Hubac's Historian

As far as I know, that is correct for French ships of the period: The Louis Quinze mode of circa 1710.

🐎🐎🐎 and 🥃🥃 Two things any self-respecting Kentuckian can not do without 😉

Respect is always my intent.

Laphroaig is one that I could never adapt my palate to. The peat-i-ness of the Islays is a little much for me.

My favorite from that distillery is the Glenmorangie Sherry Cask 🥃

I’m enjoying a little blended scotch, myself - CHEERS!🥃

Marsalv, did you solder your chain segments? If so, how do you manage to keep the soldered connection so minimal and low-profile?

What the builder above did is a little bit better, in terms of pattern, but it is still out of scale. As to whether it is worth the effort to go much smaller and represent many more bolt heads - I think that is a very individual choice; for me, adding these small custom modifications is what makes the hobby fun and interesting. I will easily spend absurd amounts of time on the smallest things. I can’t even tell you how many hours I’ve put into making my headrails and headrail support structure. For me, the rewards are in figuring out how to go about making something, and then enjoying the finished result. The time spent is almost irrelevant. To other builders, though, it just feels like tedium. That choice is entirely up to you.

Hi Bill, Your paint looks really great! The wale bolting, on the other hand, does not look so good. Generally, I don’t like to levy harsh critiques, but I feel compelled to speak up, here. The primary issue, here, is that the scale is much too large; at that scale, it would be better to not do the bolting at all. When I did this, I used very fine styrene rod (.020): https://evergreenscalemodels.com/products/218-020-5mm-od-rod Also, the layout matters. Although it is not critically important to change it, Heller represents butt joints on the wales, which is a complete fiction. These large structural timbers would have been scarfed together with, approximately 4’ long scarf joints. The bolting pattern, though, should be alternating top and bottom (zigzag), and closely spaced. If you zoom-in on this Puget drawing of the Royal Louis, you can even see this: Or, perhaps better seen on the Berain drawing of the SR: I don’t mean to be a rivet-counter, Bill, but scale does matter, here.

The continuity between levels, as you noted, is greatly improved, and it really makes a difference in one’s perception of the thing. It is also pretty remarkable how much metal you had to remove from the upper finishing, in order to make that look suitably low-profile.

The anchor lining stands proud of the hull planking, but is flush with the wales, wherever it crosses a wale. It is only on the lower main wale that the lining extends forward to the stem.

Yes, precisely. That photo was from pretty early in the build. One of the nice things, before I painted the model, was to see all of the modifications as they were mostly made from white styrene. Part of me wishes I could see the current status of the model without any paint whatsoever.

I think Henry is right, that this line represents the anchor lining. However, it doesn’t really follow the path or sweep of the anchor flukes during the catting process. I added an anchor lining because it was a relatively easy modification. As was pointed out to me, back then, the space between the lower main wales, from the aft edge of the anchor lining to the stem, should also be filled flush. This is a particularity of French design.

This is a fascinating project, Ian. I will enjoy watching your design evolution. All the best, Marc

What you have done is above and beyond what most do. At this early stage of paint, it is not too late to use a little putty to fill the last traces of that joint. All you have to do, after leveling the filler, is re-scribe the plank seams, and spray a little touch-up paint. That’s totally above and beyond, but if you are planning to use distress washes - they will show up in that shadow of a crack. While you are it it - just as you scraped away the moulded waterline, you may choose to scrape away the vertical raised line that runs upward from the aft corner of the hawser piece. I suppose it is intended as a marker for where the headrails line up, but it doesn’t really need to be there.

Nice work with the file, Bill - a great result!

Ultimately, Bill, you’re going to want to make a tighter radiused loop on those chains. Most builders set up a fixture board with pins driven at a distance you want your chain segments to be. You then wrap your wire tightly around these pins and snip the wire in the middle of the chain plate.

The decks really do look fantastic!

This is such a remarkable build across the board, and as you always manage to do - the bar is set high. You are creating an incredible collection of work, and my hat is off to you, once again, B.E. All the best, Marc

Hi Michael! Thank you for the nice compliment. For all of these carvings, I primarily use a curved chip-carving knife, a #11 EXACTO, a shallow 1/8” gouge, a 1/16” veiner, and an 1/8” straight chisel. Here and there, I’ll use small Dremmel burrs to waste material and approximately define shapes.

I’m a little stalled on the head construction, this past week; I just haven’t had much evening time to focus on it, unfortunately. I have, though, been trying to carve the bow angels that sit right behind the headrails. I had the hardest time carving this, considering the scale: As before with the stern angels, the faces are not great, but I can live with them.

This is all very much appreciated, Gary. Thank you!

You can definitely still inlet the hawser piece into the hull-half so that the outer-surface is flush because the modification happens to the hawser piece; you simply hold the hawser piece in-place and scribe the wale boundaries (top and bottom) into the surface of the hawser plate. This will give you the reference you need to cut a tapering shoulder into the hawser plate (top and bottom). From about mid-plate, your shoulder should taper from zero to about a heavy 1/32” - whatever it takes to bring the aft edge flush with the exterior planking. Of course, you don’t have to do this and very few that I have seen have ever bothered to. It’s just a personal bugaboo of mine and one of the modifications I have found that reduce the plastic feel of the model. I describe the wale bolting in detail, not many pages from where I pulled the hawser excerpt. Basically, I cut really thin slivers (-1/32”) of .030 styrene rod onto my plastic cutting matt. I separate them (they tend to want to clump together) and then flash them with a wand lighter (flame is about a 1/4” above); this melts the dots, slightly, and causes them to form a slightly domed appearance. I tried a number of things, but this was the method that gave me the scale appearance I was after. I sharpen a toothpick and use the tip to apply a small dot of liquid plastic cement (I like Testors) where I want the bolt head. You can then “pick up” each bolt head and place it with the very tip of a sharp Exacto blade. Once in-place, I just press the dot with my finger tip for 5-7 seconds to get a firm weld. Once these are on, they’re really ON, and you’ll have to shave them off, here and there, where you might need to as the build progresses. It sounds extremely tedious, and it is, but you’d be surprised how quickly you find a rhythm. Just don’t task yourself with trying to do one whole side in an evening. Do a wale, and then take a break. Do something else.

What about tape-clamping your spar parts together in a continuous spiral of painters’ tape?

It’s hard to explain without pictures. Here’s an excerpt from my log: With the continuous bolting of the wales complete, I turned my attention to the hawser insert pieces, and I think I've done a fairly Doogie Hawser job of surgically in-letting the port side hawser piece. The issue at hand is the dark ridge that you see, here, on the starboard side. The planking is moulded and intended to be a smooth continuum, but the piece does not fit flush, and this is unnatural. However, after using my fabulous Dremmel Micro to cut a diminishing rebate into the mounting edge of the piece, the aft edge sits flush with the rest of the planking. This is not at all difficult to do, it is simply a matter of holding the piece in place, as you scribe the lower edge of the upper wale into the plastic, and the upper edge of the lower wale, with a single edge razor blade. An emmory board cleans up the transition and the piece fits perfectly. A little work on the aft joint, where it meets the hull, is required in order to minimize the need for putty - a touch of Squadron, though, and a little judicious leveling should make that transition line completely disappear. I will have to do the same on the starboard side, obviously, and I will also have to fill and re-drill the hawse-holes, back closer to the stem, after I have performed my magically surgical widening of the hull, at the stem. Just as the prior example illustrates my desire to make this model look less like the plastic kit that it is, the next example strives for a greater verisimilitude with real practice. Here, I am showing the transom profile, which previously, I had trimmed back a generous 1/16", to the mounting ledge for the transom piece. That's why the hull thickness seems so exaggerated, below the main wale, because it includes the mounting ledge. The reason for doing this was so that I can model-in the round-up of the square-tuck stern. However, even after grinding away the existing mounting ledge, the side planking still is way out of scale. Ordinarily, with plastic models of this type, one would glue in the transom piece, and then fill-in any gaps - and then maybe, maybe scribe back in the partially filled plank lines. As I will be building up the transom and stern from scratch, on the other hand, I saw this as an opportunity to thin the hull wall at the transom edge to a more scale-realistic plank thickness. Into which, I then engraved the plank butt-ends This process also creates, on the inboard hull a new mounting ledge for the transom planking that will be installed later. Rinse, and then repeat on the starboard side! Following that, I will glue in the hawser pieces, and then scribe-in and detail the 15th "hunting port," at the bow of the lower battery. As this is already a fairly long build-log, and I've only just gotten started, I will periodically mention "the truth," or what "should be." What the first battery should consist of is 16 piercings (to be consistent with what is known of SR1), with 15 armed at all times; the 16th "hunting" port at the bow would only be armed by shifting the next gun, forward, into position when SR (and La Reyne, for that matter) were appropriately in pursuit of the enemy. For my purposes, even a vestigial scribed 15th port - while it's not 16 - is still closer than 14. Comme-ci, Comme-ca; a compromise of sorts.