Hubac's Historian

Marc and John, thank you so much for your kind words. And John, I am equally enjoying the work that you are doing with this fabulous Heller kit. Your figurehead has me considering how I will color the other robed figures that inhabit my upper bulwarks. It has been a bit of a hectic week, as I consider moving my family, yet again, in the never-ending quest for a reasonable three-bedroom apartment in NYC. Slowly, I have been assembling the QG open walk and painting the stern. It is fiendishly difficult to get into the recesses of this stern window plate, and I really wish I had painted it off of the model. Slowly, though, we are getting there: I’ve masked with blue tape, the footprints of the Four Seasons figures. I also decided to extract as much recyclable detail from the two extra stern plates that members of this community have so generously donated. On the forward end of the open walk, I thought that block could do with a little finishing, so I extracted the paneling detail from that same corresponding area on the stern-plate, turned it sideways, and now that looks a little nicer. The bombastic form of this block, which I may or may not be interpreting correctly, is very curious to me: I wonder how such a thing would actually have been made on the real ship. would they have sheathed a light framework with thin deal planks, or would they have shaped a solid balk of lightweight timber, much like I have for the model? The other interesting discovery, this past week, was Ronald Portanier’s dissertation on the evolution of French marine sculpture throughout the Ancien Regime. He has a number of interesting insights into decorative styles, color and the use of Trompe L’oeil. It is quite lengthy, but well worth the look. There are a few gems in the Appendices, also, including a super detailed port quarter view of the Monarque/RL’s stern - something I was just asking Chapman about, recently. There is also a fascinating unfinished rough sketch for the stern of an early First Marine, first-rate ship. If that weren’t enough, there are also several insightful LeBrun portraits that give a good sense for the colors that might be used to accentuate the ship’s carved figures. Check the link below for a look-see: https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/984742/1/Portanier_PhD_S2019.pdf As a side note, the BSI debonder does an excellent job of sloughing away the finished surface of acetate. I think I will just live with the blemish. It is small.

I really like those gallery details, Kirill. The masthead crosses are also interesting details; they are emblematic of the religious devotion of the Spanish empire as well as the sailorly superstitious belief in talismans to ward off evil outcomes. Where else to put a cross, but as close to God as possible, at the top of the mast heads. Excellent VdV grisaille drawings, as well. I’ve added these to my image files. These are particularly fine, and as close to photographic in the rendering of details.

I am sorry, Christian, that you seem to take this commentary as a personal attack. I hope you will understand that that is far from the spirit that is intended. I only offer observations and criticism when I believe the builder is capable of doing something with that information. I followed your build, in the first place, because I believe you can pull it off, so to speak. You are making a nice job of it, so far. The objective of my commentary is solely to help you avoid creating a circumstance, early, that is difficult or impossible to remedy later. Of course, I respect your wish to work privately and wish you the best of luck!

In contrast, here is Marc Yeu’s Soleil Royal in 1/72: photos, courtesy of Marc Yeu

Forgive me, please, but I have to back Allan on this one. I am not accustomed to metric scale. Fortunately, though, we have the technology. My copy of the monograph is 1/48 - big enough to sail away in: The timberheads before the break between the quarter and poop sheer steps measure 10/64”, imperial. So, at 1/48”, the timberheads (inside the planking) would measure a hair under 4MM. At your scale of 1/72, this dimension should be significantly smaller, still. I agree with Allan that now is the time to thin these, before finally glueing them in. Personally, I would leave them just a little heavy to allow for fairing, after they are glued-in.

Brilliant work, Kirill!

King Gustavus Astolphus “liked” that.

Here is a link to Rex Stewart’s Vasa build: It is difficult to see what his blocks are like for the upper rigging, on my phone, but maybe you can sufficiently enlarge these images on a desktop. Anyway, I think his scale of blocks looks very convincing.

With everything you have achieved, here, and your super-realistic wood-graining techniques, I am really excited to see what you do with that Vasa kit.

This is really wonderful work from both of you. It is an interesting detail that the lower transom planking appears to be let into the aft-most frame, as opposed to overlaying it.

My lid lanyards tie off onto an eyebolt on the top of the dummy carriage. The trick will be shortening the lanyard line enough that it doesn’t look floppy around the barrel. I left myself plenty of excess line to figure it out.

Bill, I will make a single eyelet that mounts to the inside (exposed) side of the lid, and I will bend the loop of the eye, downward, so that it seems to hang naturally, like a ring. I’ll seize my lanyard to that.

On my model, I have only drilled one hole on the center, for the pull-down lid lanyard: I haven’t gotten around to doing eyelets, yet, but the lanyards are already attached to the dummy carriages inside the hull:

It sounds like spalt, but it could also be bug damage of some sort or other. As your exterior hull will be planked, what do you think about injecting epoxy into this void, in order to solidify the material? As you arrive closer to your finished dimensions, you may find it necessary to repeat the process, but that should restore your material integrity.

From what I can see in these photos, it looks as though you will have some significant fairing to do between frames 2 and 4. Balsa fillers, throughout, would make the fairing process easier to gauge, as you go. It also will make a realistic plank shift more easy to achieve, as you will not be dependent on landing on bulkheads. The only other way to land a joint between bulkheads, is to back the joint with glue tabs, and even then you might end up with raised peaks at each joint. That seems very tedious to me. Just a thought.

In scales this small, it has been suggested to me to seize your lanyards directly to a single eyelet secured to the lid - rather than an additional ring attached to your lid eyelet. On my project, I will display the lids in a somewhat unrealistic way - as pulled up against the wales - because I want the lid ornaments to be fully visible. In this way, I only need to represent the single, interior, closing lanyard.

CriCri, when you get to glueing everything together, will you also glue-in filling blocks between the bulkheads?

It’s easy to appreciate, here, how beefy the French ships were.

Haha! Yes - 08/11🌞

Congratulations, Marc!! Leos rule! What is your Daughter’s name?

Thank you all for your kind compliments and for continuing to support the project. I know I spend a lot of time on the minutia, but that is where I find the greatest satisfaction and continued investment in the project. It is gratifying that such a good number of you enjoy that level of detail. I may only be guessing a lot of the time, EJ, but I try and do things that make practical sense. One such example is interior support for the quarter gallery rail. Although, I do not see specific reference to this in Lemineur’s monograph for the SP - or anywhere else, for that matter - it only seems sensible that such a light construction would have additional support. So, that is what I have endeavored to do: A wooden ship is full of knees, buttressing and distributing loads. The channels have knees. The deck railings have knees. The stern and quarter galleries are particularly vulnerable to rough and battering seas, so I think this makes sense. There is the added advantage, of course, of having additional glue surface for the railing upright, and these supports will help the part conform to the gentle contour of the gallery. I received my BSI de-bonder. The bottle says that the product mars most plastics; perhaps not acetate, though. I will experiment. I will also soon be painting again, so that I can install all of these walk parts. All the best, Marc

Extremely well done, Kirill!

Very well said and informative, concerning the alteration of hull shape by moving the smaller bends forward or aft.

I think they are called bottles because the early baroque silhouette of French quarter galleries were reminiscent of elaborately shaped perfume bottles. The term stuck, through the ages of sail, even as the style of QGs became increasingly austere. Given their function, however, it seems unlikely that they smelled like perfume.

I wasn’t sure how you were going to approach this, but I am really impressed that you are tackling an authentic planking job. Your progress looks really great. Yeah, I’d say your process is working!