge (really must build that LEGO model one day).
In 1978 the Trust was merged into the Imperial War Museum. The ship has been drydocked twice as part of the ships long term preservation. Once in 1982 and again 1999 when she was towed to Portsmouth. There were tentative plans for another dry docking in 2020 but sure that is up in the air now.
The current paint camouflage scheme is known as Admiralty Disruptive Camouflage, which she had worn from 1942 to 1944. There was some debate about this as it doesn’t match her retrofit configuration in 1956 to 1959.
3 Sections of the Museum
As a museum, it is divided into 3 sections. One is “Life on Board the ship” with an emphasis on the experience of serving at sea. The next is the “inner workings” which is below the waterline focusing on the mechanical and engineering aspects of the ship. The last is “Action Stations” about the ships weapons, command and fire power.
And there is our microscale LEGO HMS Belfast all completed, and sailing away.
Most of the information in this commentary has come from the HMS Belfast Wikipedia page so do check that out for further information.
We hope this has given you some insight into the ship and one of central London’s iconic landmarks.
Here is a quick flick through of the instructions you’ll find on our website www.mattelder.com
Sample Instructions & Parts / Inventory List
Towards the back is a parts list / inventory showing exactly the parts needed.
This is a Family Bricks video. Be sure to hit that like button, share or if you want to be super awesome, subscribe! Click the bell and select “All”, to be notified of new videos as they are uploaded.
If you do happen to make this model, or some variation, be sure to post a link below, or on social media (links in the description below), we’d love to see them.
These are some of our other models.
If you’d like to check out some of our other custom MOC builds, be sure to check out our LEGO Scenario range. Alternatively here are some other videos you might enjoy. If you did get something out of this video, hit that thumbs up. We’d love to get 20 thumbs up, really does inspire us to continue building FREE instructions like this. That’s all from us here at Family Bricks. Thanks for watching and until next time when we talk about all things LEGO and lifestyle.
