Hubac's Historian

I think it is quite possible that the central false window of the quarter gallery, on the middle deck tier, would have had a port piercing through the hull for an additional pair of guns. This would be just forward of the functional toilet. I believe these false windows were actually partially or wholly removable panels. I doubt that they were continuously armed, though.

That is such a strange thing about the replica - the stem running perpendicular to the keel. If that is the case, though, your keel length wouldn’t seem so out of line with actual practice.

If I can offer one small critique - ships of the 1670’s would still be steered by tiller and whipstaff. Wheel and drum steerage does not emerge until a little later in the 1700’s. I realize this is a fantasy ship, to some degree, and perhaps not intended to be a strict adherent to historical accuracy. If I remember, the movie ship also has a wheel. Anyway, it is something to consider or ignore, as you wish.

If the Concepcion is your basis, I don’t think you can go wrong - your lines look very good, Radek, and convey the fullness of the hull, at midships, that is so apparent in good period portraits of Spanish galleons. This is a very exciting project! It will be fun to see the Neptune round into a realistic form.

I have always found this replica movie ship to be fascinating. The set designers seem to have drawn much inspiration from early French design from around the time of the First Marine, 1666-1670. The structure of the quarter galleries, in particular, is quite similar to what the French were constructing, at this time. I don't know that the ship is particularly Spanish or French, but it is impressive! I will enjoy watching your progress on this project. If I may encourage you to do one thing, that would be to more correctly scale the figurehead. The movie ship's Neptune figure is so huge, I am surprised she doesn't go down, bow first, under the weight of him.

Exactly, EJ - these quarter galleries are quite a challenge with so much happening in a small space. Work on the grand chaloupe continues: Above and below, I’m laying out the floor on a 1/2” grid. I simply took measurements to one side of the centerline, so that ultimately, the doubling of frames would still be visible: I laid out tapering planks: Although the chaloupe is some 30’ in length, I am not going to show any butt joints in the planking. Below shows the series of shaping steps for making the bench corner braces: From lower right to left: the glued-in blocks; angled waste cut made with a triangular file; and final shaping with rounded files. These pieces are too small to work without them being attached, so it is just easier to shape them, in place. Note, also, the oar-lock blocks that have been added. I added a mast step: Note, also, the rub-rail that I added below the sheer. French chaloupes always seem to have an elegantly tapered sheer step at the stern, so I patterned that, and gave the transom a nice rounded top profile: As it stands, this is quite a lot of nice additional detail. After finishing up the other sheer step, I will probably add a metal mast collar, at the bench level, as well as a bowsprit collar next to the stem. The stem top will also be replaced so that it might more realistically buttress the sprit mast running right beside it; the little nub that the kit provides is not sufficient. Work on the starboard QG continues. I made and fit the forward block, and also attached the outer pilasters to these fore and aft blocks: With all of this structure in place, I could begin leveling all of the tops. One really fortunate bit of news: I realized that I could remove a 1/16” from each side of the window panel. Even that small difference significantly reduced the amount of material I would need to remove from the bottom corners and top middle, in order to get the window plate to fit within this parallel space. The pilasters will overlay and cover this join between the window plate and the end blocks. I still have to fair the top edge, but even if I dip into the ornament topping the central window frame, I will probably be able to alter the carving a little to make it work. The gap remaining at the bottom can be filled and faired with a strip of styrene, and the pilaster bottoms can also be filled-in and faired. The bottom gap is only a heavy 1/64”. Here’s the plate, resting in place, to give an impression of what it will look like: Earlier, I made the transitional top mouldings that serve as the base of the walkable, wrapping stern balcony. It has yet to be reduced, in depth (from hull), or scribed to the hull side. The extension, off the stern, is also over-length. I am relieved that it now seems likely that I can use my window plates, after all. Little by little, we are getting there!

Whether it’s handwork with traditional tools, or working with technology - engineering the process for producing the results is always the greatest challenge, IMO. The results you are getting with CNC are superb, but the machines will only do what you tell them to. Your talent as a maker of fine things is abundantly clear, even if the means of expressing it is less familiar to most, including myself.

Beautiful, clean work, as always, Ondras. It is a real pleasure to watch her come together.

One of my first revelations was that the aft-facing window must also follow the continuation of the stern round-up. If I were to position that window square with the ship’s side, then it would create an awkward angle along where the window bottom edge meets the transitional moulding that it sits upon. The other thing that quickly crystallized in my mind is the difference between drawing something in the one-dimensional plane and the practical application of that drawing to a space that requires compound angles and elegant transitions between curved and flat surfaces. To begin with, the outboard edge of this aft-facing QG window has a subtle curved profile: I very much wanted to include this detail because it is one of the many small details that would be glaring, in its absence. The difficulty is that the three windows of the side QG exist in a flat vertical plane, angled-in towards the ship side, while also conforming to a elegantly bowed horizontal plane (more on that later!😤). First, I decided to provide myself with a pair of glue cleats that would help position these aft windows on their back-raking angle, while also conforming to the round-up: Forward of those cleats are a series of reference lines drawn at a right angle to the ship sides. These lines delineate the aft window backing-block and the window pilaster framing gussets. Next, I needed to make the backing-block. I had some 3/8 stock left over from the making of the lower finishing. This was exactly the right width (according to my flat 1-D drawing that neither accounted for round-up or outboard bowing 😭), to provide room for the aft-most pilaster, the crossed diamond ornament, as well as a 1/16” landing ledge for the aft edge of the window plate to recess into. So, I first cut the back-raking angle onto a piece of this 3/8” stock, and then I scribed it to the tumblehome. With that much established, I could then lay-out the outboard angles and profiles. A photo montage that I hope will explain this better than I can: Here is the fore-face of the block. That shadow-line on the side is the transition from the flat vertical plane of the side windows to the curved pilaster of the stern profile. The aft face of the block has a small styrene spacer strip that abuts the aft-window glue cleat: The aft-window held in place - I am riding pretty high and feeling really good about myself, at this point. I had established the interior depth of the pilaster gussets and made the first of those: Initially, I had cut the height of this gusset too short because I was foolishly thinking that it sat perpendicular to the transitional moulding: it does not, obviously (after finally seeing the reality of it), because the windows have a back-raking angle. No biggie! I simply glued strips of styrene to the top and bottom edges of the gusset, and then beveled them, accordingly. I went to bed feeling accomplished - like “a million bucks!” I woke up, though, to a horrible realization. My window plate - drawn in a flat, one-dimensional plane - has straight and parallel top and bottom edges: In order to conform to this space, that billows outward in a gentle curve, while tipping in, toward the hull, this window plate must actually be shaped like this: Well, that is a bit of a set-back! There remains the small possibility that I may be able to extract and still use the frames that I spent so many hours making. I won’t really know, however, until I complete the underlying framing, as well as the forward block, and can make a cardboard template that fits this space. Maybe the plate I made can be scribed without losing detail. I sincerely doubt it though. My preliminary quick test on a flat surface looks as though I’ll lose about a tapering 1/32” at the bottom ends - which might be doable - but, also, a probable 1/16” at the top middle, which is not doable. I have zero margin at the top, or bottom, for that matter. If that weren’t enough to chew on, I probably made the windows too tall, in the first place, which means that my window panes are probably also un-salvageable. I won’t know for sure, though, until I have a working template to compare against. And things were moving along so nicely😖 More to follow...

With the construction of the framework of the QGs underway, I was searching for a small-work project to take to work with me for my down-times. There was no immediate need for anything that didn’t require very specific and concrete measurements to work from; parameters I don’t yet have because I haven’t gotten that far. So, I decided to focus on detailing the ship’s boats. I started with the grand chaloupe - the larger of the two. I am using the St. Philippe plans as a reference for their detailing. I won’t go all-in, but I will add frames to the interior, floor planking, a mast step, bowsprit brace hardware, bench braces, oar locks, and a small aft sheer step. A few pics of the framing process that includes floors and futtock top timbers: The plan shows some 27 frames. At 1/8” spacing, I managed 26. Interestingly, at a point just forward of midships, the top timber futtock placement runs forward toward the bow, and aft toward the transom. I’m not really sure why that is, but that’s what the plan shows, so that is what I did. To establish the floor spans of each frame, I simply sketched in a line midway through the turn of the bilge. I did it by eye. It is reasonably symmetrical. The floor timbers will be mostly covered by the floor planking. Once the floors were in, I trimmed their ends for a fair run, fore and aft. Then, I started with the top timbers: I had traced a line one heavy 1/32” below the sheer. I trimmed my top timbers to this line because the kit bench framing has a glue lip that requires clearance here. These glueing operations are inherently messy. The frames are cut from .011 x .033 styrene strip stock, and one must apply a liberal amount of cement to afford enough open time that the small pieces can be tweaked into position. After the floors were all in place, and the glue had cured overnight, I came back and scraped away the excess glue with my 1/8” chisel, scraping on a skewed angle between frames. This is tedious, but it works well enough, and ensures that distracting glue ghosts won’t telegraph through the paint. I have decided that I will not be placing these boats on the main deck, over the gratings. I spent too much time adding camber to those gratings to cover them up. Instead, they will be set into the sea and tethered to the ship through the stern chase ports, as is often shown in VDV battle portraits. In light of their less prominent placement, all of this detailing is probably excessive, but I am a man of excesses, afterall. In the evenings, I have been building the underlying structure of the QGs. It made sense to me that the logical starting point would be the aft-facing window, working forward. I will try not to, but I could write a book about this aft corner. Let me post this much, and then I will continue in a second post. Cliffhanger alert: my so carefully rendered plans were not as carefully considered as they should have been 😱

Hi John - your fleurs look very good. I like the low relief that the gel medium provides. As for the aft upper bulwarks, you will have much more space to create an ornamental program of your choosing, if you eliminate the continuation of the many drift rails, emanating from the timberhead sheer railings. This is what I had to do, in order to create my frieze which, nonetheless, is informed by the run of the drift rails that I sanded away - if that makes sense. What I’m trying to say is that their presence just takes up too much space. The fitting of the beakhead bulkhead (and the stern plate, for that matter) reflect the practicalities of commercial kit manufacture. They both overlap the edges of the upper bulwark pieces. This is not reflective of actual practice, whereby the planking of the upper bulwarks would overlap the plank ends of the beakhead bulkhead and stern planking. Heller, I suppose, reasons that this convenience of manufacture, and simplification of construction is mostly obscured by the headrails and the quarter galleries, respectively. For my part, I went to some trouble to recess the beakhead bulkhead within the upper bulwark pieces, even going so far as to scribe plank ends into the upper bulwark pieces. I did the same, at the stern, where I am laying individual styrene planks, flush into these hand-cut rebates. The plus-side of doing all of that are joints of better structural integrity with much less need for putty fillers. On the downside, though, very little of my effort at super-detailing, in this instance, will be visible on my finished model; only a small bit of the lower transom, beneath the transom moulding and whatever one can see above the beakhead roundhouses. All that considered, I am still happy with the effort because it resulted in more accurately scaled plank-ends, and it is reflective of actual practice. It is an awful lot of trouble to go to, though, for a minor detail. I certainly would not have done this for the stern upper bulwarks, if I had realized, back then, that the detail would be covered by pilaster mouldings. I would simply have firred-out glue cleats to the inner surface of the bulwarks for attaching my plank ends. Anyway, the modification process can go on, ad-infinitum, but you must decide what is worth your time and effort, and what is not.

To the three Marks of distinction - thank you very much - and a big thanks to you, as well, John and Bossman. I am always in pursuit of a model that will withstand close scrutiny, despite having numerous flaws and compromises in construction. I am equally indebted to everyone here for all that they have shared with me on this project and their own.

EJ, Kirill and Dan - thank you very much! Well, it has been a slow and painstaking process, with much re-touching, but the lower stern is finally painted: From here on out, the paintwork should not be so challenging. Thank you for stopping by!

Aha - thanks! ‘Much appreciated.

Thanks for the reference on the pliers, Mark. I was hoping, though, that you could show a picture of the micro nippers.

The chandlery is all pretty reMarkable, if I do say. This problem of rings has been vexing me for a while now. The parallel pliers are a great help, and I will add them to my tool kit. I would like to know what the micro-angled nippers look like, though.

Wonderful progress - I agree that the faceted turret is much better and truer to the original design. Very well done!

All the superlatives apply, here - most impressive! I really like your creative engineering of the open rail scroll head.

It is an interesting exercise to try and climb into the mind of the prior builder. You are doing a lovely, clean job!

Those sails really look great, Jonathan! The bolt ropes are particularly cleanly attached.

I’m sorry to hear you are hurting, Tom. Get your body right, first, of course. It will help making decisions about ship modeling easier. Personally, I have benefitted tremendously from a daily regimen of basic yoga and light stretching. I have a lot of disc compression issues. Whatever you end up doing, I look forward to seeing it. P.S. while I am not part of Chuck’s build group, his model is the best and most thoughtfully prepared “kit” I have ever seen. There is plenty of latitude, within that build, to express your individual talents and aptitudes. ‘Just a thought, if you are considering re-framing along those lines. I realize that I am preaching to the choir, here. All the best, Marc

Hello Kirill! Yes, I suppose this presentation of Soleil Royal is maybe a little jarring, as we are all so accustomed to thinking about French capitol ships as being almost entirely "royal" blue and gold leaf. I've been ruminating over color choices for the entirety of the build. Lemineur's research and work on the St. Philippe has had much to do with my choices, here. It seems pretty clear that true ultra-marine was cost-prohibitive for use beyond the national coat of arms, the King's coat of arms, and a few other select areas, like the tafferal. Other blues were likely significantly lighter and the product of copper oxides. By the dawn of the early second marine, concurrent with Soleil Royal's rebuild in 1688/89, the liberal use of gold leaf would have been greatly reduced. This was particularly so, as the re-build survey of the ship had so drastically underestimated the extent of rot. While the ship would certainly have been lavishly ornamented, it is much more likely that much of the rails and moldings would have been painted in yellow ocher, in order to keep costs down. In fact, SR went off to Beveziers without even having completed the new ornamental program; her stern carvings were merely primed in pearlescent grey paint, according to Winfield and Roberts. What will eventually become apparent, when I get to painting the upper bulwarks, is that this lighter blue will predominate, above the main deck guns. By treating it with the walnut ink, it loses it's cerulean brightness, and instead, takes on a slight brown/green cast that is more period-appropriate. I have chosen to use red vermillion as a prominent unifying color, throughout the ship, for several reasons. Firstly, and not least important, I am bored with seeing essentially the same representation of the ship, over and over again. Also, as I discuss somewhere earlier, the recent discovery of Vasa's true colors only seems surprising to us because we had become conditioned to think of her as only being painted in blue and gold. In the high baroque period, it seems perfectly fitting to me that vivid colors would be used to further embellish the carved works of the ship. Hyatt's description of the Royal Louis certainly seems to support this possibility, and the French palace interiors re-enforce this idea. I have read a very brief description of Soleil Royal's colors from the Intendant at Brest, D'Infreville (if I remember correctly), who lists her primary colors: white, black, ventre-de-biche and blue, with gold throughout. Presumably, this is a banded description from the waterline, up, but there is nothing of any great specificity, there. On that basis, alone, the popular scheme for Soleil Royal could never be said to be "wrong." As I say, though, I no longer find it interesting to look at. On the other hand, Berain's drawing of the stern has a red wash applied to the "ground" areas for the starboard side of the drawing. There does appear to be historic precedent for painting both the stern and beakhead bulkhead in a red vermillion. My idea is to unify these areas, along the band of main deck guns with this red vermillion color. It is a superb backdrop for the yellow ocher, and the monogram cartouches between the guns will show more impressively in a combination of yellow ocher, ultra-marine and gold. After spending so much time to create the ornamental program from scratch, I do not want the details to disappear in a sea of gold. The choices I am making are stylized, yet they exist within the realm of plausible deniability.' Lastly, I recently found again these pictures of a model of the Royal Louis. I will post a link to them, as I can't re-publish them here. If you scroll down the page, you will find an image of what appears to be a contemporary model of her from the starboard quarter. It is most definitely a first-marine representation. I don't know who made the model, or when exactly. It is somewhat primitive, but the use of red vermillion, throughout is instructive. https://www.kalpana.it/photographs/italy_bologna/city13.htm and here: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=EGzg2iT%2f&id=EB6C4118F4B9B88A5DB3BBB12B831619C0B2AE68&thid=OIP.EGzg2iT_XdYpYmYp0b9tPgHaG_&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2flookaside.fbsbx.com%2flookaside%2fcrawler%2fmedia%2f%3fmedia_id%3d1223148461361194&exph=1933&expw=2048&q=University+of+Bologna%2c+warship%2c+model%2c+Royal+Louis&simid=607989867282497839&ck=0639D0FC2A385D7D2BBEC87603F09E63&selectedIndex=1&FORM=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0

Hi Dan - more optimistic times await, but we will still have to wait a while longer before we can have our club meetings again. I’m really hoping the Joint Clubs meeting happens, as planned. I won’t be muting the colors for distance and haze, in particular, but I will mute them with walnut ink to approximate the daily dinge of mooring in the polluted waters off the Port of Brest arsenal. I will make some visual allusion to distance by representing the parapet walls of the arsenal at a greatly reduced scale.

Thank you, Gentlemen, for your kind words and likes, and to everyone who stops by now and again. I have completed the quarter gallery window frames: I, then, spent quite a lot of time deliberating how I wanted to represent the fact that these windows were likely all superficial. There were probably removable panels, within the false windows, that could serve as either additional gun ports, or as ventilation, but they were not glazed windows, as on the stern. On the following section of the original stern drawing, Berain indicates glass panes with square shadow boxes, within the leaded cames: All contemporary evidence suggests that the six windows within the quarter galleries were actual windows. This drawing device gave me an idea for a stylized, false window. I used a semi-opaque grey enamel wash to paint-in those shadows, within my engraved lines: After spraying the backs of the panes flat-black, the shadows show-up as a subtle indication of individual glass panes: I decided to use yellow ocher for the cames, in order to draw attention to the fact that these false windows are different from the clear panes seen on the stern and quarter deck, admiral’s cabin. The two stylized windows on the main deck level of the QGs will also be painted yellow and black. So, before I can actually get busy constructing these windows, I must first finish painting the lower stern. Let me tell you - I have made quite a difficult job for myself, here. The overhang of the stern counter is such that finding a comfortable angle at which to reach the furthest corners and cut a straight line has proven to be the most difficult aspect of this build so far. The hull is relatively large and so full of extra structural plastic that it is quite heavy and awkward to move around and hold steady as you paint your lines. Even just brush-priming the surface so that it was reasonably tidy was very time-consuming. Nevertheless, if the paint work is not impeccable, this has all been a waste of time. This is obviously a work in progress, and the colors are very stark and garish without the eventual walnut ink wash, but these pics give a stronger sense for where this is all headed: I didn’t really need to paint the top and bottom edges of the transom moulding, however, doing so conveys the full depth of its scantling: There will be small touch-ups, yet, but the results were worth the extra time. Last night, I completed all of the transitional mouldings of the QGs, and started cutting-in the chase ports: As I’ve mentioned before, the use of ultra-marine will be relatively sparing. I was going to leave the inset circles red, but I realized that there are oval monogram cartouches on the balcony railing above that will also be painted ultra-marine, thus balancing the composition. All will become clearer as we go. Today, I will re-pattern the transitional moulding plate that sits atop the QG windows, and serves as the base for the wrapping balcony. It is identical in profile and depth to the denticulated transitional moulding beneath the windows. The only difference is that this platform will extend aft, four scale feet in order to wrap to the stern balcony. I am kicking myself for not tracing the original pattern that I had made 🤦‍♂️ Little by little, we are getting there! As always - stay healthy and thank you for looking in.

Your methodical and meticulous nature are really shining, Tom. In my opinion, the only way to ensure that a hand-made thing is truly good, and able to hold-up to intense scrutiny, is to invest whatever time is necessary in the process. Your efforts, here, are exemplary.