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Hubac's Historian

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  1. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you, Bill. You are correct that the Tanneron model is of the second SR, ex Foudroyant. The issue you raise about the sheer of the lower wales, particularly at the bow (where they rise too sharply) is one that I do not feel is worth the effort to correct on the Heller kit. In a full scratch build, of course, one would be free to correctly lay out the gun decks, the port openings and the position of the wales, relative to the waterline - as have NekO and Michel. With this sort of thing, though, one does have to draw the line somewhere. I appreciate that you are enjoying the build, Bill .
  2. Hubac's Historian
    Well said, Vic! Thanks for that.
  3. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you Michel. I appreciate where you are coming from, however, I have discussed at length why I am doing what I am doing with this kit, so I won't continue to justify it. Follow along, if you like, or not. It is, of course, optional.
  4. Hubac's Historian
    You can start sending me stuff, anytime Cedric. It's good, actually, if it comes in smaller blocks of text that I can work on between breaks at work.
  5. Hubac's Historian
    Earlier this week, I received a box of spare parts from Henry (Popeye2sea) from an earlier attempt to model the ship. Despite his excellent paint work, Henry found that he couldn't overcome the badly warped section of the port bow. So, he eventually started from scratch with a new kit and is in the midst of an excellent and highly detailed build-log, of which a number of you are already familiar. Henry sent me more parts than these, but these are the primary components with which I will perform some of the more substantive modifications of my build. Henry quartered the hull for the sake of easier shipping, which is fine with me because I only really need small sections of the lower hull, at the bow and stern, in order to broaden and extend my hull. O Above, you can see the extreme warping of the port bow. The boxed model must have come in contact with intense, direct heat at some point before Henry bought it. The upper bulwark pieces will provide me with all of the arched main deck port openings that I need, in order to straighten the run of these ports on my model, as well as the 3/8" extension I need at the stern. The stern plate enables me to broaden the stern and include the missing sixth stern window of the Berain design, without having to build all of the window opennings from scratch, or cast extras from my existing stern plate. Likewise, the beakhead bulkhead should enable me to broaden the bow. And the tafferal figures of Europe and Asia may be useful for lengthening the ones I have so that I don't have to model these figures from scratch. All in all, these parts represent an enormous time savings and I am extremely grateful to Henry for making this happen!
  6. Hubac's Historian
    Tremendous progress, Vic. The masting and rig look spectacular. I can't wait to see her on the water!
  7. Hubac's Historian
    Thanks, MD! Well, this sounds like essential reading for anyone that wants to more fully understand these ships for the machinery they were. I have one Hocker book on the Vasa - a bit more of a general overview of all the topics he expounds upon in these two volumes. Maybe one day, when I'm feeling a little wealthy, I'll invest in volume I. It is heartening that the people at the Vasa museum have done so much to try and understand the full import of the Vasa as an archeological find.
  8. Hubac's Historian
    I am quietly enjoying this excellent build-log, and I am hoping that you guys can enlighten me on something that I've seen mentioned a few times here: What is, or what will be Vasa II? A new kit? A full-size replica project with appropriate draft and beam, in order to actually sail? Whatever it is, it sounds interesting.
  9. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you, Cedric! So far, I'm only two thirds of the way through one hull half, and that doesn't include the upper bulwarks. I could project the math and figure out, roughly, how many holes there are a side, however, I don't have the thing in front of me, right now. My guestimate would be somewhere in-between 2,000-2,500 per hull half. The upper bulwarks will add considerably to that. Maybe somewhere in the range of 8,000 holes when all is said and done. It's okay, time is still on my side. Either today or tomorrow, the spare parts that Henry (Popeye2Sea) has so generously donated to my experimental hull expansion project - "Le Franken-Royal" - should arrive. The hull parts he is sending me were too badly warped to make a model from, but the small bits I need for the bow and stern should be perfectly useable. I'll use what's left to work up paint samples. I really want to see what impact different primer colors (flat black, primer grey, flat white) have on this color Ventre de Biche. When are you sending me updates, Cedric?
  10. Hubac's Historian
    I was kind of hoping you would disappoint me - even just a little bit - so I could feel a little better about my relative talents and abilities 😉. You know - maybe, a slightly open seam, or worse - the use of off-color putty as filler, or maybe an errant fastenner or two. Maybe a weird dip or bump in the hull. But nothing. Nope. Nada. Zip! Just a seamless work of utterly awesome perfection 👏👏!! Marc, I can see a little better the arc of your sheerline, in these pictures, and I think that it looks really very good. Maybe it could drop a liiiiiittle more, but it is not as straight seeming as I thought before. It's just a problem of perspective, where none of these pictures focuses on the rise of the sheer, so it is difficult to perceive. One little bit of fun, is to use the screen margin of my phone, to scroll down (on several pics) so that the ship appears to sit on her waterline. The figure she cuts in this view is absolutely a convincing portrait of a 17th Century first-rate ship. Even without all of the ornamental embellishments, one can see where this is headed. And that is not to minimize the form of the lively works, which display perfect symetry and a sense of draft befitting of such a heavily armed ship. BRAVO, Marc!!
  11. Hubac's Historian
    Well, I might have to give that a try. The Testers liquid cement doesn't bother me much, but I do ventilate pretty aggressively. Would be good to have a backup option.
  12. Hubac's Historian
    I appreciate your "MythBusters" experimental mentality. I'll be looking for your empiracle update.
  13. Hubac's Historian
    Interesting tip on anaerobic glues, Testazyk. Are they onle effective on metal/wood, or good for plastics, as well?
  14. Hubac's Historian
    You have to be careful with those CA glues. In my twenties and thirties, none of that stuff bothered me. We were using massive amounts of West System epoxy, and washing it off our skin with lacquer thinner. Stupid. Now I find I am sensitive to funes from curing epoxy. Same with CA glue. I used to use it a lot, but now I find that I can't tolerate the fumes. Make sure you ventilate. And if you are using a lot of that stuff, go get yourself an organic vapor respirator. All that being said - the ship really looks beautiful EJ. Great work! Sorry about the soapbox. I just wish I had taken that stuff more seriously when I was younger.
  15. Hubac's Historian
    I have been busily mapping out and drilling nail impressions in the deadworks. I haven't put a caliper to the bit I'm using, but suffice it to say that it is near impossibly small. There was some trial and error to arrive at a bit that left a plausible impression, and that didn't overheat and clog with melted plastic too quickly. I still have to stop the Dremel and clear the bit every 15 holes, or so, but that's much better than the 5-8 range. As a quide to my spacing, I am using the exposed timber heads of the caprail. This works out to about 5/16", on center for the most part, but there are several instances where I'll have to run a row or two at 1/4" spacing, in order to maintain overall consistency. In the waist, and for about six ports aft of the waist ladder, the nailing pattern runs perpendicular to the waterline. With the hull half sitting on the table, I simply use a try square to align my blue painter's tape guide for keeping my lines nice and straight. As the sheer rises, further aft, it has become necessary to skew my tape guides ever so slightly, by eye, so that my nailing pattern doesn't run too far askew of the gunport framing, with which it should remain parallel. After much deliberation, I have decided to mimic the alternating nailing pattern that Dan Pariser used for his very thoroughly researched and excellent Queen Anne's Revenge. I have known Dan for a long time now, and there is nothing he does without considerable thought and research. Here are a few pics of my progress, so far. They are hard to make out in the black plastic, and after priming and painting they should just barely show as faint impressions.
  16. Hubac's Historian
    I'm curious as to whether you are using some form of epoxy as your adhesive; West System, maybe?
  17. Hubac's Historian
    Wow! This is right up my alley. I'm in! Beautiful hull form, exceptional woodwork, and hands-down the best photographed build-log I have seen so far. I'm really looking forward to watching this one take shape. Great work, so far.
  18. Hubac's Historian
    Excellent work, Gaetan, in straightening her out! She's a lovely ship rounding into form. I'm really enjoying your informative build.
  19. Hubac's Historian
    Thanks Daniel! As far as Soleil is concerned, the shame of it is that they do an incredible job of copying the ornamental details from one of the existing original cannons, but as I say, they do not capture the appropriate sense of girth that is so evident in every Van de Velde portrait ever drawn. For carriage and rig updates to the guns, I am looking very closely at Popeye2Sea's excellent build log. His carriages look amazing. I'll have to look at those links for photo etch; thank you for the info.
  20. Hubac's Historian
    Hi Daniel, One question about the guns:. The scale of the barrels looks really good. While I have this kit, it's siting in a basement in PA and I can't readily look at it. Are these the stock cannons, or did you make/buy something closer to scale? One of my issues with Heller's Soleil Royal is that the muzzle/barrel width, and bore diameter are too narrow and spindly looking. I will have to do something about this, and am searching for a way to perhaps recycle the kit's stock barrels by, perhaps, dipping them several times in some sort of resin, in order to increase their breadth. I could then drill out the appropriate bore diameters. I am wondering your thoughts on this subject. thanks, Marc
  21. Hubac's Historian
    Okay Daniel, I'm only on page 3 of your build log - and I'm going to stop hitting the like button, so that you are inot completely innundated with notifications, but... I am completely BLOWN AWAY by your attention to detail and your willingness to re-work the smallest details until they are RIGHT. My German half is crying meticulous tears of joy! Gonna keep reading
  22. Hubac's Historian
    Well, that is just about the only case of "herpes" I would welcome in my life ; pretty to look at, and no painful rash! Well done, Michel!
  23. Hubac's Historian
    I hopscotched through another member's (who had visited my build) history log and found your highly intriguing build of the Heller Victory. I so like the excellent modifications and scratch-work on this main top, that I'm going to go back and read through your whole log. It seems that much of what you are doing might be really helpful to me, even if we are building in different centuries. So nice to see such excellent, clean work. I'm looking forward to catching up!
  24. Hubac's Historian
    Thank you very much, Cedric! I believe it is now possible to see the hidden potential in the Heller kit, in order to make it a better model than it already is. So I will keep plugging away. I'm very excited to see your progress, Cedric!
  25. Hubac's Historian
    Tonight, I finished up the gun carriage tackle through-bolts. The following series of pictures attempt to show the impact of adding this detail. Only the second picture manages to capture the bolt within the washer, such are their size. I'm not sure whether it is a correct detail, but I also decided to bolt the edges of the anchor lining. Although, I now realize that the linings would have simply been a double thickness plank trimmed to the shape of the lining, I decided to bolt the "edges" anyway. Next, I will experiment with some sort of shallow nailing pattern for the rest of the planking. I think if I chuck the tiniest drill bit I own into a pin vise, and simply make a few turns into the plastic, such that the bit's point just makes an impression, that that might be enough to show some kind of fastening pattern. The linings will be "nailed" between edge bolts. P.S. I'm not sure why the above text is underline formatted, because I did not do that deliberately, and underline in the toolbar is not highlighted, when you select text in that block. I can't seem to correct it, so there it is. If you look closely, you'll see that I even placed carriage tackle bolts on the skids that frame the ladder, because the skid frames took up all available space, immediately next to the affected ports. I'm not sure whether that is a correct detail, either, but it seemed like the sort of accommodation a builder would make under the circumstances. I'm approaching the end of my lower hull modifications. Those are a lot of tiny bits of plastic! After the "nailing," I'll do the bow and stern extensions, re-locate the hawse-holes, and then I will probably focus on making the alterations and additions to the upper bulwarks. After that, I will have to figure out my drawing problem.

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