Hubac's Historian

Coming along really nicely, Eric.  As for the painting, my suggestion would be the following:  if you still have scrap hulls, I would use them to sort through your color schemes and practice your technique.  It will give you confidence, and it will help to demystify the process of getting a professional finish, free of brush-strokes.

So... hopefully my next post will be showing cardboard templates of head rails... but first.....
 
I needed to trim down the top surface of the upper knee. Note the cardboard template is much thinner than the current styrene version as it tapers on its run to the back of the figurehead (I cut the cardboard template off where the base of the figurehead sits on the lower knee for ease of use). The hair bracket is lightly sketched in... it will be 5mm in width at the stem and will taper to 1-2mm in width by the time it reaches the base of the figurehead. However, the top edge of the upper knee needs to: 1) duplicate the curve of the hair bracket and 2) have an even 2mm rise above the hair bracket curve.
 
This 2mm rise above the hair bracket will support the head rail support brackets... BIG thanks to Marc LaGuardia for helping me to understand this relationship!
 

 
So... I am going to start making cardboard templates of the top head rail, and go from there. I do have to consider the perspective of my sketch, though, as the sketch is only 2-dimensional, and the distance from the top of the beakhead bulkhead to the rosette is a straight line 100mm in length. However, in the 3-dimensional world of the model, the straight line length is 120mm or so, as indicated by the needle file. So maybe I just have to make a copy of my sketch, and lengthen it by 20% to lengthen the head rail? Regardless, I expect there will be a lot of trial and error here, but this is a required and critical step. Once the knees and the head rails and the fifurehead all fit perfectly... then the hull can be glued together.
 
That sort of scares me, as that means painting is coming, and that will be a whole new learning experience!
 

 
 
 
 

Good day Michael!
She is getting more beautiful and beautiful and buytiful  with each stage completed , Great Job You made !
I like it very much!
All The Best!
Kirill

Thank you, Frank, nice to hear from you. I ended up redoing the knighthead for the main lower tie to a four sheave, I used .4mm line for the ties and top rope and .2mm for the fall, the rams head measures approximately 4.5mm, 30" at scale, also I needed to install the Mizen lower stay collar and fabricate a 1.70mm 5-hole dead eye, 9.75" at scale to check the clearance at the railing, next Ill fabricate the parral before finally gluing in the lower main mast. Thanks for looking.
 
Michael D.

Such a beautiful and epic build.  Really nice job!!
 
I sometimes have a similar beverage at hand as in post #2574 to get through parts of a build  

Vellum is fantastic because you can erase on it over and over and it won’t disintegrate like regular paper.  Once I have a design I like, I clean up as much loose graphite as I can, and I spray the drawing with hairspray as a fixative.  I have a whole cache of these drawings that I have made for the model.
 
Accurate scale drawings are indispensable for this kind of scratch work.  Otherwise, you end up chasing your tail trying to approximate what’s needed in the available space.

Oh, I would love to see that!

Henry - I’m sorry I missed your post, here.
 
I actually think that I remember this discussion of the main brace on your build-log.
 
Currently, and not very oftenly, I am still detailing the lin-stock tubs.  I have decided that I would go through the Heller rigging instructions, line for line, and make notes and sketch modifications that are more representative of the time, referencing Anderson, Lees and Marquardt.  Standing rigging first.  Running rigging second.  That will be my process.
 
I wish that I had more time to really focus on the project, but I find myself pulled in many different directions; finding a college for my daughter, a HS for my son (they are almost exactly 4 years apart), coaching hoop, and protesting what is happening in our country; all of this, among the ordinary and every day stuff.  So many of you have been there and beyond, yourselves, so I know you know.
 
Despite the fact that I am not very visibly active on this site, I am still following all of your excellent work.  As always, I appreciate all of you for looking-in, your likes, suggestions and comments.
 
All the best,
 
M

Aaaah, okay - perfect!  Thank you, Dan. Sand makes perfect sense to me, as it would provide extra ballast, keeping the cask firmly planted upright.
 
So, with this in mind, I can cut away the linstock staffs, drill out the centers, scribe staves, add barrel bands and a lanyard.
 
The other thing I’ve been debating is the feasibility of the profusion of single knight-heads.  The French, at this time, do seem to like lashing blocks to an eye in the deck, as a fairlead to a cleat on the deck.  I could do that.  I could.  However, the single knights are sheaved, combining both functions into one.  I will probably use these knights, as I can’t find any argument against them.
 
For the fore and main braces, though, I will employ the block/cleat configuration to each side of the gratings.

Good that you checked!

Marc,
I have a spreadsheet that I have partially completed that details and elaborates on all of the rigging.  It is still a work in progress (Life, right?), but I can send it to you.  I will also send the finished product when done.
 
Regards,
Henry

"Drench",  nice.  I will have to remember that one.

In order to create card templates for my head rails, I need a precise pattern. I finally got around to drawing on vellum. I scanned in the ship hull and new head parts that I created, and then saved than scan. I then printed it on vellum directly from the printer, and I had a pretty good template.
 
It took me several hours of measuring and drawing with French curves after looking at a number of VDV drawings to try and capture that "older" type of Dutchy head rail. I was satisfied with the somewhat finished drawing on the right. There - I had the basis to start cutting head rail card templates!
 
Except... something wasn't quite right... I laid the hull on the vellum drawing for a final check... and it was off. I discovered that my vellum drawing was 4.9% smaller than the original... that sounds small, but it was plenty big enough to create seemingly huge errors!
 
I rescanned again, and got the same result?? I checked Google, and apparently "minor" scan size errors are not uncommon; it suggested a few minor fixes. The print on the left is now exactly the same size as the original scanned drawing.... so I will print the drawing on the left on vellum, and draw the head railings again.
 

Henry - I’m sorry I missed your post, here.
 
I actually think that I remember this discussion of the main brace on your build-log.
 
Currently, and not very oftenly, I am still detailing the lin-stock tubs.  I have decided that I would go through the Heller rigging instructions, line for line, and make notes and sketch modifications that are more representative of the time, referencing Anderson, Lees and Marquardt.  Standing rigging first.  Running rigging second.  That will be my process.
 
I wish that I had more time to really focus on the project, but I find myself pulled in many different directions; finding a college for my daughter, a HS for my son (they are almost exactly 4 years apart), coaching hoop, and protesting what is happening in our country; all of this, among the ordinary and every day stuff.  So many of you have been there and beyond, yourselves, so I know you know.
 
Despite the fact that I am not very visibly active on this site, I am still following all of your excellent work.  As always, I appreciate all of you for looking-in, your likes, suggestions and comments.
 
All the best,
 
M

Henry - I’m sorry I missed your post, here.
 
I actually think that I remember this discussion of the main brace on your build-log.
 
Currently, and not very oftenly, I am still detailing the lin-stock tubs.  I have decided that I would go through the Heller rigging instructions, line for line, and make notes and sketch modifications that are more representative of the time, referencing Anderson, Lees and Marquardt.  Standing rigging first.  Running rigging second.  That will be my process.
 
I wish that I had more time to really focus on the project, but I find myself pulled in many different directions; finding a college for my daughter, a HS for my son (they are almost exactly 4 years apart), coaching hoop, and protesting what is happening in our country; all of this, among the ordinary and every day stuff.  So many of you have been there and beyond, yourselves, so I know you know.
 
Despite the fact that I am not very visibly active on this site, I am still following all of your excellent work.  As always, I appreciate all of you for looking-in, your likes, suggestions and comments.
 
All the best,
 
M

Henry - I’m sorry I missed your post, here.
 
I actually think that I remember this discussion of the main brace on your build-log.
 
Currently, and not very oftenly, I am still detailing the lin-stock tubs.  I have decided that I would go through the Heller rigging instructions, line for line, and make notes and sketch modifications that are more representative of the time, referencing Anderson, Lees and Marquardt.  Standing rigging first.  Running rigging second.  That will be my process.
 
I wish that I had more time to really focus on the project, but I find myself pulled in many different directions; finding a college for my daughter, a HS for my son (they are almost exactly 4 years apart), coaching hoop, and protesting what is happening in our country; all of this, among the ordinary and every day stuff.  So many of you have been there and beyond, yourselves, so I know you know.
 
Despite the fact that I am not very visibly active on this site, I am still following all of your excellent work.  As always, I appreciate all of you for looking-in, your likes, suggestions and comments.
 
All the best,
 
M

That will work for the fore braces, but the main brace standing end starts right aft on an eyebolt on the exterior bulkhead aft of the mizzen channels. The plan has the working end made fast to the flagstaff. Obviously that is incorrect, but I have not yet worked out where to belay it. Perhaps to one of the kevels in front of the half poop deck.
 
Regards,

It seems quite reasonable to me that all QG windows would be false.  You have given me good reason to black-out the single window on the Quarter Deck level of my model.  Observe Tanneron’s model of L’Agreable of 1697.  All QG windows are shown as false:

 
As for placement of guns within the quarter galleries, one thing seems pretty certain to me.  A gun would not have been rigged in the door opening to the QG.  This, for all the reasons you mention, but most especially because it must remain a clear pass-through - even in battle.  If one doubts that officers had the need to use the facilities during battle, they must consider that battle raged for hours and hours at a time, and they were certainly anxiety producing affairs.
 
The Tanneron model of Soleil Royal is a confusing representation of the structure and function of the QGs.  I will preface my following comments with the disclaimer that they are merely my observations, and not expert-verified facts.
 
Tanneron, in my opinion, has created a composite of what Soleil Royal may have looked like, both at the beginning of her career in 1670 and after the replacement SR was built in 1693.
 
Early features include the very tall stern, the completely open quarters and three stern balconies.  The overall shape of the QGs, on the other hand, suggests the style of ships built during the second major building program of the 1690’s.  The primary difference would be that the bottles, by this later date, would have been completely closed-in, in order to adhere to the reglements mandating this change in approach.
 
Tanneron shows an extra port on the main deck level, at the forward edge of the QG, where it makes structural sense to place a port within the QG.  Also, though, he shows a port in the middle of the QG at the middle deck battery.  This should be where the entry door to the QG is placed.  Instead Tanneron shows this door opening from the center of the lower stern balcony, which is represented as open and walkable.

Perhaps, Tanneron pulled this idea from the conceptual LeBrun drawing for the Royal Louis of 1668, and the finished Girardon drawing of the same.  Both show an open doorway in the center of the lower stern balcony, which suggests a walkable balcony:


In my view, though, there are several issues with Tanneron’s construction, at this level.  My primary issue is that it seems to ignore the practical function of the QG as a functioning toilet.  If the lower stern balcony wraps to the quarters, where is the seat of ease supposed to be?
 
The other issue has to do with the fact that even at this early time in the 1670’s, a lower stern balcony would be vulnerable to heavy following seas, and could be washed away.  It is my belief, that the lower stern balcony was always a bit of theatrical representation; a shallow decoration of the lower stern counter, made to look like a walkable balcony, but whose functional purpose is really to serve as a shelf for the Four Seasons figures that support the middle balcony.
 
As you mention, though, there are early contemporary drawings that support the idea that the QG’s were occasionally armed.  See the Royal Therese, below:

 
And, also, a contemporary drawing of the port of Rochefort:


The vessel above shows a gun through a panel opening, forward of center.  I think, perhaps, that your idea for a split panel has some traction.  That is the solution Lemineur applied to the middle deck stern chase ports of the St. Philippe of 1693:

As for your email problems, perhaps the issue might resolve itself, if you created a new email account for your client correspondences.  ‘Might be a glitch in your current account.  Computers and their inner workings remain a mystery to me.  I am like the dog that has no conception of what happens to their owner, when he walks out the front door.

The parral is completed using 0.5mm thick styrene for the ribs and 1.0mm rod for the trucks, I did consider doing something different and forming the trucks out of sculpy clay but settled on my usual method at this scale. the parral measures out just under 5mm in height. I did strop the jeer block to the yard using a 3mm single block, 24" at scale. Thanks for looking as always.
 
Michael D.
 
 

Generally, shipwrights avoid cutting timbers into long tapering points because those sharp timber ends become much more prone to rotting quickly.  This is why deck planking is “joggled” into the margin plank, for example:

As it relates to the stem, it is also quite beneficial for the structure of the thing to be inter-locking with the use of hooks and scarfs.  I’ve taken the liberty to draw an approximate sketch of your cutwater:

Ideally, you don’t want the gammoning holes to cross between timber joins.
 
As for the tapering of the cutwater, Lemineur shows it as a long gradual taper across the full depth of the cutwater:

However, he also shows the foot of the cutwater as being full width, while the head of the cutwater (behind the head of the Figurehead) is tapered to half-width:

The way to understand this, I think, is that the foot of the cutwater is very shallow in depth, as opposed to the head of the cutwater, which extends some 30’ further, ahead of the stem.
 
From a practical standpoint, you want that taper to be most pronounced at the foot of the cutwater, as it improves water-flow.  This is what you have done.  I do think, though, that the full depth of the cutwater should have a gradual tapering, back to full width where it meets the stem.  What this means is that your cutwater foot will have a much more pronounced looking taper, because you are reducing by anywhere from a 1/3 to a 1/2 width, over a relatively short span:

I hope that makes sense.

My goal of building as much of the "from scratch" head structure in advance and to also have a precise fit is not going to work with my current stem padding piece.
 
I wanted to make the stem thicker, a uniform 5mm thick when viewed from the side, and 6mm wide when viewed from the front. I also created slots that match the kit openings in the hull, so the tabs on the head pieces lock into the hull.
 

 
The problem is that I built a straight piece that needs to be flexed to the curve of the stem; it fits perfectly, but pushes like a spring so I simply cannot get the head structure to sit nice and tight (at least without glue, but I can't glue yet).
 
So I need a curved stem padding piece that fits with no bending stress/strain.
 
Back to the drawing board. I scanned the hull to get the precise shape of the stem.
 

 
Then a card template was made and affixed to 2mm thick thick styrene and it was drilled out.
 

 
After wasting away the excess and then some sanding, the new stem padding piece fits precisely with no bending/flexing required. Now I just need to follow the same process and make several other curves so I can laminate them together to make a 6mm wide piece (viewed fore to aft).

 
Now, the head piece tabs will insert through the padding into the hull, where I can use small clamps on the tabs to hold them firmly on the inside. So maybe 2 steps forwards, and now one back.... but I will get much better results as I create the head structure. 
 
 

Hi Guys - does anyone know what specifically these are?  They are part of the battle-station equipment for each gun. I think it is a cask, and perhaps the barrel swab is the long handle?
 

Just incredible!

Just incredible!

Just incredible!