EJ_L

A very beautiful build indeed! A ship to display with pride.

Standing rigging for Soleil Royal is complete. Now to add the running rigging, yards and sails.

Completed the standing rigging this past week and the masts are now topped out at full height. With that work complete I have moved on to working the yards and sails. Made templates for all of the sails on graph paper to test for size and fit. Now I will transfer them to cloth and begin sewing. I am also going to add the details to the yards themselves as well as blocks and such to prepare them for the sails. I am leaning towards a combination of set and furled sails but we will see.

Thanks Tom and thank you to all those who have hit the like button. Honestly, I do a lot of eye balling alignment on the masts. Any side-to-side lean can be easily seen by viewing the masts in line from forward to aft and vice versa, for more exacting, I will use a straight edge and make sure that it touches all three masts as it passes them. A simple square will usually take care of ensuring plumb as well. In looking at alignment of the masts fore and aft (viewed from the side) this gets trickier. Most ships have a rake to their mast of 1-5 degrees (the masts leaned aft so that when the sails were full, they would not pull the masts past 90 degrees vertical). This adds a challenge as a simple square is no longer usable. I will typically fashion a miter gauge out of card stock that is cut to the degree I want my masts set at. I make them for each ship and each mast so that they will fit the build. With deck furniture, gratings etc. it can be hard to get a normal tool in place or to get a true reading off the deck. I will cut the card to fit around and over any deck items and once I have a flush fit, I can draw the angle I want the mast to slope at and cut the card to alignment. After using this to set the lower mast, the upper masts can be aligned using a straight edge. I recommend doing as much of this as possible early on before too much of the deck furniture is in place. Use alignment marks on the deck and masts to help make repositioning easier. To me, the harder part comes in when adding the rigging lines as they can pull masts out of alignment as tension is applied. Work them as evenly as possible, forward and aft, port and starboard and always monitor the opposite side of the one you are working on. I've had to redo plenty of shrouds when I spin the model around and see a mast pulled far to one side.

A lot of work for this update. All of the topmast shrouds are complete with ratlines strung and backstays set. Next up up will be work on the topmast caps and then setting the topgallant masts as well as topping out the mizzen with its flagstaff.

Wow... I'm at a loss for words...

That motto banner is incredible! I like what you are planning on doing with the rudder head as well. Some great details to start off the stern decorations.

I think I will echo what Druxey and Mark have said in that I don't think you are posting too much. If they were not subject related postings I could understand, but the researched information and detailed experimentation's along with detail construction notes is making this one of the most informative build logs on the site for people creating any vessel of this era or just for good tips on build practices. I say keep it up!

Sorry for the delay in responding and updates, I’ve kept meaning to get on here and then would get distracted. Thank you all for the likes and comments. As always, they are welcome and encouraging. As for her size, she is approximately 42 inches long, and when topped out she will be 36 and inches tall with a width at the longest yard of 18 inches. This truly is a massive model that I have yet to decide where her final berth will be... A problem I will hopefully have to tackle in 2020. This update brings topmast work. Fore stays are in place on fore main and mizzen with shrouds done on fore and main, mizzen shrouds underway and ratlines to follow.

I feel your pain as I have a bad case of Ulcerative Colitis that I go through severe flare ups with. I hope it gets back under control and you home soon and that that home remains safe.

As always, thank you all for the likes, comments and following along. This past week was another big milestone in the build. Not only did I finish the lower mast rigging, the build itself rolled over 3 years and 1,900 hours! This has been a long journey and I know some of you have been with me on it since the beginning. I still have a lot to do, but the end is drawing ever closer. Baring some unforeseen interruption, I'm thinking I might just get her finished in 2020. Well, the weather mostly held, bit windier than I would have liked but sunny and beautiful otherwise, so I was able to get some outside pictures of her. Enjoy! Time for me to get back to making topmast stays.

Good to have you back and that you are healing up. I hope your hand use continues to improve so you can get back to all the things you love to do.

A neutral color wood filler or even drywall mud compound will work if you are going to stain the hull. On fine joints, nearly any filler material will work as long as it is something designed to be painted or stained. The nice thing with wood fillers is that if you know the stain color you are going to use, you can usually find a filler that will match.

Thank you all for the kind words and all the likes. I’ve completed another stage with the installation of the mizzen mast, top, topmast, shrouds and ratlines. With that, all three mast now stand proud and I can work on the topmast rigging and prep for topgallants. Im hoping to get home from work early enough one evening this week to take some pictures of the entire model as she sits now in natural light. If I can’t get home in time then Saturday looks clear so far. Would like to see her in better lighting than my model room.

Main mast has shrouds, ratlines top and top mast in place. Time to work on the mizzen mast. Fortunately, it is smaller and hopefully will go a bit faster than the fore and main mast did.