Hubac's Historian

This looks incredible, Doris!

Big score on Pinterest, this morning! I had never seen this before today, although I recognized the vessel right away: This is the Foudroyant of 1723, as painted by the Austrian genre painter August Mayer in 1834, and which is definitively based on the original ornamental sketch by Antoine Francoise Vasse. The overall sense of the composition is quite faithful to the original. It is interesting to me that this painting was done at the same time as Admiral Paris's stewardship of the Musee de la Marine, and Tanneron's work, there, as a model maker. This is just further evidence of a resurgence of interest in the ships of the Second Marine, and a sincere effort of these men to preserve what was known about them. It is interesting to me that the QGs of this Foudroyant (above, left) are quite similar to those employed on what I believe to be SR2 (below, right), which was initially intended to be the Foudroyant of 1693, but was renamed and re-decorated as SR2 What I really love about this Mayer painting, though, are the colors. Although this ship is 34 years after the re-fit of SR1, the ornamental style, by Vasse, captures the best characteristics of Berain and Puget's influence. And it is this use of red on the stern counter, and Ultra Marine blue on the tafferal that I intend to use on my version of the ship. Also interesting to note that what I had previously thought might be a scrolling banner, on the lower transom of SR, as depicted by Ludolf Bakhuizen in his Battle of Barfleur, must simply be the rudder chains that you see here, on Foudroyant. That likelihood, notwithstanding, I probably will still do an ornamental banner, below the chase ports, with "Nec Pluribus Impar" inscribed; not unequal to the illumination of many (suns).

Great work, as always, Doris! I’m really excited to see your method for framing out the Quarter Galleries.

Thank you very much, Marc! How goes it with your Royal Balsa - have you had much shop time, lately? I am eager to see an update.

Really impressive scratch build!

Welcome aboard Kevin, and thank you for taking an interest in what I am doing - albeit verrrry slooowly. Why bother with popcorn when scotch is more fortifying Will you be bringing some of that?

Here is the lower port enhancement carved to shape, with the un-carved upper enhancement for comparison: Carving styrene is interesting. I was a little apprehensive because the black styrene of the kit is comparitively hard and difficult to scrape and work. This white stuff cuts easily. There’s so little material to remove, and yet it takes just as long as it does to carve wood - I think because there is so little margin for error, so consequently, every cut is measured very deliberately. But this one was comparitively small, so the upper carving should be easier. The volutes of the scrolls aren’t carved so much as suggested.

This is just going to be a great one to watch develop. Crispy clean work!

It has been some time since my last visit to the Vasa Museum. I was there back in 2003, and even if I weren’t obsessive about wooden ships of the period - I would still have walked away thinking that was the best museum I have ever been to. They really manage to bring the ship to life. I hope to bring my kids there, someday, as there is really nothing else quite like it. As remarkable a salvage as the Mary Rose is, obviously, the completeness of Vasa puts her in a class all her own. I wonder if King Gustavus is out there somewhere in the cosmos, laughing about the tragic loss of the ship; his loss is posterity’s gain.

I feel you, man - project fatigue sometimes draws the line for you. I like the idea of the additional figures, if the spacing works out. Whichever way you go, though, you have certainly crafted a first-class model that you will always be justifiably proud of. And thank you, of course, for your kind words. I'm not really a historian - I just like to study pictures for a ridiculously long time . Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed following along on your build. It was immensely informative, and I learned a lot.

Here is a little more food for thought. These are all Danish ships, about 20 years later than the Vasa, but built in the Baltic and beneficiaries - I would definitely say - of the cross-pollination of European shipyards; witness the deliberate similarities between the incredibly impressive Sophia Amalia and the Royal Sovereign. If anything, what these drafts might confirm is the relative size of the stern lanterns, a degree of mimicry of the lantern/quarter gallery finial (Tre Lover, in particular), and the ornamental inclusion of caryatid figures between the lantern lights. The Tre Lover The Hannibal The Sophia Amalia The Fredericus Tertius Mr. Hocker notes that nothing of the lantern has been salvaged, but I have to wonder whether the lantern might have been a symbolic early retrieval by the salvage crew who initially retrieved most of her guns. In any case, it seems appropriate to me that Vasa’s lantern would be highly ornamental like the rest of the stern. I appreciate that you can take a little constructive criticism in stride. I only want the best for you and your model, which is such a shining example of what can be done to make a good kit great.

You are welcome, Vince! I have a number of really excellent books in my collection, but this one is my most treasured because of the variety and clarity of the VDV images, and also because the historical context of each ship is wonderfully explained. I like that you are doing a progression of Prince and Royal William. There is no shortage of really great examples of both, right here on MSW.

Thanks, EJ. You are definitely right that form always follows function on a sailing ship, and on this sailing ship which is so encrusted with ornamentation it is a distinct possibility that similar accomodations were made in full practice. Clearly, though, if you are designing the build from scratch you have complete discretion as to the way those additions and subtractions take shape.

In the meantime, here’s a link to a photo essay of the model: http://www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/e328/e443/e15552/e15556/media_photoView?i=img14

Please forgive me for saying so, but I encourage you to either make your own lantern from scratch, or to source a better one. This lantern you are showing is not up to the high standards of your build. I think that it will look out of place on the model and will be distracting. Later, when I get to my home computer, I will post an image from a really excellent scratch build if the Vasa, which shows a nice example if a lantern that would be appropriate.

Work on the upper bulwarks continues. I’ve re-inforced the stern extension pieces: I have trimmed the chesstree pieces and mounted, but not drilled them: Following all of that, it was time to turn my attention to one of the more fun aspects of this build, which is to create upper and lower port enhancement carvings for the main deck guns. This is a bit of a squirrely task, as the top sheer of the ports is not perfectly consistent in relation to the attenuated fronds of the acanthus escutcheon carvings. Ultimately, my objective here is for the downward pointing tips of the acanthus fronds to be cupped by the upward sweep of the top port enhancement scrolls. My idea is to make one upper and lower master, carved from white styrene, that I will then experiment with making simple castings - first in earthen clay medium with a release agent, if necessary - or then, in a conventional latex mold. The first option, if it produces clean, mouldable impressions in the clay, allows me to cast the whole lot in one go. The second method necessitates making incrementally larger latex moulds to cast more and more pieces. This experiment in methods is well worth it, when I consider the sheer number of fleur-de-lis (in several different sizes) that I will need for the frieze and gunport lids, not to mention shells and small leafy scrolls of the ornamental frieze. My digital drawing is still a cumbersome puzzle that I obviously made some mistakes in my initial set-up of the workspace because the default tracing is about 1/5 the size of what it needs to be. I’ve fiddled around with that a bit, but I still haven’t quite figured out how to make the drawing printable. So, for the time being, it was back to pencil and vellum. it turned out to be very handy that I still had a spare port frame that I could then trace and draw in the ornamentals around it. My initial drawing of the domed port, it turns out, is significantly more exaggerated than reality: Once I had a shape I was reasonably happy with, I glued the vellum (with craft glue sticks) to styrene blanks, and then scribed through the lines with an Exacto #11. Following that, I cleared the waste paper and scribbled across the scribe lines with soft pencil and then erased away the surface graphite: What you are looking at is the lower port enhancement. Next, I used the Dremel to waste away, reasonably close to my lines, while leaving myself a handle with which to manipulate the piece: Then I used a series of needle files and fine blades to fair to the lines and get into all the tricky corners: This looked like a good shape until I held it in several locations along the upper main wale, when I realized that the aft sheer of the wale is such that the ports dip into the wale, leaving not enough space for this ornament to reasonably sit: And, so, I decided to shorten the two spurs and flatten the outward extending scrolls a bit: This seemed like a reasonable accommodation that still resulted in a nicely shaped ornament. Next, I repeated the process for the upper port enhancement: Here is what I thought, at first, to be two very complementary port enhancements around the spare frame: But, then, I began to try the upper enhancement in different locations along the upper bulwarks. And there were problems: The positioning, here, is mid-ships where the available space for the top port enhancement is most narrow. I expect, in a few places here, to let the pointed center of the ornament into the sheer strake moulding directly above it. This isn’t ideal, but a compromise I can live with as there are only 3 or 4 instances per side. It is apparent to me in this picture, though, that the top port scrolls extend outward too far, and negatively cross over too many and too much of the acanthus frond tips. So, I shortened the scrolls and thinned them: Having done this, the upper enhancement now nestled neatly along most locations of the upper bulwarks. In only a few instances will it be necessary for me to tweak either the acanthus fronds or the port scrolls. This is good, and workable. I then realized that the scrolls of the lower enhancement seemed too heavy, in relation to those of the top, so I reduced their thickness: Reasonably satisfied with all of this, I tried the combo in a number of different locations: I can see now that the proportions of these ornaments will work as originally intended. Next, I will sculpt their surfaces a bit before mounting them on sticks to make casting impressions in the clay. When it comes time to finally mount these ornaments, there will be several instances where other added details interfere, such as the skids and the newly added chesstrees. Although it is not ideal, I will prioritize these instances into a game of ornamental rock/scissors/paper, where the dominant ornament wins and remains fully intact. For example, chesstree is paper; upper port enhancement, which abuts chesstree, is rock; paper covers rock, so the port enhancement will be coped to the chesstree. This is, once again, the difficulty of reverse-engineering a kit to fit a very different vision of the ship, but on the whole, I think the addition of these details enhances the impression of the model far more than these small compromises detract or distract. There are ears that drop down from the upper port enhancement, and surround the upper sides of the port, but I will add these separately from strip styrene. Placing them so that they don’t interfere with the gun carriage tackle bolts is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, so they will have to be dealt with individually. In my next update, I will have carved port enhancements and the results of my first casting experiments. Thank you all, once again, for looking in, your likes, and your thoughts!

Beautifully done, Michel! What is your plan for the seats of ease at the head? It has always seemed to me that the roundhouses on the Tanneron model really belong in the 18th century, and not the latter 17th C. Has your research pointed you in any definitive direction? Would the arrangement of Frolich's L'Ambiteaux be more appropriate, for example?

Well done!

I am sure you are frustrated by that, Mark. In the grand scheme of things, though, these small differences won’t matter.

My operating theory is that gold would have been used sparingly, but for important details like the ship’s name - yes, gold. The bulk of the rest would have been yellow ochre.

Sorry for muddling things, Drazen. When I memtioned a banner “below the chase guns” I am referring to a banner I am considering adding to my own model of Soleil Royal. This would be a bit of fictitious license, on my part, but it would allow me to incorporate Louis XIV’s slogan “nec pluribus impar” into the build. Anyway, that is where this conversation about a following sea and carved ornament originate. On the Provincien, there is no debate that this detail is above the chase guns. Sorry for not being more clear.

Hi Drazen, I don’t think that either approach would be wrong, however, specifically as it relates to the Provincien, the VDV shadow lines do seem to suggest a full relief carving. One argument against a relief, that I have encountered on my build, was that if one were to place this sort of banner relief too low on the transom (below the four chase guns, in my example), then the carving might be vulnerable to being sweapt away by a strong following sea. The validity of that line of reasoning is debatable, however, the position of the Provincien’s banner is up high enough where following seas would not be any more an issue than for any of the other stern carvings. I think a relief carving is the correct approach here.

I second what Russ just said. Your joinery is impeccable, Mark!

Feel better, EJ! The balconies are coming along nicely. Your attention to detail is really paying off.

I think it must! This reminds me of a very special car that is often parked just outside an auto-repair shop in my neighborhood. It’s a Dodge Challenger, of recent vintage, with custom wide racing stripes running across the hood, roof and trunk. The tinted back window has the following emblazoned in big white letters: STAY HUMBLE. Sage advice, for sure. Sometimes, in life, I find it useful to remember the humble hemi, as I make my way through the day.