Hubac's Historian

Wow - do you happen to have other detailed close-ups of that Sophia Amalia model, Michael?

Before figure modifications:

and after:

Beautiful railings, Siggi.  You have probably said so, somewhere earlier in the log, but I am wondering whether you plan to do a full masting and rig job.

Thank you, David.  Yes, I was delighted at the difference - much more than I was hoping for.

I’ve been debating, for a little while, whether I can improve the scale of the Europe and Asia figures to better complement the shortened height of the stern.  After the initial round of fitting and back-fill, the figures look like this:

The problem I’m having with this is that these figures were designed to sit atop a taller backboard, and now the horse and camel necks seem a bit too long to me.

Fortunately, I have a number of spare parts with which I can experiment.  I had an idea that if you cut the animal heads at the right angle, the kerf loss and clean-up would reduce their head height just enough, and the rejoin could be easily faired.  I also, while I’m at it, wanted to see whether I could decapitate the continental figures, themselves, in order to correct the angle of their gaze; they should not be staring out blandly at Soleil Royal’s wake, but instead be lovingly focused on the carving of Apollo, below:

And, so, I put on my surgical gloves and got to work:

The horsehead is rejoined

And after filing an angle into her neck insert, so that her chin drops:

The differences are subtle, but the modifications are not difficult to make.  Now that I’ve seen that it can work, it doesn’t seem so risky to modify the figures that I’ve already invested a ton of work into.

I’m still cobbling together the head grating, in the evening.  That is all looking very promising.

More from Duarte:

Here is what one friend on another forum is doing with his sprit top.  He scrapped all the Heller sprit-mast parts, preferring to make them all from scratch.  Here is Duarte’s solution:

I will copy this approach, myself.

That’s a nice detail on the anchor stocks, to make them appear as two halves.  I’ll have to remember that when the time comes.

The oars look great, Ian - wonderfully uniform.

Thank you, Michael.  If by castings, you are referring to the large continental figures, then those are actually just the stock kit parts that I have modified.  All of the blue ornaments were simply extracted from a spare stern plate.

Time well spent:

There is some sense of foreground and background.  The proportion of the carving, relative to the area of the back board, closely copies the Berain drawing.  I am happy.

It is fascinating to me how different this is from the stock kit.

Thanks for looking-in!  More to follow..

I believe the mizzen mast locates in a square hole on the lowest battery deck.  It can only go so far.  If the square pin locates properly, you shouldn’t be able to rotate the mast after it is seated.  If you didn’t true-up that square locating hole before closing up the deck, that may be a slight problem.  Either way, the mast can only go so far.

It's only a dry-fit, so no harm, but be mindful that your fore, main and mizzen mast sections will need to rotate 180 degrees for the final glue-in.

On 6/19/2023 at 6:05 PM, popeye2sea said:

My plan is to cut the mast sections flush with the caps. Then drill and re-use the caps, making my new top gallant masts from wood. I will also be making the top gallant cross trees that are very flimsy plastic.

 

Regards,

Henry

Sorry for the late reply.  I am also basically doing the same as Henry, here.  I will replace the topmast tops as well, as their scale and design is not really appropriate for the time period.  As for the cheeks that support the trestletrees, what Heller has moulded on the topmast and t'gallant sections is this weird conical thing.  I will make cheeks that are appropriate.

I will comment more in-full, Bill.  I just haven’t had a chance yet

I haven’t quite decided yet, Bill.  I have made my new channels so that the shrouds won’t interfere with the guns above.  Because I lowered the channels on the hull, I could not simply copy the layout of the kit channels.  I haven’t yet figured out whether I want the chain plates to extend down to the middle band of wales.  Doing so would certainly make them easier to fashion.  I recently bought some brass 24 gauge wire, so I will begin experimenting soon.

An interesting particularity of French practice:  on the Frolich model, you can see that the preventer plate spans two wales.  The French fill the space between wales, flush to the surface of the wales, and for the length of the channel above.

A Dutch ship of the mid 1660s:

The Frolich model of L’Ambiteaux, 1680, which was produced from the Boudriot monograph:

I think these are reliable guides for period practice on the Continent.

From 1670, onward in France, chains are appropriate.

Unfortunately, FWW doesn’t project much of a market for art nouveau, and so they tend to stick to the tried and true favorites; Mission, Arts and Crafts, Scandinavian Minimalism, etc.

My member page is on the FWW website, though.  

Don’t be too impressed, Ian.  That’s just a member page that I created.  None of my stuff was selected, as such.

Bill, you have certainly filled your home with some beautiful pieces!

Thank you very much, Bill!  Actually, my background is in woodworking, and I’ve designed a number of projects with varying degrees of carved work:

https://www.finewoodworking.com/tag/marc-laguardia

As was the case with the amortisement, it takes a good deal of fettling to get all of these elements to nestle together nicely, the way they were drawn.

I now have the clouds positioned and Apollo’s head centered on the cornice archway:

As you can see, there’s still profiling to do on the port side of the chariot.  I think this last element of the carving should be fun to model.

The horses will take some effort to get them to where they need to be:

It’s really such a small area, but I can begin to now see where the fade line should be between the Cerulean sky and the Ultra Marine heavens.  My idea may not work out the way I hope, but I will try to create this soft transition with multiple dilute applications of the Ultra Marine.

Little by little..

As you should be, Michael.  Just outstanding!

Superb planking job, Patrick!  It is really fascinating to me that the tiller is so short on this ship.  I am assuming there is still a whipstaff connection to the tiller, in this early time of large warship construction.