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Hubac's Historian

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  1. Awesome historical recap, John. The two best books in my library are both Rif Winfield books: French Warships, as you reference, and First Rate. I do think it is probable that the ship was repaired after Beveziers and her ornamental program completed (I have repair estimates from the archives, after the fleet’s return to port), before Barfleur in 1692. However, like most other things related to SR, there are no concrete records detailing the specifics of this. The screen shots I have of these repair estimates are barely legible. I will have to remember “Harbor Queen,” as I design my conjectural 1670 SR. It’s hard for me not to imagine the members of ABBA as Admiral and supporting officers 😀
  2. Thanks, Bill - I took a leap, this morning, and ordered my even-size deadeyes (3,4,5 MM) from Drydock, along with cleats and hooks for the futtock shrouds, and 2.5 MM single and double blocks for gun rigging. I’m still working on sourcing my 2.5 and 3.5 MM deadeyes.
  3. Where did you source 3.5 MM from? I’ve been referencing the St. Philippe monograph because, included among the plates is a sail and rig plan in 1:96. According to that schematic, 5MM (3/16”) is appropriate for the lower main and fore deadeyes. The trick is finding a good balance of scale graduation for everything else. On the monograph plans, the spritsail and mizzen top deadeyes are impossibly small - as you noted earlier in your log. 2.5 MM is the smallest size I can find. Forget about the t’gallant crosstree deadeyes, which look practically non-existant! I was thinking about 2.5 for the sprit, fore and main t’gallants, and the mizzen top. I could probably get away with 3 MM on the fore and main tops, as well as the backstays. Then maybe 3.5 on the mizzen shrouds. My annoyance is that the Amati deadeyes are not nearly as nice as the Dockyard Models version, but Dockyard doesn’t offer half sizes. Maybe I can do a little dressing of the Amatti product to make them look more like Dockyard.
  4. Marc, it is great to see you back on the forum! Your L’Ambiteaux is looking CAPITAL in her fresh paint. Thank you for the kind words and for checking-in!
  5. The paint work is exquisite. That is more like what the ventre-de-biche color is supposed to look like. It looks as though the flood caused black mold to grow along the baseboards. Did you cut away and replace the bottom foot of sheetrock? Be very careful of black mold - a serious danger to your respiratory health.
  6. Yeah, there are a number of really good block suppliers out there, but the shaping of the Dockyard blocks is really superb, and they offer the smallest sizes. Their violin blocks look particularly good to me. Thank you guys for all the kind words!
  7. Yesterday witnessed the arrival of our first adult dining table and chairs which, sadly, ushers out the butcher block trestle table that was my work station and the backdrop of this project for the past six years. It was a bitter-sweet day because I love that old workhorse of a table. I bought it second-hand for $50 and refinished the top three times. On the other hand, it is very nice to walk into our place and immediately see a touch of sophistication. There will be no painting or gluing on that marble-top table, though! Fortunately, IKEA makes a very nice birch gate-leg table with built-in drawer storage, which will soon become my new designated work station. In the meantime, though, I wanted to get the model to a stage of crispness and clarity before I had no place for paint re-touching. Please forgive me my self-indulgence. Here is where we are at, presently: I am very satisfied with the head-grating, and the way that all of the head elements integrated together: One thing that was niggling on my conscience, though, was the fact that the aft headrail rosettes were glued under tension. I have a solid welded bond, and I did wick CA into the joins, where I could, but I wanted a little extra insurance. My solution was to drill two small holes a side, through the third headrail and upper bulwarks, to feed a length of annealed wire. You can see where I painted over the exposed wire with red: And inside, you can see how I twisted the wire ends taught, and then fixed the whole thing in-place with liquid CA. This is all minimally detectable and will quickly fade out of view with everything else that will be going on around it. I feel better now 🙂 I made a start at roughing out the figure of Africa. I had quite a lot of the same wood (linden, maybe) that I used for the lower quarter galleries. Unfortunately, this material really isn’t suitable for carving fine detail. I will have to get my hands on a little boxwood, or some fruit wood like apple or pear. A little fun with pictures. Here, the juxtaposition with John Ott’s near-Van de Velde: As I’ve said before, Heller really does manage to capture the early sheer of these ships very well. Despite it’s many imperfections, my hypothetical recreation does, I think, capture something of the essence of what may have been. Moving forward, I have been figuring out where I will source line and blocks and pins and cleats. I really like the blocks from Dockyard Models, and the polyester rope from Ropes of Scale. I can get most accessories I need from Dockyard, but anything else I will obtain from HisModel. For the time being, and until the new worktable arrives, Soleil Royal Redux will shelter in her dry-dock: I will occupy myself, until then, taking measurements of the materials I need, and developing an understanding of what needs to be done with the rigging. Along those literal “lines,” John Ott has been a tremendous help in sharing his sources, and the rig and belay plan that he has developed for his model. My belay plan will likely look a little different, but only because I do not intend to make the same use of pinrails. If anyone is not yet aware, John has begun a build log for his magnificent Soleil Royal of 1693, which can be found here: Many thanks to you John, for your help and generosity, and to all of you for sticking with this project for such an absurdly long time. It is greatly appreciated!
  8. To compensate for the long topmasts, I raised my lower main mast by 3/8”, if I remember correctly, and the fore and mizzen lower masts were raised, accordingly. In order to improve the spread of the topmast shrouds, I made wider tops from scratch. The mast sections which are really overlong are the t’gallants. Those I will make from scratch and shorten.
  9. It is ironic because just the other day I was scanning through documents I had saved to my Google Drive. Here among them: Oh, and what have we here: I’m sorry that this did not occur to me sooner. Anyway, it will be exciting to see what turns up.
  10. My French figurehead resources are sparse. In the 1670s, the hippocampus figure was a popular subject, as seen below on Le Royal Therese and Le Terrible: The following 2-decker, perhaps L’Orgieullieux, does have a lion: A few more French 2-deckers of indeterminant provenance:
  11. I am very glad to be here, and this will be a fascinating project - a type, of which, is near and dear to my heart.
  12. Ha - yes, I suppose “effigy” wasn’t the best choice of word, on my part. “Sculpture” is more to the point, I think. Don’t fret over language, you are making yourself clear.😀
  13. “Delicious” dichotomy, indeed, John! That precisely expresses my own fascination with ships of this epoch. I am so glad that you are finally bringing your unique expression and perspective to light in a build-log for your ship. I am absolutely certain that many others, previously unaware, will be absolutely gob-smacked by your talents. Not a fine-scale modeler? I stridently disagree!🤩 So, one thing that has always bothered me a little is that so many vocal types on the various message boards love to complain vociferously about the kit’s numerous flaws and inaccuracies - essentially calling it a pile of junk - yet, they hold Tanneron’s model in the highest regard. Well, what you have so perfectly illustrated is the fact that the Heller kit is really a very direct copy of the Tanneron model; many of the Heller flaws originate in the Tanneron model. The thing I find so remarkable about the origination of the Prestige Series is that Heller made it possible, for a moderate sum, to bring faithful copies of world-class museum models into the average person’s home. They are flawed, yes, but aren’t we all to some degree or other? When I first spied the very pressing I am building from, in my next door neighbor’s hobby room shelves, back in 1981 (he was building the 1:200 Heller Royal Louis, at the time), I was instantly hooked, and thereafter obsessed with this magnificent puzzle of a ship. Unfortunately, Mark Hansen did not live long enough to build the ship in retirement, as he had planned to. All of this informs my view that there aren’t any “perfect” ship models. All models are constrained by the quantity and coherence of their service records and portraiture. In my opinion, an effective scale model is one that strives for fidelity to the period, while stimulating debate about its various details, and INSPIRING others to see what else may be possible. John’s Soleil Royal is all that and more!
  14. Your point about the hierarchy of ornament is well-taken and correct. If there is a place for human forms, where they are otherwise absent, it would certainly be at the figurehead. Frolich’s version of L’Ambiteaux carries a lion as it’s figurehead, while the builder below employs this human figure: I’m not sure whom this figure from Greek mythology represents, exactly, but my guess would be Apollo, as that is the character most closely associated with Louis XIV. He is carrying a victory laurel and Fame’s trumpet proclaiming his dominance and superiority to all comers. I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with an effigy of Zeus as your figurehead, even if you don’t employ and other human figures, elsewhere in the decor.
  15. Although, one idea that occurs to me straight away concerns the lower finishing of the quarter gallery. L’Ambiteaux employs these twist-tail dolphins for the lower finishing: It seems to me that a stylized eagle with it’s outstretched wing, extending into the stern counter, could also carry a clutch of lightning bolts in its clenched talons, below.
  16. There would be nothing simple about that at all, really. You have the ornamental sets for L’Ambiteaux to use as a general style-guide, but the monograph for that ship ignores the upper bulwarks completely, and the bow and quarters for your project still need to make specific reference to the underlying allegory. I’ll be happy to follow along, though. If I happen to have any imagery that is helpful, I will be sure to post it, here.
  17. So, is it your task to essentially design the quarter ornamentation, the upper bulwark frieze, and the head ornamentation to harmonize with the stern drawing?
  18. In the end, I think it is always an effort at interpretation, and perfection is not a reasonable end-goal - in fact, it is impossible. If you manage to capture the spirit of the thing, while imbuing it with some sense of your own spirit, then you have achieved art.
  19. I had not noticed, Ian. I will say, though, that it is our quirks that endear us to each other.
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