Hubac's Historian

Well, Marc - THIS - THIS was absolutely worth the wait!  Just spectacular craftsmanship, and your sheer reduction looks pitch-perfect for 1689.

 

I like the accommodation you made in scarfing together stock for the sheer-strakes before moulding them - very clever.

 

What is your construction plan for the lower finishing of the quarter galleries, up to the main deck open walk?

 

Personally, because my model will be completely painted, my plan is to carve the lower finishing from wood (something very close-grained) and then build the lower quarter gallery lights from styrene, as I did at the stern.  I will have to create horizontal styrene formers that establish the outboard parameters and shape of the quarter galleries, while giving me an edge-surface to scrape-in the various transitional moulding profiles.

 

There are so many complicated shapes, in this area, that I was just wondering how you plan to approach it.

Thank you, kindly, gentlemen!

Hello Cedric - how goes it with La Reyne?  Have you had much time for the model, these days?

Lovely work, so far, David.  I will enjoy watching this collaboration unfold.

So, as I try to close this chapter of the build, I got busy tying up a few if the loose ends.

 

In preparation for securing the window plate, I thought it would be helpful to do a few things, in advance.

 

Rather than attempt to paint the inner lip of the window frames with the glass in place, I pre-painted this inner reveal.

 

I have come to realize that the artists’ acrylics I used for the deadworks are exceedingly fragile, and so - going forward, I will use purpose-made model acrylics wherever possible.

 

To that end, I mixed a Tamiya primary yellow with a medium brown Tamiya shade until I was satisfied with my resulting yellow ocher color.  I mixed brown, drop by drop, into the yellow bottle, so that I will have enough ocher to paint everything on the model, without having to re-mix and try and match shades.

 

Following Druxey’s advice, acetate sheet was scribed with a sharp knife and medium-grey acrylic was wiped into the lines.  This was all reasonably straight-forward, and produced excellent results.

 

My initial plan was to glue-in L-angle styrene strip, to the vertical bulkheads, and a ledge strip to the inner bottom edge of the window plate, so that the individual panes would be housed and well supported, but floating.

 

I quickly realized, though, that the positioning of the mullions, relative to the window opening will not always be ideal, if the loose pane shifts from side to side.

 

With that in mind, I took a spare test pane (one of the QG side lights that I botched during the engraving process), and test-tacked it to styrene strip, with medium viscosity CA.  It did not result in the dreaded cyano blush.

 

With the success of that experiment, I decided to apply CA along the inner crease of the bottom ledge and one small tack dot of CA in the top center of each pane (behind what is the ornamental cartouche, on the exterior).  This all worked out neatly enough:

In hindsight, because the vertical bulkheads are relatively deep, it would have been beneficial if I had painted their sides flat black before fitting them to the model.  Unfortunately, I did not do so, and the perfectionist in me refuses to make a gloppy mess of black paint work, after the bulkheads were fixed in place; access, here, is severely limited.

 

In compromise, I decided to blacken the visible surfaces of the L-Angle, since there would not be any glue applied there.  In the following picture, I have blacked-in half of the supports:

On the other hand, I refused to compromise on simulating with paint, the impression of hull depth for the stern chase ports.  Access, here, is limited, but a little better.

 

After brush priming this area, as well as the port linings with ModelMaster flat white - which laid-down beautifully, BTW, and allayed my concerns about brush-priming the stern - I blacked-in the inner bulkhead surfaces, but not completely.  I left most of what I wanted to show as red-ocher, in primer white.  The blacking was merely approximate and done by eye.

Knowing that I would be doing this, I had saved the bulkhead pattern and now used it to cut four sets of opposed masks that created a parallel line with the profile of the transom.

 

This was very fiddly and could only be accomplished with tweezers and a palate knife to finesse  the tape into position.  Once satisfied and the tape edges burnished, I applied some clear dull-coat to the seam, in order to prevent any annoying bleed into the black.

 

In hindsight, I could have made these reveals a little thinner, but the impression is still good, and at least the depth is consistent from one port to the next:

I scraped away any ugly black paint over-brushing, just to quiet the voices in my head.

 

And, finally, I glued in the window plate, the top transom moulding and the side pilasters:

I discovered, after doing so, that I had made a mistake in trimming the pilaster tops flush with the window plate; the mistake is that I had failed to accommodate the raking angle of the stern, so I will eventually have to fill a gap between each of the pilaster tops and the wrapping stern balcony above them.  This, of course, is the beauty of plastic - I can make this edit fairly easily by splicing-in plastic shims.

 

One last shot of the transom interior, showing all of the interior structure:

I gave the model a good dusting, as I will bring it to our club meeting tonight; I was astonished at how much plastic dust had accumulated, so far.  I’ll have to be more mindful of that, now, as these windows will soon be completely inaccessible.

 

As ever, thank you for looking in, your likes and your comments.  It is all very much appreciated.

Interested?  Moi?  But, of course!  Link me up, please.

The stakes are higher for you, though; wood is a commitment.  Plastic is plastic.

I’m just in awe of what you are doing here, Mark!

2nd that!  This is really well done!

I present to you the Soleil Royal memorial entryway!!

 

Wonderful colors in both portraits.  These prints were Christmas presents from many years past.  I finally got around to framing them.  BLICK did an amazing job.

In designing the upper counter moulding/shelf, I began by scribing a piece of styrene to neatly fit the round-up, against the window plate, and I then traced the outline of the counter onto the bottom of this blank.

 

Ultimately, I settled on an overhang of a light 3/32”, all around.  At first, I thought the outline of the shelf should follow the ins and outs of the pilaster bases:

But this seemed rather busy, the negative spaces between projections too small, and the overall design seemed to betray Berain’s intent.  So, for the outline, I settled upon this:

After trimming to my lines, I made sure to make a duplicate tracing - just in case I screwed up the moulding process:

I made a pair of hacksaw profile scrapers; one for the shelf, and one for the secondary lamination, beneath the shelf:

My first attempt for the shelf scraper produced a profile that was too deep and too flat looking, as seen on this piece of scrap:

So, I reground the profile, and ended up with this:

The scraper gets pretty close into the corners, but you still need to define them with a chisel, afterwards.

 

The under-moulding is very narrow, so I first scraped the cove into the straight edge of a larger sheet, and then I “ripped” off the 1/16” that I needed.

 

Just as I would with full-scale trim, everything is mitered.  When dealing with parts so small, I find it easier to tack in the short pieces, over-long, and then fit the long pieces to them.

 

Miters are first cut into the long pieces and then traced directly onto the shorts for perfectly mating joints:

Here is how that looks on the model, from a variety of angles:

To answer EJ’s question from an earlier post, I can now see that there will be ample air space behind even the side figures, so I will definitely be including the pilasters.

 

At the moment, I am working out the fixation of the window panes, so that I can paint the window openings yellow ocher, and then secure the window plate and upper transom moulding in place.

 

Thank you all for your interest!

Thank, you Mark for the kind compliment, and thank you Chris for the tip on enlarged prints.

 

Chapman, I can see what I think you are referring to in this enlargement of the bow:

There appear to be two forward facing chase guns on the forecastle deck.

 

This portrait, together with the other Vienna portrait:

... are clearly of the same ship.   Perhaps, there are forecastle guns shown along the broadside, as well.  If I enlarge this image, this is what I see:

Are there gun barrels peaking between the shrouds, from the forecastle deck?  Maybe.

 

Let’s count visible artillery:

LD: 14 + 1 un-armed chase port

MD:  14

MD:  12 - mysteriously, there appears to be one gun missing in the fore chains area, just aft of the anchor

QD: 5

FC: 2 visible in this portrait

 

Add all this up, and you have a broadside of 45 X 2 = 90 + 2 chase guns, for a total of 92.

 

If one wants to be generous and add in the six other missing FC guns, that still only brings you to 98, as opposed to Royal Louis’s 104.  Add-in the two guns missing on the main deck and you’re up to 100.

 

If you were to add-in 4 guns on the poop, you’d be at the RL’s armament, but they are clearly not visible in the portrait.

 

Neither is the known lower deck piercing for the Royal Louis of 1668:  15 + 1 unarmed chase port.

 

All of this adds up to a lot of addition of conjectural artillery, and I might add that the RL’s forecastle was never not armed.

 

And, then, there are a number of ornamental differences between this:

and this:

... the latter, of which, I believe to be the hand of either LeBrun or Girardon, as it is known that Puget was not permitted to work on the ornamental scheme for the RL.

 

Chief among these differences is the reversal of Neptune and Thetis, between the two ships, and the RL has much more going on from the stern counter, down to the waterline.

 

Also, the structure and support of the quarter deck stern balcony is markedly different between the two ships.

 

And, I always return to the signature inscribed on the Vienna drawing of the Monarque’s starboard quarter:

I believe these two ships were quite similar in appearance, but the RL was larger, more heavily armed and more ornate.

 

I also believe that Puget made these two excellent portraits of the Monarque because that was his crowning achievement, at Toulon.  The Monarque, and not the RL was his baby.

 

For anyone interested, the following link will take you to a truly excellent review of Puget’s work at Toulon, and it makes mention of the hasty grafting of the RL’s ornamental works onto the Monarque, in order to satisfy Beaufort.  It is an excellent read and a much clearer distillation of other Puget biographies that precede it:

https://www.academia.edu/41636304/La_bonne_fabrique_et_le_superbe_ornement_Pierre_Puget_s_ship_decoration
 

I know that the academic community all say that these portraits all represent the RL, but I respectfully disagree.  Nobody that I have read, to date, can definitively tie the Vienna portraits to the RL; they all simply say that it is so, while vaguely acknowledging that there are some ambiguities, there.

 

For his part, the author of Uber Den Wellen bases his analysis of the RL’s stern allegory almost entirely on the LeBrun drawing, which corresponds very closely with Hayett’s description.

 

Even the biographer I just referenced does not think there are any extant portraits of the Monarque.  I, however, think they are hiding in plain sight.

I think the black board could use a surface film - even if you prefer to stay away from gloss/semi-gloss, at least matte will give it a kore finished appearance.  I do like the contrast, though.

20 minutes ago, Chapman said:

I mean the drawing on my copy shows 2 small Chase guns and the corresponding round ports in the bulkhead on the forecastle.

Which drawing is that?  Can you please post that drawing?

Post, and post again - it is all interesting!

Thank you so much, Kurt and Marc!  I am obsessed(sive) so I will just pour endless (almost) amounts of time into the project, trying to get it right.  ‘Still married, though, and my wife still seems to like me😆

 

It is certainly a huge motivation, though, that people take an interest in the project, and cheer me on.

 

I have found that certain aspects of the build are really intense, and I need to take breaks to focus on some other less demanding aspect of the project.  Once the window panel is glued in, and all the other niggling little details of the lower stern are set, I’ll move back to the ship interior;  cut down and step the lower masts; lay the lower gun deck, fit the dummy carriages, etc.

 

Marc, I sing praises to all the world about your model.  I can’t wait to see where the Royal Balsa is at, these days!

 

Kurt - if you haven’t seen Marc Yeu’s Soleil Royal, well then, you haven’t seen anything yet!  Truly magnificent in every way!

 

All the best,

 

M

Thank you, EJ!  You raise a very good question, there.

 

Certainly, behind the center two figures there will be some space, and all of the figures will soon have an outward leaning posture.

 

At the sides, there should still be air space behind the figures, and I think that when viewed from an angle, it would look strange for there to not be pilasters - particularly behind the upper torso and heads.

 

Tonight, I plan to layout the upper counter moulding, thus establishing depth all across the counter.  It will be easier to visualize, then, whether the pilasters look cramped behind the figures.

Thank you kindly, gentlemen!  Druxey, I like your wedding cake analogy.  I’ll bet Louis’s mouth was rotten with the sweets!

 

If Marc Yeu’s model is affectionately nicknamed The Royal Balsa, maybe this project should be The Royal Trifle🙃😆 

When considering something as complicated as Soleil Royal’s stern; that is, while trying to figure out how, exactly, to get from here (sheet plastic) to there, I have found it useful to consider the ensemble as a series of layers.  There is a base layer of detail, a middle layer of detail, and a final fine layer of detail. And, in certain instances, there may even be a few additional, even finer layers.

 

In order to illustrate this build-up of layers, here is a more or less sequential montage of the process as it relates to the stern counter:

After each layer is set, be it planking or paneling, the surface is sanded fair and smooth, in order to eliminate any surface irregularities.  Here and there a touch of squadron white was necessary to level surfaces - particularly, on the side sections where any unevenness in the ground would be glaring, as seen through the panel reveals.  The edges of all the panel reveals are micro-beveled, in order to give them a more finished appearance.

I mentioned before that I would wait to define the concave bevel around the crown of the rudder head ornament.  I was waiting until after this bottom moulding of the central panel was installed.

 

Making this moulding, as well as the blank for the lambrequin carving, was accomplished by pressing blue tape across the span and into the joints of the central pedestals so that I could highlight these parameters with graphite.

 

This process doesn’t always produce absolutely perfect patterns - it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the tape is absolutely all the way into the crease - but they are close enough, so that you can fine-tune the fit of parts, after leaving yourself a little margin around your pencil lines - say the additional thickness of a pencil line.

 

In the end, I am very satisfied with the impression that the crown is recessed into the counter.  When I started this whole process, I really wasn’t sure how it was going to come out. This gives me renewed hope that the surgery I will attempt on the Four Seasons figures will work.  Despite the challenges these plastic surgeries present, they are still an enormous time-savings, over making the carvings from scratch.

Hopefully, these pictures provide a sense of the many layers involved in constructing this stern counter area.  There is a lot going on, here, in a very limited space. In recognition of that fact, one must consider just how nitty into the gritty they are willing, or is even sensible for them to delve.  At some point, there is an intersection of will and reason, and that is the place you are aiming for.

 

Take, for instance, the lambrequin carving, as it was drawn by Berain.  He shows 15 full “petals” with half-petals at the ends. Each petal is adorned with a fleur-de-lis, and three pendant tassels hanging from their bottom edge.

 

Thinking back to my experience of carving mould-masters for the frieze fleurs, I estimate that it would be damn-near impossible to carve lambrequin fleurs in this scale.  Theoretically, I could use something like Liquitex gel medium to paint on the fleurs, thus producing a light relief. I am not yet confident, though, that I could do this with any semblance of consistency.  I will try to incorporate this technique a little later, when I represent the tasseling.

 

There is, on the other hand, at least one ready-made source of fleurs that would be perfect for this application; the stock fleurs that are moulded into the kit upper bulwarks!  With these ornaments in mind, the lambrequin petals were scaled, accordingly, and I ended up with 10 full petals, bookended by half-petals.

 

Here is a brief montage showing the steps for creating the lambrequin carving:

Using two-part latex mould medium, I made moulds directly from my spare upper bulwark pieces, and then cast the blanks in white resin.  As opposed to the larger ornaments, for which you must laboriously grind away the excess backing material, these fleurs are so shallow that I could simply shave them off with a honed single edge razor.  With just a little extra cleanup, using a #11 blade, they were ready for mounting.

Once tacked in place with liquid cyano, I brushed the whole lambrequin carving with liquid cyano to ensure total adhesion and to smooth over any surface irregularities of the carving.  The back of the lambrequin carving had to be coved with a rubber profile sanding block so that it would cup neatly to the counter.  I think the scale and overall aspect of the carving harmonizes nicely with the rest of the counter.

Now that I know the full projection of all of these layers, I could begin to make the bottom and top mouldings that frame-in the counter.

 

I had great success with constructing a stacked moulding for the transom moulding, so I decided to take the same approach for the bottom counter moulding.

 

First, I pared away enough of the pedestals, at their base, so that I could pass the first layer of the moulding behind them.  This layer has a tiny coved reveal, and it’s primary purpose is to conceal the inletting of the acanthus bases of the jaumier ornament:

The overhang, at the ship’s sides is exaggerated, for now, but it will soon be backed with a thicker piece of styrene sheet (for a better sense of depth), and then trimmed to the pencil line.  This way, the outboard profile of the counter won’t interfere with the paneling of the quarter gallery, but will instead, help to define it.

The next layer of moulding is a heavier piece with a more pronounced cove moulding.  This is fitted between the pedestals:

The trick, with the above layer of moulding was to fair back it’s bottom edge, in order to create an even reveal for the final component of this triple-stack moulding.  I was hoping to preserve the tiny cove reveal at the bottom of this assembly; as you will see, the results aren’t absolutely perfect, but it still looks good, IMO.

 

So, finally, pre-shaped ¼-round Evergreen moulding runs straight across all of the pedestal base bottoms, leaving just enough space for the scrolled foot appliques that are shaped from half-round Evergreen moulding:

Now that the pedestals are located and the bottom counter moulding is in place, I could finally place the caryatid carvings, which I had previously separated from their base:

Next, I will lay out and fabricate the top counter moulding.  You can see that the projection of the counter/false gallery is quite significant.  This is actually a good thing, as it creates a deep enough shelf for the four seasons figures to sit upon:

Lastly, early in my conversations with various scholars of the epoch, almost all of them commented on the apparent exaggerated projection of the pedestal that supports the figure of Autumn:

Now, granted, as it’s drawn the pedestal only appears to be supporting Autumn, without any indication that you might also be seeing a portion of the inner pedestal that supports Summer.

 

Nevertheless, an interesting thing happened, once all pedestals were in place, at their full projection:

While I’m more or less eyeballing all of this, in terms of how thick the layers should be and how that might impact the final depth of the counter, I do think it is reasonable to say that the central projection of the counter would likely produce a similar side view, in full-scale practice.  I’m not positive whether this is architecturally right or wrong, but it is interesting, nonetheless.

 

In closing, just a few perspective shots showing all of the work on the stern, to date:

This is not a perfect, or exact recreation.  The execution is not flawless. Overall, though, the impression and resemblance is quite good.  That is what all of these successive layers of detail make possible, and there remain a few small details (rudder hinges, lambrequin tassels, etc), before this section of the model is complete.

 

More to come…. Thank you for your likes, your comments and for looking in!

Chapman, do you have an even clearer image of this portrait, or do you know where it resides?

 

Maybe I’m seeing things - it is extremely faint - but there appears to be an inscription along the bottom left edge:

It was common practice for the VdVeldes to inscribe the portraits with the ship name - often in their own creative Dutch spelling.

 

If you enlarge your screen, you can maybe see what I mean:  a script inscription.

Interestingly, I thought I was going to launch into an over/under comparison of these two images, however, they are pretty clearly distinctly different portraits.  Very similar, but different.

I still think the top image may be the Terrible, but that is only based upon the sketchiest similarities to this portrait, identified by Winfield and Roberts as the Terrible (and not the Royal Therese, as it is often ascribed):

There is also this portrait, which shares a number of attributes:

So, I have no conclusions I can draw from this, but I am very happy to add this ship to my image files.

 

Anyone else, out there, who might have similar portraits hiding in their libraries - please feel free to post them here.

 

The Terrible, as another Hubac-built ship, is an important reference for my forensic reconstruction efforts.  Good images, like the one Chapman posted, provide a wealth of interesting details.

 

Most VdV drawings of the French fleet do not show drift rails along the upper bulwarks, but this one does.

 

Similarly, details of the amortisement are rarely present, yet here is a pretty good indication of this ship’s entire quarter gallery.  La Reine, for example, is not drawn with a quarter gallery amortisement, yet it seems likely that such an important ship would have had an ornamental upper finishing to the QG.

In my image files, I found this clearer image of L’Orgieullieux from her port quarter:

Aha!!  Finally a better image of this other mystery ship.  I’ve been guessing that this is Le Terrible.  Maybe now that I can see some detail, we can draw some conclusions about this beauty!!

 

Thank you for posting this, Chapman!

Glad to see you back in the shipyard, Chris!

Chapman, I’m inclined to agree with you, that the Knyff portrait is probably La Superbe.  I was not aware that she and her sister Orgieullieux were up-graded to three-deckers.

 

I have to say that cross-referencing Winfield and Roberts with portraits of both Superbe and Orgieullieux by VdV, only seems to add to the confusion.  Here is what W&R have to say about how the armament of these two ships evolved:

As you say, Chapman, Superbe was the first to be modified, in 1673.  From 1674, presumably after upgrades had also been completed for Orgielliuex, the maximum armament both ships carried was 76 guns.

 

All well and good.  It becomes a bit more confusing when you count guns in each respective portrait.

The foreshortened view of Superbe’s starboard bow makes it difficult to count cannon barrels reliably, so I prefer to count port lids.  On the lower battery, excluding the forward-most chase port, VdV actually has drawn 15 port lids.  The upper battery shows 13 definite ports, and one mostly erased port, just behind the cathead knee.  The QD shows six ports and the FC, 3.  Two ports are shown on the poop.  Add up what can be seen, and excluding the lower battery hunting port, that amounts to a broadside of 39 (15+13+9+2), or an armament of 78.

 

Now, given her listed length between perpendiculars of 151 French feet, I find it highly improbable that she was pierced for sixteen (including the hunting port), on the lower battery.  Chalk that extra fifteenth armed port per side to a drawing error, reduce the armament by two guns, accordingly, and then you arrive at 76.  This, at least corresponds to W&R.

 

Now, let’s take a look at Orgieullieux, from her starboard stern quarter.

Here, VDV shows 14 definite lids on the low battery, but an extra two barrels, peaking beyond that, from the starboard bow.  Considering the foreshortened view, and assuming that VDV is also taking artistic license, in showing an armed hunting port (as he did with Superbe), that would amount to 15+1.  Again, given the L.O.D., I find this improbable.

 

With less ambiguity, he also shows  14 port lids on the upper battery.

 

Presumably, there are 3 FC guns, and definitely there are six QD guns shown.  But then, VDV shows three poop deck guns, as opposed to Superbe’s 2.

 

So, deduct the hunting port, as well as the improbable 15th lower battery gun, and add up everything else that’s visible:

14+14+9+3, for a broadside of 40, and a total armament of 80 guns.

 

Even if you take away two of those poop deck guns in 1685, that still only brings you down to an armament of 78 which is, yet, two more than the maximum armament listed by W&R.

 

All of this is to say - if your head isn’t spinning by now, then you are a special individual!

 

What is interesting to me is that both of these portraits must represent these ships after they were up-graded to three-deckers in 1673/74, and yet the waist is not built up, in any way, nor armed to reflect a continuous third deck battery.

 

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that the deck between the former quarter deck and forecastle was made whole, thus bridging the structure into one continuous deck, even if the waist was not also subsequently built up and armed.

 

Despite the discrepancies in what is portrayed in these VdV portraits, vs. W&R’s research, it seems that the armament upgrades, post 1673/74, were to the poop deck, alone.  Had the waist also been armed, as seems apparent in the Knyff portrait, an additional three guns, per side, would have been plausible, but that is way more than what is  either shown or listed.

 

So, returning to what can be seen of the armament in the Knyff portrait, I count the following:

Excluding the lower battery hunting port, I clearly see 15 guns; including a gun barrel that is just visible behind the cathead knee, and including the apparent entry port, I count 12 middle battery guns; on the main deck battery, including the bridged waist guns, I count 11 definite guns, and perhaps one more hidden behind the cathead for 12; the poop deck is especially hard to read - I think I see at least one gun, and maybe two.  For this tabulation, I am not including any of the guns shown protruding from the beakhead bulkhead.

 

So, what do we have?

 

15+12+12+2=41, or a total armament of 82.  Now, if you reduce the lower battery by at least two, that brings you down to 80, although a reduction of four, on the lower battery, would make better sense of the arrangement of guns on the above decks.

 

In any case, whether the truth of this Knyff ship was actually 78, or 80 or 82 guns, that falls far short of the known armament of La Reine, at 102-104 guns.  So, although the numbers don’t exactly correspond with the lists, I will have to agree with you that the apparent artillery is much more in line with that of Superbe, than La Reine - even if the waist is shown as armed.

 

When we get into these ambiguities of ship identification, I personally like to fall back on apparent artillery as a more reliable gauge of ship identity.  That is why I persistently argue that the following portrait (as well as the starboard quarter portrait that is actually inscribed the Grand Monarque) is actually of the Monarque, and not the Royal Louis:

There is no armed forecastle, here, and even if there was, the total armament would fall far short of RL’s 104.  There is no armed poop deck in these portraits, either.  Add to that a number of ornamental inconsistencies, and the distinction between these two ships becomes even clearer.  Anyway, please forgive my digression.

 

While the Van de Veldes And Puget are the best documentarians of what these ships really looked like, even they were likely to have introduced errors and inconsistencies into their drawings, or so it seems to me.

Is it possible that the aft-most QG window is merely a vestigial, or dummy window, so that it doesn’t matter where the channel wale lands, inside the QG, because you wouldn’t be able to see it?