Hubac's Historian

Thank you Chapman and Druxey, and thank you to everyone for the likes and looking in. It is all very much appreciated!

The lower transom bulkheads are all in and faired. All but two of the lower deck beams are in. I wanted to install the lateral round-up former at the counter level, however, I realized that I should first make a pattern of the interior planking rabbet, as the vertical bulkheads would need to match this shape. With a piece of green tape abutting the wing transom former (in the hope that I could simultaneously establish the bottom angle of the fashion pieces), I took a tracing of the planking rabbet: With drawing curves, I established a fair line, and I also marked the inboard and outboard boundaries of the lateral formers so that I knew how deep the cantilever of these counter bulkheads needed to be. After connecting all the dots, this is the over-tall pattern that I arrived at: I cut close to my lines and then tested the pattern at various points along the wing transom. On the starboard side, from which I established the pattern, agreement between the bulkhead former and the outboard profile of the fashion pieces was very nearly identical. However, as I moved the bulkhead pattern across the wing transom to the port side, it became visually apparent that the shape of the port side fashion piece was a different, more compressed arc. The question became just how much these two shapes differed, and what to do about it. Doing nothing would result in an unfair and awkward run of the planking as it seated on the port side. Creating two different patterns that converged toward the centerline did not seem like a better approach. This difference was difficult to ascertain, concretely, by eyeballing the bulkhead pattern as I shifted it slightly inboard or outboard, relative to the fashion pieces. It dawned on me, though, that I could make a “negative space” pattern from the bulkhead former and then offer that up directly to the fashion piece profile. Above, on the starboard side, the match is nearly perfect. However, on the port side, I could now clearly see the variance: I could also, now, use my negative pattern to trace a new line over the top end of the fashion piece, just beneath where the stern counter rises: With that sorted out, it became a simple matter of reshaping the outboard profile, in order to achieve a perfect match between starboard and port. This same principal could then be applied to the planking rabbet, in order to ensure that the rabbet was a consistent depth, all along: This new reference line showed me exactly how much higher I now needed to set the counter former on the port side: By this point, I was getting too tired to reliably do the actual fitting, so I left off here. After making these adjustments, though, I should be able to glue in the counter former and use one bulkhead pattern to frame-in this space.

I am enjoying this discussion of moulding scrapers very much, as I had many of the same questions in mind. I’m just about at the point where I’m going to need to do this myself. The mouldings look terrific, Mark!

Bravo!!

Work continues. I have profiled the stern post, which to the best of my knowledge, is not tapered. The aft edge of the rudder, on the other hand, has a definite taper that increases below the waterline. I installed the aft-most lower deck beam because the transom bulkheads would soon make this area in-accessible. These lower decks have no camber, so the beam tops are set flush with the top edge of the pre-moulded deck ledge. The doubled construction will give plenty of support and glue surface to the lower decks, and they continue at regularly spaced intervals. The vertical round-up is based on one curved pattern that begins at the point of greatest height - adjacent to the stern post - and carries through to the hull sides. As with the gussets, great care was taken to ensure good mating joints. Spacing between transom bulkheads is 3/8”. While I pre-beveled the bulkheads, prior to installation, I fair those bevels once the glue has set to ensure that I remain within my planking rabbet at the base and along the hull sides. Following is a photo montage of variable quality, that will give a better sense for what this looks like: It annoys me a little bit that the glue I paid along the joint sides isn’t neater, but it really won’t matter one bit because you will never see it. I will also glass-in the principal structural elements with epoxy, anyway. After a nice visit with my father, this weekend, I brought home the remaining guns and their carriages. Work has already begun to clean and assemble those parts. These are the quarter, f’ocsle, and poop deck guns, which will all be super-detailed, as before. I also brought home the lower mast sections, which will be reinforced with birch dowel. With the main mast, I can now step its footing and establish the rake. I also plan to make new tops of a somewhat broader diameter, so that the topmast ratlines have a more convincing spread, or slope. That’s another good small-work project for my downtime.

That is such a cool little detail! Thanks for sharing.

Hi Chuck - incredible job, so far! My question is more a point of curiosity: I noticed that as your garboard strake runs aft, close to the stern post, there’s a slightly stepped transition from one plank width to the last more narrow plank section that runs into the stern post. This appears very deliberate, and I was wondering whether it had something to do with the rabbet.

It’s been a solid week in my dry-dock. I decided, after all, to fir-out the stem piece, and now - short of a Battle with Bar Floor, as Popeye2Sea once funnily quipped - there should be little chance of my bow crumbling. I also added a series of tabs 1/8”x1/8”, along the hull/base joint before glassing the whole thing over with epoxy. So, now I could turn my attention to the fully scratch-built component of this project - the stern. Earlier, I had created an over-wide pattern for the lateral/outboard (port to starboard) curve of the round-up, but I also needed to create an over-wide pattern for the upward-arching camber of the round-up, as round-up is a combination of these two curvatures. For this camber pattern, I used the bottom edge of the stock kit stern plate to establish the line. This is necessary because I will be extracting the stock stern windows from this plate and heat-bending them to conform to the lateral round-up. I’m always looking to recycle what I can, so I suppose the stern isn’t “completely” scratch. For my immediate needs, though, I duplicated the camber pattern and made a glueing fixture with a 1/4” separation between the two curves. The reason for that is that I am laminating 2, 1/16” pieces of sheet styrene to form lateral framing ties that bridge the transom, and tie the whole model together. The first of these, above the base plate, is in the position of what would be the wing transom of a traditionally framed ship. For the sake of all SR nerds out there (like me 🤓), I will note that the Tanneron/Heller positioning of the wing transom is below the stern chase ports - as popularly became the French practice after 1672?/73; the actual first SR had a wing transom that remained above the chase ports, even after the re-build of 1689 - if the Berain stern drawing is to be interpreted as a literal document of the ship’s actual framing. So, for this model, I set to work patterning my “wing transom” below the ports. In order to make reasonably accurate measurements, inside the hull, I cut two strips of scrap styrene so that they were each about an inch longer than the centerline. I cut points on one end if each strip, and then I lapped the strips and extended those points to both the outboard and inboard spans that I was trying to measure. Once I made contact, at each end, I marked the overlap of the strips with a sharp pencil, so that I could then measure that against my ruler. One picture would have explained all of that very succinctly, but I failed to take that picture😔 Anyway, after a fair amount of fitting, I got one lamination pretty close to the right fit (without spreading the upper span of the stern more than I wanted), and then used that first piece to mark out and cut the second lamination. Factored into the layout of these pieces is an extra 1/32” of an inch, beyond the straight span, so that the piece will still fit snuggly after the camber is induced. After spreading plenty of styrene adhesive, I taped the assembly into my camber jig and left it over-night. Although I was skeptical that such a shallow curve would impart much permanence to the cured assembly - there was virtually no spring-back: So, then, I did the final fitting (except for the stern post notch) and glued the wing transom in place. In order to make the glue-up easier to locate, I glued in positive stops (small trapezoidal tabs) just above each joint, in order to ensure that the WT lands between the two lower main wales, on each side. Tabs visible in pic, below; For the stern post, I laminated four pieces of 1/16” sheet into a 1” x 2” billet. It’s way over-size, but I wanted plenty of room to layout the vertical round-up of the lower transom and the corresponding rake of the stern post. After easing the plate notches to accommodate the stern post billet, I was pleased to see that the assembly had remained square. My plan for the stern post is that it will notch into and also support the wing transom from underneath, as a means of ensuring that the camber remains consistent throughout the construction process. In the next picture, you can see how the billet notches into and over the base plate and into and under the WT: Also pictured are the lateral blanks being made for the next level of the stern, at the level of the stern counter. For visual guidance, in laying out the vertical roundup, and the rake of the stern post, I referenced Lemineur’s monograph of the SP (visible on the chair): The curve of the round-up is pretty well proscribed between the outboard edge of the WT and the planking rabbet of the base plate. I had to re-draw the rake of the stern post several times in order to find the happy medium that looked appropriate, while helping to balance the somewhat exaggerated overhang of my stern counter: The outboard parallel line indicates the beveling of the stern post. The rudder, itself, will be a separate assembly, however, I am not concerned about that, at the moment. I will be, though, when I have to pierce the counter planking, in order to accommodate the rudder head - what the French call the “Jaumiere.” I’ll now need to profile the stern post. I’m not sure whether the stern post also receives a slight out-board taper, but I’ll investigate that. It may be possible for the sternpost to notch into and support the camber for the counter-spanning piece, which I have nearly completed fitting: Here, my finger induces the camber that the gluing fixture will soon impart: Once this second camber piece is glued in place, along with the stern post, I can frame in the vertical members that will make planking possible. Thank you to everyone for your likes, your comments and for looking in. Have a wonderful weekend!

Well, the maple will patinate to a nice golden color over time. This picture frame was bright white when I made it 10 years ago, but it turned this color within 4-5 years. The oil darkened it a little, at first, but not much.

Superb interior fitting out, Jose!

Hi Mark, yes, I think you may be right; I don’t think they are deck beams, but perhaps they are the bench framing for the two ship’s boats, side by side. Chris’s future pics should help clarify that. I was wondering, Chris, when it was that you were giving your presentation. Hopefully, someone will be recording it, and maybe you can share it. Even if you are speaking in German, I’d love to see what you have assembled. Bon chance!, as they say in France.

Thank you, Chris, for posting these wonderful pictures from the Floating Baroque exhibition. I had wanted to get a better look at the SR model, which is very nicely painted, but the museum had only released the one photo of the stern. Your pictures, though, allow for a more thorough examination. It appears as though the modeler has chosen to show the waist of the main weather deck as being open; beams are in place, but the opening seems much wider than would be allowed for the hatch gratings. Is that, in fact, the case? As for my SR, it has been a busy week of structural re-inforcement. The weakest area of the model is the bow, where I glued in the extensions. Although I had a good mating, welded bond here, the thought of this area springing open, sometime down the road, is not a welcome one. In an effort to avoid that I have added styrene backing pieces at the top and bottom of the joint, where it was practical to do so: The upper backing piece will be visible above the planking of the short beakhead deck planking. Visually, this adds a little needed heft to what is a pretty anemic stem piece. While it would be preferable to add that stem depth to the front, only the most astute eye may notice that the stem extends a little further aft than it should. I may, yet, add a 1/32” strip to the forward face of the stem, where it is most needed. Before I can do so, though, I needed to true-up the face of this joint. One casualty of the heat-bending for the bow extensions is that the stem pieces no longer matched the same bow curvature. It is worth mentioning that, even if you build this kit straight out of the box, the bow still won’t align neatly, however, my surgery only exacerbated the problem. Rather than sand the proud side down to the lower (and risk further diminishing the outboard stem profile), or using filler (which is not a good glue surface) - I elected to add in styrene strip, and then fair back that surface to one uniform plane: Whether I decide to add another strip, or eventually proceed with the cutwater and knees of the head, I will have a good bonding surface to build from. Next, it was on to gusseting the interior. I noticed, after installing the first pair of gussets, that my bottom plate no longer seemed to lay flat against my dead-flat counter surface. Now, to my dismay, there appeared to be a consistent crown, athwart-ships, that ran the whole length of the bottom plate: After I had been so careful to true the bottom edges of the hull, as well as to ensure that the base sheet of plastic was totally flat, I was really confused as to why I suddenly had developed this crown. I feared that something about the glue-up process of either the hull, or now the gussets, was distorting the base shape. Ultimately, did it matter what was happening beneath the lowest gun deck, I wondered? As long as it wasn’t getting worse, I reasoned, then it did not. However, then I realized that I had to box-in a stepping for the lower main mast, directly onto the mid-ship doubling. This does matter because you can’t have a bouncy main mast. Before shimming, I decided to carry through with the gusseting, in order to see whether there was any change: Fortunately, there was not. About midway, through though, it dawned on me where I had made my mistake. Rather than scribe a center-line down the base plinth, I should merely have penciled in the line. When the razor tip breaks the surface tension of the plastic, the sheet then crowns upward; I had done a particularly deep scribe too, which would explain the degree of deflection. While I didn’t initially put two and two together, I did notice that when I scribed for the doublings, the base plinth also crowned in the other direction. I didn’t think much of it, though, as it benefited the glue-up. So, satisfied with the gusseting and that the problem wasn’t getting worse, I went in and glued 1/4” x 1/16” strip down along the center-line, and then sanded down any high spots, checking with a straight edge. At this point, even without the transom framed in, the hull is fairly rigid and very strong. I took great care to ensure that the gussets were neatly scribed to both the hull and the angle of the base plinth. When I glued them in, I really wet the edge with liquid styrene adhesive and allowed a 10-second count so that the glue had enough time to melt the edge. Then, when I seated the plastic with moderate finger pressure, I was guaranteed that the softened white plastic would fill whatever remaining voids my eyes could not see - even with backlighting, during the fitting process. So, now, I will go back and feed epoxy into all of these seams. I will epoxy-in the 1/4X20 nuts, so that I can secure the model to its plywood construction base. And then, the real fun can begin with the framing and planking of the lower transom.

Kirill - nice to see you back at work. The ship looks just spectacular! The potal is a striking contrast to the gold acrylic. Does this product retain its luster, over time, or is it necessary to varnish or lacquer over it? Also, I am intrigued by your new 3-D tafferal medallion. I see what looks like an impression of the medallion in grey modeling clay. It is an interesting idea to contain the clay within a jar lid. So, my questions are these: Is that, in fact, just plain old modeling clay, or is it a rubberized mould medium? Did you sculpt the negative impression of the medallion into the clay, so that you could then make a resin casting? What, exactly, is your process, there?

No apologies necessary, MD 😃 I’m just happy that you are here.

Wow! Those ratlines look really good.

Coming from you, MD, these are high compliments, indeed! I took great inspiration from your Vasa build because you had gone to such great lengths to add to and upgrade the stock kit. Speaking to the lantern, I try to remain constructive in my criticism, and that was one example where not a lot had to be undone, but a better lantern would do so much to compliment what is such a fantastic model. I look forward to seeing this finishing touch. Speaking toward research, much of what I am rambling on about will be particularly helpful for the next, fully scratch-built SR that I will get to, sometime, whenever. While completely conjectural in nature, that model will not be hampered by any constraints in hull form or armament. My objective for the research log has been to provide one-stop shopping that attempts to provide an historic framework for all of this contemporary imagery that is floating around. I am gratified in knowing that you have enjoyed the log, so far 😀

Thank you, EJ. I appreciate that!

Hi Jan! Actually, the styrene plinth will not be visible at all; I will recess the base into whatever material it is that I make the sea from. I’m leaning towards carving the sea into 1” blue board, and then doing a highly realistic gel sea, like some of the best steel navy modelers do. It will take some experimentation to figure all of that out. Initially, I was going to glue the hull halves around the plinth edge, but the compound curves of the hull inner-surface make doing so a very tricky proposition. I did not think that I would get a good connection around most of the hull. As it is, just beveling the vertical gussets to fit snug is something of a challenge because they need to be plumb and square to the centerline, so that I can bridge the span between them with flat deck “beams” on the two lower decks.

Thank you, Mark and Backer! Last night, I bedded down the other hull half and began fitting and gluing in the gussets. Even with just the stem glued together, the construction is considerably stiffer than I expected it to be. Nevertheless, I will completely over-build the thing.

I was going to wait a little longer to post, in order to also show interior re-enforcements, but today was something of a milestone. Today, this project ceased to be merely a collection of super detailed and modified parts; today, my collection of parts became the beginnings of a scale model! The foundation of the model is 5/32” sheet styrene. After scribing a centerline, and clamping the hull halves together, at the stem, I set the transom distance, apart, at 3 7/8” for the lower stern counter. This is the space allowance, within the exterior planking, that I need to incorporate the missing sixth stern light. The arc for the round-up of the transom was a gentle curve, by eye, and in accordance with what Lemineur shows in his monograph for the St. Philippe. After tacking the hull in place, with blue tape, I used a mechanical pencil to mark both the interior and exterior location of each hull half. This was necessary, as my objective, in the glue-up, was to set the hull halves down on the plinth and allow them to set, without top weights. When I tried to use a book or two as a top-weight, during the glue-up procedural trial, the extra weight would inevitably introduce a noticeable degree of hull distortion, while opening gaps at the plinth joint. Once my lines were clearly established, I scribed them all in with a no. 11 knife. Above, the transom appears radically out of square, but this is merely a trick of perspective. I squared the transom layout with a Starrett combo square. After scribing in my lines, I sanded the surface of the plinth base with 150 grit paper. Of all modeling materials, styrene is questionably more ephemeral than most, so I like to ensure both a solid welded bond and a solid mechanical bond, for the later application of epoxy. Sanding assists both ends. A slightly less distorted pic of the squared transom: A few of the pictures, above, create an exaggeratedly spread impression of the transom, but again, this has more to do with my inept photography. These two pictures, above, give a better sense for the reality. Next, I wanted to incorporate a series of doubling strips for the bow, waist and stern. The waist doubling, will also serve as the footing for the main mast, and so, it is scribed with cross-hairs to mark the mast location. The tapered arc pattern to the left, here, is actually a wider pattern that I will need to carry the round-up, up through the stern. It is merely taped, here, for convenience’s sake. After sanding these doublings, I glued them down within their scribe lines. The two holes drilled along the centerline are for the quarter/20 screw and nut that will attach the model to it’s plywood construction base The comparison, above, illustrates the comparable sense of breadth, achieved with the bow extensions, while allowing for the more rounded Heller Hull form. The St. Philippe is notably flatter in the waist and bluffer in the bow, nevertheless, both proposals offer a stable platform for heavy armament, IMO. So, with all of that sorted out, I taped-off from the waterline, up, to avoid glue seepage above the waterline. I applied a generous bead of styrene glue (Testors liquid) to both the hull edge and the plinth edge, in order to ensure a good, welded bond between both surfaces. There was good white/black seepage, along most of the edge, indicating a strong bond. I will use a coarse card file to pare back the heavy 1/32” of excess plinth, outside the hull. It will be clear when the card file frees the masking tape from the glue squeeze-out. While the glue-up was in process, I worked this paint spatula, beneath the plinth, in those areas where there was no squeeze-out - indicating an area where there was not a perfect mating surface. My belief is that doing so made a positive weld across 95% of the joint surface. The subsequent gusseting will only serve to stiffen the construction. At the end of the day, this really doesn’t amount to much, but for me - this is very gratifying. I appreciate every one of you who have stuck it out this long. Thank you all very much for taking an interest in this project.

Very well done, Sea Hoss - beautiful, clean work!

Well said, Mark! And the model you are making is every bit the part of the original upon which she’s based.

It certainly is, in my opinion! There are probably something in the neighborhood of 30 really great and interesting builds going, on MSW. Because of the variety of subjects, it’s a difficult thing to objectively quantify, but Mark’s model is a top-7 build for me!

Thank you, Henry! I agree with you on the trunnion notches; correcting this, though, meant adjusting the notches, as well as the under support, at this point, and the quoin elevation. For me - it wasn’t worth all of that. I am debating how to simulate the cap squares, or even whether I will do so. I’ma jump over to your build and see what you did. As always, thanks for weighing in!

I, for one, am happy with the results! I love the attention to detail.