Hubac's Historian

May I gently suggest, before the planking begins in earnest, that you take a little more time to fair the bulkheads. It is evident, on your first plank, that there is a not insignificant mid-ships dip. If you are double-planking, you could fill depressions after the base layer, but if you are only single-planking, these depressions will be very evident, if the under-framing has not been faired.

Wow - SHJ, this is a fascinating observation and one that I hadn’t picked up on before. There is no representation of a tiny t’gallant top and corresponding doubling with the flagstaff. I’m not sure what to make of that, other than - WOW! Good eye!

As I prepare for our special dinner at Lasserre, a thought occurred to me in the shower: There is a strong possibility that I will never find the “Gilded Ghost” portrait, and even should I be so fortunate - I will still be making broad leaps of inductive reasoning and artistic license. My mother, as long as she lived, always called my daughter her “Shining Star,” and Mairead certainly is every part of that. I try to remain mindful and sensitive to the true historians and arsenal modelers of the world, and that is why I think I may rename my conjectural SR 1670 project: “L’Etoille Brillant, a Conjectural Construction of a French First-Rate, Circa 1670”. This would be in honor of both my mother and daughter and in keeping with a time-honored tradition of naming beautiful ships after beautiful women. The name would also be a loose reference to it’s inspiration, Le Soleil Royal - the most brilliant star we can understand on this earth. It’s just a thought, but I think there is some sense in that.

My visit to the INHA, National Library of France was interesting, if not as directly productive as I had hoped. One thing that I was able to request and look at in the fantastic oval reading room was Le Chevalier de Tourville, the Boudriot monograph of the proposed 1680 First-Rate L’Ambiteaux. It is an impressively documented project and a beautifully hand-drawn monograph. The plans, in 1:48, give a strong impression of just how large a model one can produce from this set. Even at 1:72, one needs a slipway to launch such a behemoth. There were a few new plates of interest in the monograph that I hadn’t seen before: Belle Viue is the same Brest sculptor and draftsman responsible for the following drawing of the highly fascinating Souverain of 1678: As an added bonus, the following is the best and clearest image I have yet seen of the RL of 1692: While I was really only skimming the monograph, in the interest of limited time (I had a 3 hour window that I stretched to 4), I will say that I was fascinated by Boudriot’s skepticism of the VdV drawings of La Reyne, with specific regard to the sheer and placement of the artillery. Perhaps this is my personal failing in that I imbue the work of the VdV’s with a degree of photo-realism only paralleled by Puget for these times. All I can say for sure is that I am no expert. My primary objective for this visit was to see whether there were any catalogued references to the “Gilded Ghost” portrait: Unfortunately, an image search produced no direct result. Upon walking amongst the stacks, I realized that I happened to be in a room divided between artists both pre and post 1845. And so, I did what I usually do when I visit the STRAND bookstore in NYC; I went in search of my coterie of famous French artists, sculptors and Dutch Master marine artists. And so, I skimmed through the six books in the stacks for Charles LeBrun, the four for Antoine Coysevox, the six for Puget. There was nothing in the stacks for Van Beecq. Regrettably, I did not think to look for Francois Girardon. Only the works on Puget made any specific pictorial reference to his work at the arsenal at Toulon; not much there that I hadn’t seen before. But, then I found the three volume Robinson set on the Van de Veldes. Again, if I had more time, I could probably have pulled more, but following are a number of fascinating portraits that help clarify things I couldn’t see clearly before. For example, this whisper of a portrait: Appears to have very much in-common with this portrait: They do not appear to be the same vessel, but perhaps the same type of Second-Rate - that of the “interrupted” third deck (an un-armed and open waist). Other corollaries: I have never seen the following two before: The boutielle, below seems out of proportion, but it is nonetheless fascinating: Here is one of the early Holland-built ships of the 1660’s: Fantastic detail! A different perspective and fascinating study of La Royal Therese: And then, of course, there were quite a number of fascinating studies of famous English ships. SR’s early rival, the Royal Charles: The London: A particularly interesting re-fit of the Royal Sovereign: And, a perhaps conjectural ship: At least I can say there may be sound artistic precedent for pulling a ship out of thin air! All interesting to me, and so the journey through Paris and maritime history continues! Dad is having a great time, despite the expected travel exhaustion of his 88 years. More to follow, and thank you for looking-in.

So far, the trip has been a great success and our Dad has been very happy to visit so many familiar places. This morning, I am sitting in the grand oval reading room of the INHA, which is a part of the National Library of France. I am continuing my quest for the “Gilded Ghost” portrait. I’ve made a request to see the 2 volume set of Les Chevaliers de Tourville monograph, which I have never seen, in person, before. It’s a bit of a dreary day, so I’m not sure what the afternoon has in-store for us. Tonight is our fancy dinner at Lasserre!

Well done on the coils, Bill!

I agree that this is a reasonable work-around, Bill. The fact that you are even going to the trouble to rig the visible guns is a tremendous upgrade and you can’t fail to achieve a nice result. First day in Paris: Not at all surprisingly, Dad is completely jet-lagged and now taking a late-afternoon nap. He did much better on the flight than we expected, though, so that’s a huuuuge plus! If I manage to see any cool ship stuff, I’ll post those pics later. All the best, M

My impulse would be to use smaller blocks - 2mm. Or, perhaps, to even simulate the blocks with knots, a little gesso, and paint.

Thank you, Mark!

That’s an awesome model of a 74. I like the planking cut-away to the framing.

Awesome pics, Bill! The plastic to wood dilemma is one that I think about a lot. I’m building this particular model because I had a very particular idea about what to do with the kit, and my living situation - extremely limited space, often shared with high-school homework - precludes any real shop set-up. I hope, while I’ve still “got it” to set-up an actual shop space for wooden modeling. As far as I can figure, there are a few essentials: micro table-saw thickness sander/planer small bandsaw/fret-saw small combo disc/belt sander dust collection; portable or permanent Luxuries would include a mill (especially if you are doing full plank-on-frame models), and a spindle sander. That’s all a little gold off the nest-egg, but if it brings you joy, I know that Marie Kondo would endorse it 😀 To my mind, available space is the biggest blockade 🙃

This is an interesting point.

I’ve carved one figurehead in wood (walnut) for a walking stick, which is about twice the size of what you are making for Bellona. It was my first attempt at figure carving. The only advice I can offer you is to take your time and appreciate that the process is sort of analogous to onion peeling; a gradual definition and refining of shapes through layers and layers of relief, until you can get to the fine detail. I puttered around with this small carving for about six months and learned a ton in the process. The linen-fold brow (this was a copy of the Provincien’s lion) was especially confusing to me and I had to rout away my first botched attempt and end-grain-glue new wood; the repair is not so obviously visible, fortunately. When I saw Greg and David’s model of the Speedwell, I asked David about his figurehead with it’s perfectly proportioned and sculpted facial features. He said he always begins figure carvings with the face, and this sounded like pretty good advice to me. You are, in my estimation, doing the most fundamentally important aspect of any sort of carving, which is to establish natural looking proportions. Fantastic work, as always, Mark!

I really like your stylized plank ends, where you are making cutaways to show the deck framing. This looks deliberate and elegant, as opposed to un-finished.

Thank you guys for the well-wishes and kind words. Michael - up until what age did you live in Paris? This trip is a last hurrah for my father, who fell in love with the city while stationed there from 1957-‘59. At 88, there is not much remaining of my father’s mind and memories, but we are hopeful that the experience of being back there will re-awaken something inside him. C’est la vie.

I am less than a week away from our trip to Paris, and then the North East Joint Clubs Meeting is shortly around the corner, once I return. My objective, before the show, was to get the head fully together and re-touched, as well as the upper balcony level. Well, I’m not going to cross that threshold before April 29th. There were a number of competing priorities, throughout March, and I just couldn’t find the time I needed to make that happen. I say all of this in the event that even one of you had hoped to see the model in New London. I’ve decided not to bring it because these areas at the bow and stern will remain too un-finished looking for display. These also happen to be particularly challenging areas of the model to bring together. I am satisfied enough with the balcony bulwark parts that I made: Fitting the end pieces to the model required some tricky cutting-in to the outside window pilasters. You can see that the sill moulding for the window tier extends fully to the ship’s sides: The rebate has to accommodate both the end piece and the 1/16” caprail that I have yet to make: It’s a slow and winding business that necessitates painting in stages. One thing that was a little surprising to me is that the fore and aft depth of my middle and upper balconies is significantly more shallow than the stock kit: Thinking about my process, I realized that I had made a design decision, earlier, when I was figuring out the middle balcony; I realized there would be limits to the degree to which I could bend the posture of the Four Seasons figures, so that they could stretch from the now “false” lower balcony to support the projection of the middle balcony. By necessity, then, the middle balcony determined the depth of the upper balcony. Proportionally, I am not displeased by the more shallow depth. One failed experiment had to do with the bow angels that seat just behind the headrails. I used a combination of C/A and liquid plastic cement to secure the headrails. Before glue, though, I had dry-clamped each headrail in-place for several days, in order to better induce the shapes and relieve unwanted stress on the subsequent glue joint. Now, bear in-mind that I am fully aware these headrails should be flat. The design of the kit figurehead, in combination with my widening of the bow, does not allow for any reasonable projection of the aft escutcheon of each headrail. The gap you see on Frolich’s model, below, would have been more than double on mine: photo, courtesy of Marc Yeu With such a distracting projection away from the forecastle bulwarks, these escutcheons would have looked like jug ears. In consideration of that, I decided it was better to perpetuate the in-accuracy of the stock headrails, which are also rounded to seat up close to the hull. In an attempt to distribute any remaining stresses across a broader glue surface, I thought I could literally pin those escutcheon ears down with the bow angel carvings: Unfortunately, one must drill for these pins at the precise depth and angle. This proved quite difficult to do with the headrails already in-place, and the result of my attempt was that the carving did not lay flat against the ship’s side. Forcing it to do so would have, in fact, introduced additional lever strain on the headrail glue joint. Consequently, I ground the pins away, filled the holes and simply glued the bow angels in-place. I’ll post pictures of all of that once the re-touching is complete. The other surprising thing to me was just how much shimming was necessary for the other remaining headrail supports, now that both headrails were fixed in-place. In hindsight, it would have been much wiser to pattern these supports after the headrails had been installed. Instead, I had attempted to dry-fit them one side at a time. Using this approach, though, I could only eyeball the centerline, and only poorly at that! Just look at all the plastic I’ve added back to these parts: Finally, though, I can do the necessary touch-ups and glue these in-place. One part that could only be made once the headrails were installed was the forward terminus of the headrail grating. In the stock kit, Heller provides a mostly flat headrail grating, the forward end of which rests on a small ledge just behind the figurehead. As an upgrade, I want to create a new headrail grating that is both cambered, athwartships, and that follows the upward sweeping arc of the headrails. This is a tricky piece to make and fit. I seem to have lost the picture of the cardboard template I had made to start this part, but I transferred that pattern to a piece of 1/16” styrene. In my first attempt, I tried to muscle a bend into the part, but it snapped. On the second attempt, I used an open candle flame to soften the plastic so that I could easily induce this curve: There was some melty distortion, at the edges, that was removed during the fitting and shaping process. As I had with the pattern, I temporarily CA’d a handle to the part for ease of fitting in this tight area. Once I had a perfect fit, I glued a piece of 1/8” square stock to the forward end so that I could shape a neat bullnose that transitions into the knee of the head: You can also see the thinner stock that I glued to the aft end, on the under side, to create a ledge for the grating slats. To finish off the piece, I filed a gentle camber into the top surface of the part, which is now ready for paint and installation: And so, it is a lot of fiddling around to make this imperfect geometry coalesce into something that looks purposeful and a reasonable facsimile of a ship’s head structure. If I were starting this whole project all over again, one thing I would definitely do would be to fabricate a continuation of the middle battery planking past the beakhead bulkhead, in a downward tapering arc towards the stem. By the time I realized this was actually a feature of French practice, it was too late to incorporate the detail. Thank you for the likes, comments and for looking-in. When I next return, later in May, I will have some nice finished pictures of the head. Until then, be well!

This problem of carriage block sizing, at this scale, is one that I’ve been considering for a while. I think the max that one can get away with is 2mm. For my part, I will probably play around with simulating blocks with knotting and paint.

For my tastes, personally, it would be distractingly odd for the middle six guns to be run in, on one side.

I might have one gun run in, with a gun crew tending to it, if I wanted to demonstrate the working of the guns. I personally would not do a zigzag pattern in a static display.

The quality of this kit is very impressive. Lovely progress, B.E.

No worries, Henry. Your answer was more precise.

Hi Bill, yeah, these are all main deck guns. The quarter deck and f’ocsle decks are above this level. Like you, I see no point in rigging carriages that won’t be seen.

Looking good, Bill! Welcome back to the shipyard.

Just catching up, Ondras - remarkable and beautiful results, as always. You really have the knack for the polymerized clay.

People (my extended family, included) have been spelling my name wrong my entire life. Marc with a C is more common among Jewish families and the French. While I am neither, I have always preferred this spelling.