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  1. Not my first kit, but first in 40 years! I started building this model that long ago, but 2 kids, and life interfered. I always told myself, "Tomorrow, tomorrow". Well. tomorrow has arrived. Now, if I can live long enough, I WILL finish her. These pictures are a start. Funny, I was having trouble taking good pics with my old camera(a Sony dslr), but picked up an older Nikon Coolpix, and man, what a difference! This is one beautiful camera. Only one problem. It shows warts and all. Looking at the pictures, I see every little flaw. Lots of paint touch-ups to do. I know I am not up to the standards of some (read any) of you, but I will give it my best!
  2. Another Heller Soleil Royal in 1/100 scale... but I started this 45 years ago as a freshman in high school. After 2 years, I had much of the hull assembled.. and then the model sat... I was too busy with sports and school, and then I went off to college in 1980. The hull sat as a "prison ship" in my parent's basement, and then my basement. Over the years, gun lids and other small parts fell off; I don't know why I never threw the model away. About a month ago, I somehow stumbled on this website and marveled at what people were doing with this kit! However, after not having done any modeling for 45 years, I decided that if I were to start with a new kit, I would start with the Heller HMS Victory. I told myself that HMS Victory would be my gift to me in the summer of 2024.... until one night last week, I took the Soleil Royal "hulk" down from storage. The thought occurred "what if??"... and I slowly manged to pull the poop deck free from the hull with no damage. Within two hours, I had broken the hull and the decks and - you name it - apart with basically no damage. Now what? I knew that I had to get the old enamal paint off, so a soft plastic brush and lengthy soakings in isopropyl alcohol got almost all of the paint off. In the last week, after studying what other people had done, I realized that I needed to create fenders, drill rope holes for gun port lids, etc. That's it... I devour the build logs of other people and realized the possibilties were practically endless. I am actually really excited - as if I feel like a kid again! The HMS Victory may have to wait a bit, as the Soleil Royal will help me develop some much needed skills.
  3. Hello all. Glad to be back after a long hiatus. I am starting this build log of my A.L. Soleil Royal after a few months of having started the build. At this moment I have almost finished the decks planking, hull planking, gunports, and a few other minor things. Don't ask me why, but I don't like painting my ships. And in this case I went one step ahead, and decided to make it looking "used and abused". Some may argue that Soleil Royal never looked like this, and thus this can't be "named" Soleil Royal. Well, sorry... it is my ship and I will do as I please. So, here are a few photos. At this point I still had not decided on the weathered finish The porcupine. I used bamboo toothpicks glued to a previously drilled hole, to simulate the nailing Jig to cut the gunports frames. This is how it finally looks Making doors using toothpicks That's it for today. Bye all!
  4. I have begun to work on this kit. As per my usual process, I have two kits going. My primary kit will be the Vanguard Grecian, but while waiting for glues to set, and for a change of pace, I will work on this kit. I will build this kit pretty much out of the box with few modifications. Although I will opt to use other manufacturer's deadeyes, single blocks and belaying pins. In this kit the deadeyes and single blocks are laser cut on the plywood sheets and would require drilling holes and painting. The belaying pins would have to be fashioned from wood stock. As to contents of the kit I would refer people to the YouTube videos which give a very good description of what is inside the kit. As you can see from the pictures I have placed by SurfacePro computer at my work station as all the instructions are on a disc. The only paper in the kit are the porthole templates and a guide to the plywood sheets showing where each piece is. As I have reviewed all the instructions I believe there might be some issues with not having physical instructions or plans but we will see. The bulkheads, for the most part, consist of 3 pieces. So far the fit of these pieces has been excellent. Quality of the wood has also been excellent.
  5. I guess we’ll find out if this forum has the patience for another Heller 1/100 Soleil Royal build log. This one will be focusing on changes, mods, upgrades, additions, styrene-bashing, and general mess-making in pursuit of something just a little different from the boxtop. Hello modelers—my name is John. I’m a lifelong plastic model kit enthusiast who never builds anything according to instructions. I first saw Heller’s 1/100 Soleil Royal when, as a commercial art student, I worked for a short time at Revell in Venice, CA, airbrushing backgrounds for box cover art. It was around 1978–79. One of the big shots had the unbuilt Heller kit opened on his desk. I was gobsmacked, and vowed to build the kit one day. Unfortunately, display space at home was scarce, and I knew that the model wouldn’t survive the irregularities and frequent moves of a twentysomething punk’s lifestyle. I kept putting off getting the kit until things got settled a bit. Now, 45 years later, I figure it’s now or never. In the half-century the kit’s been in production, it’s been controversial, an inspiration for a lot of palaver and condemnation. For a supposed “scale” model, there’s a lot that’s questionable about it, and if you aren’t familiar with the shortcomings, it’s because you haven’t read the other Soleil Royal build logs yet. However, the more I read and the more knowledge I picked up, the better this kit looked. I decided I could build an attractive representation of one of Louis XIV’s premier rang (first rate) ships-of-the-line from this kit. It would be impressive, if not wholly accurate. Many features would be exaggerated, but I’ve never had a problem with a certain degree of caricature modeling in small scales. I’m not a fine-scale modeler. I’m familiar with all the compromises accepted in other categories of modeling. Why not ships? Besides, I had decided my Soleil Royal would look different from the usual. I love to add stuff and change the detailing on kits. I haven’t found a kit yet I couldn’t customize. Here’s what I started with in November, 2022. The kit is beautiful, well-detailed and nearly free of flash and mold lines. State of the art when it was released in 1974. Parts fit well and the few large pieces that were slightly warped (no kit is perfect) were fixable with a little work. The box was delivered in November. I stared at the pieces for a while and then started reading reference books, websites, and build logs. I learned a lot from other Soleil Royal build logs on this forum and others. I am continually delighted, amazed, and entertained by the work of Marc LaGuardia (Hubac’s Historian) and his correspondents. The work I’ll be showing off here is the direct result of the knowledge they have generously shared. I’m a metaphorical fig newton, standing on the shoulders of giants, or however it goes. I didn’t clip a sprue or squeeze a glue tube until February, but here’s what my project looked like in August, after six months work—finally ready for masts and rigging. (More beauty shots at the end of the post.) I propose to show how I got to this point in weekly posts that will also contain some hopefully-interesting-slash-useful history and background of the ship. There’s a lot of stray information (and disinformation) about this ship floating around, and I’m going to try and assemble all the important bits in one place. The prototype was a remarkable work of Baroque art as well as a weapon of war. A floating castle of death-dealing artillery decorated by the same artistes who built and filigreed the palace of Versailles. The dichotomy is delicious. SO WHAT IS BEHIND HELLER’S KIT? The model is patterned after an 1837 wooden ship model in Paris’s Musée National de la Marine, made by the skilled ship modelmaker Jean-Baptiste Tanneron. You’ll be hearing about the Tanneron model a lot. Copying it was a logical thing for the Heller mold-crafters to do, since it was the only well-known detailed representation of the Soleil Royal from historic times. One of the first things I did was tape together half the hull and propped it up to make a comparison photo. But copying the Tanneron model brought Heller problems. The first is the true identity of the ship. There were three ships built in Louis XIV’s time named Soleil Royal. The first was built in 1668–70. Hereafter, I’ll call that one Soleil Royal I. The second was a from-the-keel-up rebuild of the first ship in 1688–90. That’s Soleil Royal I(a). The third was a new ship built in 1692–93, Soleil Royal II. All three were 100+-gun premier rang three-decker royal flagships, extravagantly ornamented to reflect the glory of Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, the Sun King. The Musée de la Marine is noncommittal about which ship Tanneron’s model represents. According to Heller’s literature, the kit represents the first two ships (considered as one), which met its fate in an encounter with an English fire ship in 1692. I’ve come to believe this is the wrong ship. Heller is partially to blame for the confusion, but in their defense, the Heller die-makers working in the early 1970s didn’t have the instant access to books and internet information we enjoy today, and the museum authorities they consulted were apparently not very helpful. The second major problem with the model is that the hull has too shallow a draft. According to surviving records, the 2400-ton 170-foot ship should have a draft of 24 feet. The Tanneron and Heller models—nope! Third, to compound the problem, the above-the-waterline dimensions are exaggerated. The gundecks have lots of headroom—eight feet, compared to the six feet on actual 3-decker warships. There would be very few cases of concussion by clumsy gunners going bonk on overhead beams if they sailed on a ship with Tanneron’s dimensions. Here’s the Heller model with a scale line drawing of another ship from the same time period, the Foudroyant: Aaaand… let’s quit there. Let’s not even discuss the height and width of the stern. What was Jean-Baptiste Tanneron thinking? Unfortunately, we can’t ask without a ouija board. It should be noted, however, that before the invention of photography, representations of historical objects in artwork (or sculpture, or modelmaking) weren’t anywhere near modern standards of accuracy. Living in an information-and-photography-saturated society, our attitudes about fidelity to prototypes have evolved a lot. For myself—I think the impression of a tall, castle-like warship is enhanced by Tanneron’s exaggeration of the proportions. And this is no modern interpretation. Have a look at the only eyewitness sketch of one of the Soleil Royals in action. Look how high the exaggerated sheer is in the drawing and compare that to the Tanneron model. Oh yeah! Both artists made this ship big, and high, and a true seagoing fortress. That should be the biggest takeaway from seeing artwork or a model of this leviathan. I think the Tanneron model (and the Heller kit) gets the point across nicely. So in the end, if you choose to build the Heller Soleil Royal, you’re really building a model of a 19th-century model, and it’s a caricature model anyway. For complete intellectual honesty, you should get out your wood-colored paints and wood-grain-duplicating techniques and make the model look as if it were carved from fine hardwoods; a model of Tanneron’s model. That would be a commonsensical approach. Fortunately for me, I have no common sense when it comes to models. I want have fun detailing, painting, and rigging a plastic model ship. Here are more photos of my progress up to August, 2023. Not much gold leaf on my version of the ship. After some reading, I don’t believe there was a great deal of gilding on the prototype. Figuring out what to paint the ship, based on surviving descriptions, old artwork, historical painting practices, and antique models, was a major part of the research. Paint choices and decorations will be discussed in later posts. Deck furniture got changed. Many trips to Ikea. Much time was pi—ah, productively spent—rigging tiny guns and rebuilding tiny boats. Guns were either replaced or rearranged and drilled out to the right calibre. Colorful gunport lids will be installed as soon as I finish the channels and shrouds. 104 guns were mounted, same as the ship had in the period I’m trying to model (very early 1700s). The waterline got raised to squeeze in a few more feet of draft. Quarter galleries got entirely rebuilt to better resemble a surviving historical drawing. I believe that the enclosed “bottle” quarter galleries on late 17th-century French warships had removable panels—whether for weather or for war. I left the upper gundeck balcony open to demonstrate this. Most of the ship’s gilding is up high—out of the way of waves and wear. Wasn’t happy with the too-big kit-supplied figures, plus, I needed a few new ones to match the drawing of the quarter galleries I was referencing, so I sourced new figures from the Shapeways 3D-print marketplace. Figuring out all the ship’s iconography was a deep research rabbit-hole, but a rewarding one. For the curious, the figures on the forward edges of the quarter galleries are Kronos, “father time,” (starboard), and his consort Rhea, mother of the Olympian gods (port). The other two figures are replacements for the kit’s too-large allegorical figures of America (port, with feathers) and Africa (starboard, with elephant-head headdress). The figures were “dressed” with additional sheet styrene. Next week we’ll get the project going by seeing what mods and additions were made to the hull, plus background on the three Soleil Royals and the whys behind which one I’m modeling. I invite discussion in the meantime. Happy modeling 'till then!
  6. SOLEIL ROYAL - HELLER 1/100 (side project) At the moment I am refurbishing part of the house including my humble workroom. So atm I haven't technically been doing any major construction work regards to my kit. This is a big project but A SIDE ONE for me as when my workroom and other refurbish are bk to normal I will be starting a main project in wood. I actually started this a few weeks ago but didn't want to start a build log for obvious reasons, plus the fact even now I still don't have a true picture of where I will go with this, other than the fact I will be to a certain extent heavily improvising on her, which I have started. I wanted to have wooden decks throughout so I meaured the sizes of the planking on the decks, calculated how much I needed and bought in 80 x1metre lengths 3mm x 0.5mm lime wood. The planking has gone really well and I have now finished it all, I also stained this with a Dark oak stainer. The Hulls I was unsure about but went with the kit instructions using Humbrol brown yellow and a lot of drybrushing, this came out darker than expected but realising this was because the mouldings of my kit Hulls are solid black(I used the same brown yellow on my complete Royal Louis but since that mould was in white hence the colour originally close to what it should be). That said I was quite pleased with the darker finish and it gave it more of a weathered look. I thought the bottom of the Hull needed to be slightly darker though so I used a Humbrol Dark brown wash over the brown yellow and it really came up to what I wanted. I have also drilled holes in the hull sides for the addition of pulleys for the Gunport Hatches. Atm I am now just building and painting the guns. I've finished the 24lb(x24) and have just started the 18lbers. I was originally thinking to replace them all after sales but found it well nigh impossible to get the correct type of gun and in 4 different correct sizes, so I've had to stay with the kit supplied ones. I have also bought in relevant wooden Deadeyes(triangular), cloth flags and rigging thread. Looking a bit further forward I want to replace all the masts and yards with wood other than that I don't know exactly where I will go with her, other than keep painting and weathering parts, I may well add other things like metal anchors and Rudder chain etc... Apologies for the long intro and in hindsight I probably should have posted earlier, but this will be a long drawn out build a bit like this post lol... On to the photos.....
  7. though not a build log as such, i thought i'd share something i've imagined for many many years, at which time, i partly put together a heller soleil royal........i disliked the hull so much, i gave it away....i really don't know if i can do this but i'm sure gonna have fun trying.....will probably be my swan song 😁 and now, marc,neko, was kind enough to share his lines, and i got all inspired again...and marc, hubac, found me a good deal on a kit, which i'm expecting in a few days.... sooooooo....i put the hull together and found a pic of the top bulwarks.....i'll have to wait for the kit to see if i can make it all come together.....mostly working on the revell constitution now, so it will be a while before things come together.....dream on vic dream on....
  8. Hello friends in the as unsolvable closed thread about TERRIBLE - here the link to all that are interested: we figured out very important content about the close relative of SOLEIL ROYAL 1668 - the ROYALBDUC later rebaptisted to REYNE/REINE. The renaming may also been gone aside withba more sorber decoration. This realtionship was announced by Marc with the followingbsimple few and important words: "As a side note: La Reyne is the closest known corollary to Soleil Royal. Same yard, same designer, built a year apart, and only slightly shorter in length and breadth. The sheer presence of SR would have been very similar to this vessel. Perhaps, she was a little bit taller at the stern in 1670, if she carried a poop royal deck." In stead of a repetition of the development of the knowledge let us jump into the important points we do have as evidence and knowledge: Sometimes you can trust in Wikipedia more https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Royal_Duc_(1668) than in a 26 year old book of Jean Boudriot who's discriptions show a 76 gun ship. On page 319 we do finde some information we do not got presented unter the First Sunking's Navy at the very beginning. So the key documents of ROYAL DUC are the following tetralogy: and as scaled(!!!) drawing of the transom. The pure amount of details in these 380 year old drawings is incredible : The galliin is very Dutch innstyle with its V-shaped structure and the figure head shows a horse riding man with a (kind of duke's crown or) contemporary stylish turban. There are a four circle round gunports for the VIII pounder guns of the backdeck. When we do walk along the hull aft we pass the cathead coming to the fenders and stairs This pictures of four tiers of gunnery's muzzels gives an impressive picture of the pure force brought to the battle line by ROYAL DUC in her two beattes she fought. She took part in the two beattes of Schoonveld on the 7. and 13. VI. 1671 (N.S.) and as LE REYNE thevship took part in the a beatte of Texel on 21. VIII. 1673. Under both names she acted as flagship of Vice-Admiral Jean d'Estrées. Turning to the quater gallery there arebstraight structured of an (fake?) window enclosed single tier with lozenge lead structure. The very first window is/can be used as a gunport. (In the middle of the Anglo-Dutch-War this may have been a secret information... were the vdVs spys in their second profession?) The deck above the nicely shaped and figured roof isn't integrated in a kind of bigger artwork and so the officer's accomodation only got a pair of luxuriously framed windows. The coat is usualy ermine (stoat/short tailed weasel) in heraldic symbolism looking like this: Allways black on a white background - not to be confused with a fleur-de-lis! When we look at this vdV ink paintung we do recognize easily that foreward looking gunport in front of every battery deck below&beside the gallion. The wide gap between the piercings through the hull is very interesting. These for now I do hope on a cooperation with Cederic due to support e ach other. ROYAL DUC had hat the following armament : LD 16 × XXXVI ryl. frc. pound 14 × XXVIII rfp MD 30 × XVIII rfp UD 26 × VIII rfp F'c'st'l&QD: 18×VI rfp ,Here both views added to each other. ROYAL DUC's scilpturing program was more elaborated than the one after her rebaptism. So I have to look for differences like a hawk to figure out what ship is infont of me on the paper.
  9. Я решил поделиться с вами, дорогие любители. Возможно, это будет интересно и полезно. Via Google Translate: I decided to share with you, dear lovers. Perhaps it will be interesting and useful.
  10. I have started the build of a Heller Le Solei Royal, my level of expertise in building models is of an advanced beginner (LOL). I know I am unable to turn out some build at the level of some of the very well done ships I have seen in this blog, but I will do my best and build the ship as good as I can. Attached are some photos of the hull, I am still in the process of double checking the hull in an attempt to find and correct any errors, and also to fix any paint details, once I am done with this process I will start installing the masts. I intent to do my own shrouds and rat line (I may not have an option about this because the kit does not comes with preformed shrouds ) I am also thinking of doing my own paper sails. Attached are some photos of the progress, also a photo of a sail I made as a training exercise to see how it came out. Joe
  11. The last two ships I did were the Mantua Victory and the Panart San Felipe, and the next one in the pipeline was the Mantua Sergal Soleil Royal. Although the Soleil Royal would present a challenge in terms of complexity, it wasn’t going to be substantively different than the previous two big ships. I wanted to do something a little different. Of all of the ship models I’ve built, the one that seems to interest most people is the cross section of the USS Constitution. In a true "it seemed like a good idea at the time" moment, I decided to spice things up by building the Soleil Royal with the sides open and with the inner works displayed. I started the project a while ago and haven't done a build log because I didn't want to start a log I couldn't finish. But the good news is that I finally finished the project and I'd like to share the build experience with you. The bottom line is that I learned a lot and in retrospect would have done some things differently. But I'm happy with the end result. As you can see, I used all of the materials in the kit, so in addition to describing the cutaway work, I'd also like to share some ideas on building the Soleil. In planning the project, I had three big challenges. First, I wanted to use all the metal decorations and as much of the kit as possible, so I was limited as to size and scale. Second, I was concerned about structural support and warping, given that there wouldn't be the normal internal structure of an actual ship or model. Third, and most challenging, I had no real idea how the actual ship looked inside. There was a lot of information on ships of that period and the Wasa and Victory are available for study. I was really lucky and found a book in the Auckland Library by the guy who ran the project to restore the Victory after it was damaged by bombs during WWII. Accompanying the book is a box containing 17 (huge) sheets of plans. There is one for each deck and it was exactly what I needed. The plans had more than enough detail and with my other research I was now able to create a reasonable (but admittedly not 100% certain) picture of how the Soleil Royal may have looked inside. My first challenge was to copy the plans which I managed to do by tracing. The Victory plans are about 30% bigger than the model of the Soleil Royal so the next challenge was to draw detailed plans to scale based on the actual dimensions of the model. I needed to keep to the model dimensions because I was going to use the stern and bow decorations provided with the kit and therefore had to use the kit dimensions. Every time I thought I had solved all my problems, something new and interesting would come up. As I tried to map the dimensions of the Victory deck plans onto the Soleil Royal model plans, things weren’t making sense. I realized that the problem arose because the ship model takes certain liberties with scale in order to make the model look good. These ship models, because of their scale, necessarily have to make tradeoffs between aesthetics and historical accuracy. For one thing, the guns and gun ports are larger than they would have been on a real ship and the rigging is much less complex. Unfortunately, because I was going to use the bow and stern, as well as the quarter deck, forecastle and poop deck as provided in the model, I had to retrofit the revised dimensions to make everything look proportional. I built up a partial structure using the plywood frames provided in the kit and transferred my deck dimensions to the model: Once I got the frames and strings aligned properly I marked the deck positions on the frames. I then drew a plan of each deck looking down from the top. I drew a horizontal line depicting the keel in the center of a sheet. I then marked a vertical line at the location of each of the frames. I then laid the marked up frame centered on the horizontal line and marked the outer edge of the deck at each point. This gave me an exact outline of the area of the deck which would be exposed. I don't want to overwhelm one post with all of the history, so I will add more information in future posts.
  12. I have started a new project. This time the Soleil Royal model in 1:70 scale I will try to build two models at the same time. One in the color scheme shown in the model manual and the other a little more valorized and in shade (rosewood - venge) colors.
  13. Praefix: https://youtu.be/eduLvBaAbVs Dear friends of the re-use of the Heller SR kit! "OVER THE WAVES I AM EXCEPTIONAL" This writing was placed on the mizzen mast of her - and due to my honorable colleague @Hubac's Historian /Marc and it's distinguished work I am here with this second baroque project by pure curiosity to the overwhelming decor on the pick of the luxurious splendour - untill the laws of nature and naval arcitecture vetoingly entered the stage of history. Yours HdS, Berlin in spring 2019 The first ROYAL LOUIS we do know about with data giving us the oportunity for modelbuilding is usualy the RL-1692 - a less decorated ship than her predecessor from 1668. But our situation isn't as bad as we may think. This vessesl was called "Vaisseau du premier rang extraordinaire" designed and constructed by Rodolphe Gédéon and decorated by François Girardon at Toulon. Launched on the 1st Feb.1668 she was rebuilt in 1677, went out of service in Jan.1691, renamed ROYAL LOUIS VIEUX and was broken up in 1697 at Toulon. Measuring data: Length/pp: 163'0" p* (52,95m) L/keel: 135'0" p (43,85m) Breadth: 44'4" (14,40m) Draft: 21'0" (6,82m) Planed with 104 guns (1668): Lower Deck: 12 x 36pfd** 16 x 24pfd Middle Deck: 26 x 18pfd Upper Deck: 26 x 12pfd Quaterdeck: 12 x 6pfd F'r'c'stl: 8 x 6pfd Poop: 4 x 4pfd (There are some other data like length of gundeck etc.) Laid down in 1666 it was planed with the most possible amount of decor as Colbert ordered to praise the king by its ships. The propaganda machinery of the sun king's army of artist still influenced our point of view making us to belief in "royal blue" (sic!!!) painted plankings. But only the cartushes with the three fleur-de-lys were painted in the expensive lapis lazuli blue of milled semi-precious juwely stones coming to france over the silkroad. (This last two sentences are, what I want to show to why something is as it is andwhat is the historical od te hnical reason for this.) The RL-1668 is pictred on several prints,engravings or ink drawings. Herrich de or was a permanent source of trouble, as LeBrun was used to add a rich decor the shipwrights get paniced (knowing the VASA case) about the additive wight ant the high metrecentic point. So the figures were craved empty inside and so fixed. That the decor was cut down on the open sea to safe wigth (as Mondfeld told us) is not clear. But patrs of the decoation elements werde reused at the RL of 1692 - so we have to be aware of this fact not to confuse this both ships! Due to this I can use the SR hull as a basis and adding some fancy decor I might come towards my goal to build a ship of full french baroque decor. This before with the 1670th years a more unpretentious kind of decoration took place as SOLEIL ROYAL shows to us. There are some pictures, but no technical drawing. So here we have got the possibility to reconstruct the ship - it is clear to me this is the hard road to travel. But an less boring one than the typical o.o.b. builds. I really dpn't know where my journey will end - at the moment I hope to be able to use the Heller hull as a basis for the rebuild; but it may also be my purpose and my fate to end up with the transoms glory only as one a part model. As the basis is allways the Heller SR kit so it is a kit bashing how much may even be in there at the end. The lowest battery own 14 openings as the Heller hullSR - but the drawings of the galion are not very easy to decipher. It will only be a hull model scaled in the 1/90th. B.t.w. the MONARQUE is in the row of pictures due to her equal structure and the clearness of the drawing. She also is a contemporary example of the optical ligthness of these tons of white oak, colour and leaf gold. (I have to take any possibility to give my strange beliefs some historical footnotes.) This project isn't made as a rush in you workshop with an arm full of rolled plans and wood, entering the branch and after being disappeared in a holy cloud of lightning covered sawdust you'll leave it with a shipmodel in your hand. It is a arthistorical trial to reconstruct a beloved period of shipbuilding killed by strange-minded pennypinchers and small-minded safty fanatics... 😉 Have fun and take care. _______ *p = pieds 324,8mm (106,5% of a GB-foot) ** pfd\£[ivre] is 489,5g
  14. Hello friends of the unusual today II start a short cut: SR2SP ! We all knoe HsH's enormous rebuild of the SR out of the box towards her real apearance. - and this remembered me on my mistake 40 years ago when I at adding the last flag torn my SR from the desk down on the floor accidentaly. I also read in Cederic L. rebuild to Le Rheyne and both together motivated me to plan a rebuild of SR as Sankt Philippe - short cut in here : SP- I'm still awaiting my Ancre monographie. It might be possible:
  15. Hello, so here we are, this is my attempt to build this famous ship ! I always loved period ships, as far as I can remember, but it was a real shock when I got the Heller model kit at christmas when I was 14. The box itself was huge and very impressive, and the model was gorgeous. I still have this model in my workshop, I keep it as a relic ! Then I discovered the Tanneron model, the one which is displayed at the Paris naval museum, and as many I was fascinated by the beautiful carvings. In 2008 the desire to build model ships went back and my interest for the "SR" was still there so I bought the Sergal model kit, but I was quite disappointed with the quality of the materials and I realized if I wanted something more accurate I would have to do it myself... So I began drawing the plans and building a first model based on the Tanneron, until I found it was false, and nothing like a 17th century ship should look like... So I restarted from scratch... For this new project, I relied only on the period drawings of the stern and the bow, and all the dimensions and mesurements that Michel Saunier had patiently collected and eventually shared with me. I thank him for that ! It took me two years of research and work to complete the drawings of the plans, because I had to learn everything on the subject. Early 2014 I finally could start the real work but early 2015 I had to stop because of a newborn baby, and too much work keeping me out of my workshop... I finally could go back to the workshop these last past weeks, here is what I've done so far. At first, some of the drawings, that apparently have already made their way on the internet. I use the Gimp as a software. I did the plans according to the dimensions of the ship, and then adapted the decorations to the result. The drawings of the stern and bow are "artist views", and in no way can be used for architectural purposes. So the drawings had to be modified and distorded, element by element, to fit the plans. But it was not the hard part of the work, the worse was getting the waterlines correct... It took me countless hours !
  16. I have since I was a child been interested in models. The interest first emerge when I at 12 years of age visited the Wasa museum in Stockholm and laid eyes on their 1/10 model of the ship. Since then I have but some plastic models under my belt but I have a very limited experience with wooden models. I tried to build the Gothenburg from Billing Boats but quickly realized that the instructions provided was not enough for someone with my limited experience and the build was soon abandoned. A couple of month ago I stumble across DeAgostini and their monthly subscription models. Their models come with very detailed instructions and some of the models even with videos. I decided to give wooden models a new chance and subscribed to the flagship of Louis XIV (the sun king and builder of Versailles), the Soleil Royal. I decided to wait until I had received two monthly packs before I begun building and now they are both finally here. Let’s get on building. Since I’m a beginner all advice and feedback is appreciated. I apologize if my English is not the best, it’s not my first language. Morgan
  17. Hi all this is my first build on this site so please be patient . I will be changing a few things on the kit. rgd Martyn
  18. I present here the latest photos of my Royal Sun. It is not finished and if it interests you I would put you following as work progresses. Excuse me but not speaking English I use the Google translator
  19. I managed to get more accomplished with unpacking at the new house today and so I decided that I needed a reward. Therefore, I have started my build of Le Soleil Royal. This will probably be a slow build as I am still working on La Couronne and she still gets priority but, as I plan on making a lot of changes to the kit, things will work out well. So to get started, here are the pictures of the contents of the kit. The parts all appear to be usable. The wood is of good quality and the laser cut parts are very clean. The metal fittings look usable as well though as with most, they could be improved. The instruction book is about what is expected in a kit. Plenty of information to build the ship but further research and knowing how to gather additional information from the drawings will be needed. Something nice that was included is a very large, clear and full color picture of the completed model. This helps to make some of the details a little easier to see. Here are the pictures!
  20. Hello, Model Ship World! My name is Marc and I hail from NYC. While I am new to the site, I am not a novice to the hobby. Owing to the early growth of my two children, and the development of my career in woodworking, it has been some time since I built a ship model. About sixteen years, in fact! Most of my hobby time, in the evenings, has been devoted to a series of woodworking and furniture projects, which fall under the umbrella of something I refer to as the Heirloom Furniture Project - a legacy project for my kids to inherit sometime far down the road, I hope! Despite my interest in that, and my role as an active and involved Dad, I never stopped reading and acquiring books about my particular interest in ships and ship modeling: the 17th C. ship-of-the-line, and particularly French naval architecture of that period. My recent discovery of Pinterest has really accelerated my understanding of the unique design differences in the stern architecture of the French first and second rates. For anyone who's curious, my Pinterest page titled French Vaisseaus can be found under my member name Tafferal. The imagery I have been able to compile, there, has made it possible for me to begin designing a build that I have long been grappling with. Here's the link: https://www.pinterest.com/tafferal/french-vaisseaus/ This will not be a fully-framed scratch build, but rather an extensive modification of Heller's Soleil Royal. I plan to test out my "Theory of the Ship," in plastic, so that I might re-create the ship, in wood, with all the scratch-built bells and whistles, when I eventually retire. This will be my second build of the Heller kit. The first was begun at the age of eight; very cautiously, I proceeded to the main deck level where I stopped the build, understandably, until I had developed enough skill to competently complete the upper works. As a teenager, I completed everything up to the masting and rigging. After college, I finally finished the model and had a very nice case made to house it. I have been transporting it from apartment to apartment for the past twenty years. It is, in my opinion, a very carefully fit and assembled model (no injection marks, gaps or flash lines) that is impeccably painted. It is not, however, a realistic depiction of the ship, or of a sailing ship, in general. That notwithstanding, I, like many others before me have become completely captivated by the conjectural splendor of what the actual vessel must have been like. The short-comings of the Heller kit have been thoroughly documented on a number of forums. I'm assuming that most who come to read this thread are already well acquainted with the inherent omissions and short-comings of the plastic kit. Unlike so many others, though, I believe that there lies within the kit, great potential to build an accurate scale model of a French first-rate ship from the 1660s. Now, it bears mentioning that I have read the forum moderator's post on overly ambitious build threads, and I can certainly appreciate and agree with the thinking, there. This is going to be an ambitious build! I expect it to go on for quite a number of years. This is not, however, a passing fancy. I am a devotee of incremental progress: whatever little can be accomplished, most evenings of the week, gradually adds up to a thing taking shape. My main obstacle, until now, had been the difficulty in fully visualizing what I believe the original intent of Jean Berain's well known drafts of the SR's stern and quarter galleries to be. I will expound on my theory of the ship in a moment, however, I'd like to say a word or two about why this project has legs for me. The kit I am using for this build is one of the early pressings from the 70's, by Heller. It, initially, belonged to my next door neighbor who was a kind of mentor to me when I was young. Mark Hansen was an outstanding modeler of all kinds of military craft, but he especially loved the sailing ships. He gave me a pretty solid foundation on what was and was not appropriate to incorporate on a sailing ship model. It was his SR that I first spied on the top shelf of his hobby room. I was instantly captivated, and from that point forward perennially obsessed with this single vessel, in a way that I still don't fully comprehend. Mark helped me build my first SR. He intended to tackle the kit in his retirement, but he never made it. Cancer took him in his late 50s. I have never known a person to be more generous with his time, and his memory remains dear. I'm dedicating this build to him, as it is quite possible I would never have found fulfillment in the trades, if not for his influence. MY THEORY OF THE SHIP Soleil Royal's keel was laid down at Brest shipyards in 1666, as part of Minister to the Navy, Colbert's, aggressive reconstruction and restructuring of Louis XIV's navy. She was launched in 1668, and completed a year later in 1669. Her length on deck is listed as 164.5 antiquated French pieds, with a breadth of 44.5 FP. Using a conversion factor of 1.066, this translates to 175 modern, English feet by 47' 5" in breadth, at the main beam. She displaced 2,400 tons, and her draft measured 23.5 FP, or 25 EF. As a side note, I must mention that I am in the process of establishing a point person at the Musee de la Marine, so that I might ask specific questions about my source material. So far, I have not received any reply to my inquiries. For the moment, though, I'm assuming that these L.O.D. dimensions I am giving are, indeed, the L.O.D., and not some other specific measurement. This will, for the sake of scholarship and my future build in wood, be clarified. However, for the purpose of this build, it doesn't really matter; the kit hull halves are what they are, and in fact, the kit L.O.D. pretty exactly corresponds with 175 EF. In the end, though, the requirements of this particular build will necessitate a certain degree of fudgery to create the impression I am after. There will be small additions and subtractions - all to be explained in the next few posts. Her designer and builder was Laurent Hubac, and her initial armament is listed as 120 guns. As a shipwright, Monsieur Hubac was noted for building warships that were considerably wider than those of his contemporaries. This owed to his belief that the added width improved the handling characteristics of these large ships. Soleil Royal was, indeed, said to he a good sailing ship. One year earlier, another ship by M. Hubac was launched at Brest, and initially christened Le Royal Duc. With the establishment of the French rating system, in 1671, the ship was re-named La Reyne. Her listed dimensions are as follows: L.O.D., 155 FP, by 42 FP on the main beam. Using the above metric, this translates to a L.O.D. of 165' 3" in English feet and a maximum beam of a hair under 44' 9". She displaced 2,000 tons and her draft is listed as 22' 10" FP, or 24' 4" EF. Her initial armament was listed as 104 guns. The two ships are of a similar size, displacement and rating. However, unlike SR, there exist two highly detailed Van De Velde portraits of La Reyne, showing her from the starboard stern quarter, as well as, the port bow, broadside. It is immediately apparent that the design of La Reyne's stern and quarter galleries is markedly different from SR. Also, as is to be expected, the arrangement of her gunports is significantly different from what is known about SR, and the arrangement of her guns. The value of these Van De Velde portraits, for me, has to do with the wealth of hull detail that is apparent (and glaringly omitted in the Heller, and vis-a-vis, the incomplete Tanneron model upon which it is directly based), as well as the ship's sheer line and presence on the water. In pen and wash, one can see a significantly more stout vessel, in La Reyne, with a notably lower sheer line, as compared to Tanneron's interpretation of Berain's designs for SR. As a side note, there is a Belgian on another site who has outlined his build plans for converting Heller's SR into La Reyne of 1671. What he is proposing is absolutely attainable, as the VDV drawings are remarkably clear, especially when combined with another period drawing of La Reyne's stern that shows the ornament for what it is - if not, remotely, to scale. Like me, this gentleman sees the potential in Heller's kit for a sound scale model, although his build will necessitate re-configuring the armament. As am I, he is still in the research stage, but I will be following his build and posting links, as appropriate. I want to say, from the outset, that the question of SR's armament - whether 120 guns upon launching, or 104 at the time of her demise - is not one that I plan to resolve with this build. I will be using the moulded kit hull halves and upper bulwarks. I will be making extensive modifications to those parts, and completely scratch-building the entire stern and beakhead bulkhead. Heller's kit, like Tanneron's model, is pierced for 110 guns. I suppose I could omit the two lower bow chase ports, but that would only bring me down to 108. Leaving them out would be a largely arbitrary decision without any clear basis in fact. In the end, my ship will carry 110 guns. There are just certain constraints of working with the pre-established port locations of the plastic hull that I am not willing to overcome. This is the first and most glaring. I am recycling what I can of the kit because the essential lines of the hull and tumblehome are fairly representative of period practice, and of course, it is an enormous time saver to avoid the complete scratch-building of a hull. Ultimately, what I am aiming to achieve, is what I believe to be the correct interpretation of Berain's stern and quarter galleries, as well as the decorative frieze of the upper bulwarks. In the course of the build, I will also add correct period detail - correctly scaled - to the hull, head, decks and guns, while completely re-masting and rigging the ship, according to the guidance of Lees and Anderson. A few gunports, give or take, will not detract from the impression of a ship that sits slightly lower in the water, on a notably broader beam, with noticeably lower sheer; in other words, a ship that won't capsize from the recoil of her own broadside. My ship model will bear a resemblance to the Heller kit, but I hope to far exceed it in ornamental magnificence and correct period detail. What I'm going for is essentially this: This is a work from a twentieth century artist, I believe from the 1950's, who must have been similarly infatuated with SR. I believe that he correctly depicts the configuration of SR's stern. Although, I must say that even if it were the case that she were almost completely painted blue above the lower, main wales - I will not be depicting her, as such. More on that later. In future posts, I will outline what exactly my theory of the ship entails, as well as, my supporting documentary evidence. I will then discuss exactly what I intend to do with the Heller kit, in order to bring all of this about, and then I will share with you the drawings that I have been working on, that will serve as the basis of my modification plan. I've been corresponding with Dan Pariser quite a bit lately, and he has prevailed upon me that I would be much better served digitizing my hand-drawn images so that I could more easily develop them in Corel Draw, for example. He is right, and I will. After not hearing from me for such a long time, I have to credit Dan for being so generous with his knowledge and resources. He and Mark Hansen are two of a kind! So, I must first create a scale "field" - as opposed to a line and body plan (not necessary because I'm not framing) - upon which I can layer all of the new detail. There will be some learning there, naturally, but I will share what I've arrived at, so far, in future posts. Thank you all for taking an interest in this thread and I look forward to hearing whatever you might have to say on the subject. I have also read the moderator's post on forum etiquette, when commenting on a thread or post; I am not nearly as brittle as the plastic I will be working with, so please don't labor too much in your replies. Just tell me what's on your mind. All the best, Marc
  21. Hi all i received this infamous kit as a present from my missus (note from the title I will only be correcting those errors my megre skills and even megerer knowledge will allow) that said as I'm building just a generic ship of the line it will end up being exactly right. I have today ordered some gold leaf for this kit as it worked so well on the La Reale and the Royal Sovriegn, I have some copper leaf and brass leaf, wish I could find some bronze leaf for the canons (does anyone know how I could colour brass leaf to look like bronze). I know everyone will be saying get good am blocks and tackle also bin the thread and get some proper stuff, but, the missus has said keep the costs down, also I feel why spend more on am stuff than the kit cost, so will be investing in bees wax and apart from the gold leaf all else will be oob (apart from maybe some scratch building. the molding is as exquisite as it was on the La Reale.
  22. In a moment of over enthusiasm I bought and have started building Hellers huge 1/100 scale Soleil Royal. Internet reviews indicated that the kit may have a few problems - I can confirm that it has a myriad of issues. As I am building this for myself I am allowing a fair amount of artistic licence (In other words I have no better idea than anyone else of what the original really looked like) First the obligatory box shot for those who have not seen the kit: And contents: Construction started with the hull - all the gun ports for the lower battery and battery decks are closed off: Then prime and paint the hull:
  23. Hello to all here First I want to introduse muself - My name is Mihail, and I'm form Sofia, Bulgaria. Before 4 years ago I made my firs sale ship - it was dissaster Now I sarted a new project: Heller's Soleil Royal in 1/100 scale. I will made a lot of modificatiins on this ship - woodne decks for example, and I try to show here the hole proces of building. Se let's start: First for trainig I made some of main decks: It's not so good, I will remade them again later The armament:
  24. I've finally found the time to reconstruct my build log after the great crash of 2013 Some of the pictures are lost so the log does not start at the beginning. This is my first serious foray into ship modeling. I say first serious attempt because 30+ years ago I built a Revell USS Constitution. But I was still in High School and not very concerned with accuracy or craftsmanship. I just wanted to finish the kit and display it. This kit of Soleil Royal was given to me as a gift way back then and I am just getting around to continuing building it. I am very much looking forward to a build that I can be proud of. Even though I know that my skills are not up to par with some of you I am trying to incorporate as much research and accuracy as I can muster in a plastic kit. Here are some of the pictures of what has been done. I'll try to summarize what I've done so far to catch everyone up. I decided to display the ship with all gunports closed to starboard and opened on the port side. Eventually I plan on setting just the fighting sails (topsails, mizzen, and perhaps the spritsail topsail) with the courses clewed up. I did not like the look of the eyebolts supplied with the kit so I replaced them with brass. The holes for them were drilled and the eyebolts pass completely through the upper wale. The ends will be trimmed and bent over to lay alongside the inner bulkhead. The ends will lay inside the gap between the hull and the upper bulwarks, in an area that needs to be filled anyway. Doing the eyebolts this way should also prevent any pullout cause by strain from rigging. I am leaving the lower hull unpainted for now until a proper cradle/base is finished. I don't want to ruin the paint job. It will be painted a dirty white to represent white stuff. I also drilled a hole through the bottom of the keel, roughly amidships, and fastened a threaded nut inside the hull over it prior to fitting the decks. This will take a bolt from the base to fasten the model down to it. I don't know how other people secure their models to the display bases so I just improvised with what I had on hand. The head grating in the bow has been noted by others to be a problem with this kit. It has no supporting structure to it and seems to be just floating there. I do not know how this would have looked with respect to ornamentations and design, so I have not decided what to do with this area yet. [/size] The decks went in easily. The kit has a series of stanchions along the centerline of the first battery deck to support the 2nd battery deck. There are none for between the 2nd and 3rd battery. As a result there is a lot of flex in the 3rd battery deck. Since there will be quite a bit of rigging fastened here that will produce an upward strain on the deck I added some extra support. I trimmed some sprue to length to make stanchions for the centerline to hold the deck up. And I added a boot (coat?) to the base of the mainmast to hold the deck down. The mast coat was fashioned from sheet styrene and quarter round molding. The masts are dry fit at this point. I do not think I will cement them to the step. I'm going to let the rigging hold them in. I added some shims beneath the hatch gratings to raise the gratings above the deck level to give the appearance of a coaming. All of the eyebolts for the decks were replaced with brass. .
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