The transom on the original Black Falcon is flat like nobody’s business. Flat, like the design money for designing the kit ran out immediately aft of the ship’s wheel.

In my novel The Diary of Phineas Caswell, the 12-year-old protagonist spends quite a bit of time in the aft cabin of the Kathryn B, a merchant brig rather based on Aurora’s Black Falcon model kit. Except that the Kathryn B had big windows across her stern, not the boarded up, sterile transom of the Black Falcon.

One evening I found myself in the Lego Store in the Glendale Galleria, a massive, three-story mall built in a time when those were the wave of the future, rather than the brick-and-mortar reminders of who we once were.

In that Lego store, you could buy oodles of individual parts. I picked up a tub of their little gold-colored castle windows, thinking that someday, someday I would find a use for them.

Yes, they’re ugly, and a little cockeyed. Kind of adds to the charm? Maybe?

In the day, say the early 1700’s, plate glass was virtually non-existent. Glass that was affordable for shipwrights, shop owners, and the small tavern came in little shards and pieces. Thus, the stern windows would have been mullioned affairs. Even so, each of the panes in the Black Falcon‘s windows would be around 18×18 inches – not cheap.

As long as we’re looking astern, the corner pieces hide my crude craftsmanship at the corners of the original transom. They come from the ends of a balcony on the Soleil Royale.

The stern lanterns came from a Lindberg’s Captain Kidd Pirate Ship kit. If you hack away the brown plastic lantern lens and replace it with a craft bead, it looks pretty cool. Those hide the crummy craftsmanship of the balconies.

So, there you have it. A super easy, super quick modification, all thanks to Legos. Thanks, Lego!

Tales of the Black Falcon is part of the John D Reinhart content family. Writer, illustrator, videographer, and accidental filmmaker — find the whole story at JohnDReinhart.com.

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