Hubac's Historian

After frittering away a few weeks trying to find Adobe disc software that is compatible with my operating system, and failing miserably, I have conceded that I will have to subscribe to the creative cloud on a monthly basis, which should provide ample incentive to get the drawing done.
 
In the meantime, though, I was playing around with layouts for the upper bulwark frieze and have settled for spacing that I think works really well, with the existing architecture.  Bear in mind, of course, that I haven't yet drawn in the other quarter deck ports, the railings, or the ribbon strakes in their entirety.  This is just a line drawing to see how a pattern repeating every 3/4" spaced out.  I haven't extended the pattern further aft, just yet, because much of this space is filled with mermaids, the figure of Africa and the quarter piece supporting the side lantern.
 

 
I think this arrangement gives me reasonable space for all of the alternating shells, fleur-de-lis, scrolls and diamonds that accent the frieze to co-exist without seeming too cluttered.  I had hoped that I wouldn't have to entirely scrape away the ribbon strakes that delineate each level, but with the exception of where they frame a railing - I will have to scrape away the rest and use their ghost footprint as my guide for laying down the new pattern.  The frieze will be made up from fairly thin sheet styrene that I can cut easily with an Exacto blade, and build up a little bit with fine styrene rod, or half-round running the center line of each lattice segment.
 
One thing that is apparent to me now, is that I will have to simplify my quarter deck window embelishments; excising the side details, but perhaps leaving the coved arch and the fid beneath the sill.  At the aft end of each railing, I am experimenting with a small scallop cut-out into the planking which does not match the placement of the detail, beneath the sea serpent rail cap, but nonetheless echos the detail and might add something of value to the design.  Maybe not, though.
 
That's the thing about this sort of interpretation; out of necessity, I will not be able to copy exactly what is pictured in the Compardel portrait, but I should come pretty close and create a pretty strong impression of the original idea.

Given the crowded and complicated nature of the ornament surounding the quarter galleries, I wanted to sketch in the various elements (the mermaids, the figure if Africa sitting on her caryatid archway, the quarter piece supporting the side lantern, and the crown and flames), in order to get a sense for their relative proportions and whether I could make it all work in the space available to me.
 

 
What I found was that the 1/4" extension I was adding to the stern was not going to be sufficient, however, if I added an extra 1/8" (the dotted, parallel line that previously represented the round-up of the upper stern) - then I had enough room to make it work.
 
once all of those elements were sketched in place, and relatively close to their ideal shape and size, I was able to complete the freize layout around them.  I think that when I digitize this image, I'll be able to shorten Africa a bit, and lengthen the quarter piece just enough to seem right.  Anyway, now that I can see where the frieze falls, in the midst of it all, I am now fully confident that I can pull this project off and produce something good.
 
I can't really continue to fill in detail on this sheet of regular bond paper because the surface integrity of the paper is failing with all of the erasures and re-working of the design.  As tends to happen with this approach - the surface is also becoming too muddy with loose graphite.  I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to commit all of this time to learning software, only to discover that there are layout problems that I couldn't overcome.  An astute eye will notice discrepancies between what I am drawing and what is shown in either the black and white stern drawing or the Compardel interpretation of the same, however, there are a few small choices that were necessary for me to either include certain important detail, or omit less critical detail that overly clutters the design.  Again, the proportions of all of this are not yet ideal, but workable now, with the software.
 
here is how the frieze layout translates to the f'ocsle:
 

Michel Saunier has very graciously agreed to share some of the specific information he has compiled about Soleil Royal, over the years.  In his working life, Mr. Saunier was an engineer, and the following spreadsheet is a sort of mathematical portrait of the ship.  There is more than enough information, here, to make a really sound reconstruction of Soleil Royal, just as Mr. Saunier is doing.  For his part, he combined this dimensional information with the work of Jean Boudriot, who drafted plans for L'Ambiteaux, in order to arrive at his hull form.  Below is the Google Translated version of the letter he sent me, accompanied by the spreadsheet, which is staggering in its completeness.  As he implores me to do at the end of this letter, I hope we will all make good use of this tremendous gift of scholarship.  For so many of us who are lacking the means to go visit the archives for the many weeks it would take to sift through and assemble this information, this truly is a tremendous gift of intellectual effort and demonstrates his absolute commitment to the project of resurrecting Soleil Royal.  Perhaps this information exists, somewhere, on-line.  But, go find it.  I've been searching on-line for years and have only come away with the basic dimensions of the ship.   I will not attempt to translate the XCEL spreadsheet, for fear that I may in-advertently make a mistake that is mis-leading.  Frankly, I have yet to sift through the document in any detailed way, but I can see just how complete it is.  Everything you'll see is in the antiquated French foot, so just multiply by the Battle of Hastings (1.066) to arrive at the modern English foot.
 
Thank you Michel Saunier!
 
From M. Saunier via Google Translate:
 
good morning Marc

I recovered in its time a document of the "Havre de Grace" which indicates a survey of the dimensions of a ship in Brest on the shipyards. This vessel is marked "drilled at 16", that is to say with 16 ports on the first battery. At that time only the Royal Sun was pierced at 16 and moreover all the dimensions correspond. It is therefore a document of a survey of the SR in 1688.

On the other hand I have found another document which gives the dimensions of the elements of the mature of the Royal Sun.

I have other documents found elsewhere that supplement this data.

I have gathered this data in an EXCEL file. I join him to this message.

All that is missing are the water lines, but I have reconstituted them to the best for my project.

Make good use of this gift.

Michel
 
 
SR Dimensions.webarchive
Keel, Stem, Sternpost.webarchive

P.S. I was just trying to open the above links, and was told I couldn't because they were from an "unknown web developer".  Not sure whether that is just a problem for me.  Although, I was able to open them on my computer, directly from the email that Michel sent me.  Let me know whether you have trouble opening the links.

Michel Saunier has very graciously agreed to share some of the specific information he has compiled about Soleil Royal, over the years.  In his working life, Mr. Saunier was an engineer, and the following spreadsheet is a sort of mathematical portrait of the ship.  There is more than enough information, here, to make a really sound reconstruction of Soleil Royal, just as Mr. Saunier is doing.  For his part, he combined this dimensional information with the work of Jean Boudriot, who drafted plans for L'Ambiteaux, in order to arrive at his hull form.  Below is the Google Translated version of the letter he sent me, accompanied by the spreadsheet, which is staggering in its completeness.  As he implores me to do at the end of this letter, I hope we will all make good use of this tremendous gift of scholarship.  For so many of us who are lacking the means to go visit the archives for the many weeks it would take to sift through and assemble this information, this truly is a tremendous gift of intellectual effort and demonstrates his absolute commitment to the project of resurrecting Soleil Royal.  Perhaps this information exists, somewhere, on-line.  But, go find it.  I've been searching on-line for years and have only come away with the basic dimensions of the ship.   I will not attempt to translate the XCEL spreadsheet, for fear that I may in-advertently make a mistake that is mis-leading.  Frankly, I have yet to sift through the document in any detailed way, but I can see just how complete it is.  Everything you'll see is in the antiquated French foot, so just multiply by the Battle of Hastings (1.066) to arrive at the modern English foot.
 
Thank you Michel Saunier!
 
From M. Saunier via Google Translate:
 
good morning Marc

I recovered in its time a document of the "Havre de Grace" which indicates a survey of the dimensions of a ship in Brest on the shipyards. This vessel is marked "drilled at 16", that is to say with 16 ports on the first battery. At that time only the Royal Sun was pierced at 16 and moreover all the dimensions correspond. It is therefore a document of a survey of the SR in 1688.

On the other hand I have found another document which gives the dimensions of the elements of the mature of the Royal Sun.

I have other documents found elsewhere that supplement this data.

I have gathered this data in an EXCEL file. I join him to this message.

All that is missing are the water lines, but I have reconstituted them to the best for my project.

Make good use of this gift.

Michel
 
 
SR Dimensions.webarchive
Keel, Stem, Sternpost.webarchive

Michel Saunier has very graciously agreed to share some of the specific information he has compiled about Soleil Royal, over the years.  In his working life, Mr. Saunier was an engineer, and the following spreadsheet is a sort of mathematical portrait of the ship.  There is more than enough information, here, to make a really sound reconstruction of Soleil Royal, just as Mr. Saunier is doing.  For his part, he combined this dimensional information with the work of Jean Boudriot, who drafted plans for L'Ambiteaux, in order to arrive at his hull form.  Below is the Google Translated version of the letter he sent me, accompanied by the spreadsheet, which is staggering in its completeness.  As he implores me to do at the end of this letter, I hope we will all make good use of this tremendous gift of scholarship.  For so many of us who are lacking the means to go visit the archives for the many weeks it would take to sift through and assemble this information, this truly is a tremendous gift of intellectual effort and demonstrates his absolute commitment to the project of resurrecting Soleil Royal.  Perhaps this information exists, somewhere, on-line.  But, go find it.  I've been searching on-line for years and have only come away with the basic dimensions of the ship.   I will not attempt to translate the XCEL spreadsheet, for fear that I may in-advertently make a mistake that is mis-leading.  Frankly, I have yet to sift through the document in any detailed way, but I can see just how complete it is.  Everything you'll see is in the antiquated French foot, so just multiply by the Battle of Hastings (1.066) to arrive at the modern English foot.
 
Thank you Michel Saunier!
 
From M. Saunier via Google Translate:
 
good morning Marc

I recovered in its time a document of the "Havre de Grace" which indicates a survey of the dimensions of a ship in Brest on the shipyards. This vessel is marked "drilled at 16", that is to say with 16 ports on the first battery. At that time only the Royal Sun was pierced at 16 and moreover all the dimensions correspond. It is therefore a document of a survey of the SR in 1688.

On the other hand I have found another document which gives the dimensions of the elements of the mature of the Royal Sun.

I have other documents found elsewhere that supplement this data.

I have gathered this data in an EXCEL file. I join him to this message.

All that is missing are the water lines, but I have reconstituted them to the best for my project.

Make good use of this gift.

Michel
 
 
SR Dimensions.webarchive
Keel, Stem, Sternpost.webarchive

Hello Everyone!
 
Life has continued to keep me busy, so there hasn't been much build progress (expected, by now, I know ), but I did manage to finish the port framing.  While it isn't as clear in these pictures as it is in person, there is some nice graduation in frame thickness from the lower to middle deck.
 

 

 
As far as added detail goes, this is just the tip of the iceberg for what I'm going to do.  I've been spending quite a lot of time at my father's house, lately, and I dug up a souvenir from my time at the Batavia Werf shipyard, back in 2003.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Mr. Herbert Tomesan had a profound influence on my perspective of plastic, scratch-build modeling.  Below is a defective cast-off that Mr. Tomesan sent me home with.  I forget which Dutch ship this represents; I'm not even sure whether it is a model of a specific vessel, or more generally, a type he was using to fill-out the scenery of his Texel Roads diorama.
 
All of the detail that eventually becomes a resin-casting like this, starts out as various strip and extrusion styrene that he applies to a vacuum-formed hull shell, in order to produce a mould master.
 
These are some of the missing details that I will be applying, in the same fashion, to SR.  It's really easy to do, and as I think you can see, the execution - although rendered to excellent effect, here - doesn't have to be flawless to be really really convincing, even in the absence of paint and weathering:
 

 
I'll be adding this protective sweep of timbers that nestles between and around the wales, in order to protect them from raising anchor.  While examining this model, I was reminded of the clever tricks Mr. Tomesan had devised for simulating certain details.  The tree-nailing in these protective timbers is actually the impression of a hypodermic syringe needle.  Most of the simulated tree-nailing, on the rest of the model, is a simple pin prick.
 


 
I'll need to add chesstrees, scuppers (which, here, are simply very light gauge styrene strip that he's cut into rectangles and then Exacto'd out the centers), the washer and through-bolting to the sides of the gunports for the carriage tackles, and the bolted fasteners at the wale scarfs.  I will, incidentally, be filling in the Heller butt-joints on the wales and scribing in scarfs at appropriate intervals.  His grain detail is simply course sand paper scratches that follow the run of the planking.  While this type of grain simulation won't perfectly match the moulded grain detail in the Heller kit, I suspect that experimenting with various grits and adding just the slightest bit of variation in the run of scratches should blend in well enough to not be glaring.
 
On the research end, I am happy to say that I now have what I feel is an arguable, or reasonably debatable context for the model that I am building.  While a number of my prior assumptions about the Heller kit, and the Tanneron model upon which it is based, have been demonstrated to me to be false, I have at least come to understand what the specific errors in kit architecture are, and how those errors create a false impression of a ship from the First Marine of Louis XIV.  Some of these errors will be corrected, or at least mitigated with my build (i.e., the beam, draft and sheer), others relating to the number and arrangement of guns (particularly, the spacing between gunports), and the specific architecture of the post-1673 stern are not possible to kit-bash away on a pre-moulded hull.  I am, however, at peace with this reality as I view the entire project as an effort to create a reasonable impression of what Soleil Royal may have looked like, on the whole, following her refit in 1689.
 
My correspondence with Mr. Lemineur (Les Vaisseaux Du Roi Soleil), and Andrew Peters (Ship Decoration 1630-1780) has been in-valuable in coming to understand the origin and context of much of the imagery I have been posting here.  I have asked each of them permission to share with the forum what they have so graciously endeavored to explain to me, and I will wait to hear from them before doing so.
 
I feel for the sake of Mr. Lemineur, in particular, who has spent so much of his life researching the archives in an effort to discern truth from fiction, that I must be very clear about what I am doing, so as not to mislead anyone into believing that this project is in any way a definitive representation of the ship's known appearance.  It is largely a work of conjecture, on my part, but one that at least draws reasonable inferences from better understood, contemporary sources.  I respect Mr. Lemineur's dislike for the Heller kit's in-accurate architecture and will take some time, in my next post, to discuss what those issues are.
 
If, after a reasonable time, I do not hear from either of these men, I will at least post my opinion of why Berain's stern drawing reasonably corresponds with the color drafts of SR's quarter gallery and bow.  These three views, it seems to me, may very likely have represented her post-refit appearance.

Goldleaf is always used on a red base coat, just for the same reasons.
looking good, this coat of arms.
 
jan

That is really fascinating how the gloss undercoat impacts the gold topcoat.  Great tip. I wonder, though, whether gloss white would result in an even brighter gold, or does the black somehow create greater depth in the creases.

This morning I repainted the lions and the weapon shield. After cleaning of the paints from the parts they looked like this

 
I use Tamiya X1 Black mixed with Mr Leveling thinner and the mix is around 40/60. The gold paint is AK interactive extreme metal gold (directly from bottle) and all is applied by my Harder & Stenbeck Revolution Silver Line with 0.2 needle.
    
 
The X1 black and MR thinner result in a very nice gloss black coat and this will have a mirror effect on the gold.
 
The gold is sprayed on and I must say that this paint is very good to use and is way more forgiving to use than Alclad II. Here is the result in white light

 
and in yellow light

I am really happy with the result and I think it is a improvement over the old painting  

Given the crowded and complicated nature of the ornament surounding the quarter galleries, I wanted to sketch in the various elements (the mermaids, the figure if Africa sitting on her caryatid archway, the quarter piece supporting the side lantern, and the crown and flames), in order to get a sense for their relative proportions and whether I could make it all work in the space available to me.
 

 
What I found was that the 1/4" extension I was adding to the stern was not going to be sufficient, however, if I added an extra 1/8" (the dotted, parallel line that previously represented the round-up of the upper stern) - then I had enough room to make it work.
 
once all of those elements were sketched in place, and relatively close to their ideal shape and size, I was able to complete the freize layout around them.  I think that when I digitize this image, I'll be able to shorten Africa a bit, and lengthen the quarter piece just enough to seem right.  Anyway, now that I can see where the frieze falls, in the midst of it all, I am now fully confident that I can pull this project off and produce something good.
 
I can't really continue to fill in detail on this sheet of regular bond paper because the surface integrity of the paper is failing with all of the erasures and re-working of the design.  As tends to happen with this approach - the surface is also becoming too muddy with loose graphite.  I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to commit all of this time to learning software, only to discover that there are layout problems that I couldn't overcome.  An astute eye will notice discrepancies between what I am drawing and what is shown in either the black and white stern drawing or the Compardel interpretation of the same, however, there are a few small choices that were necessary for me to either include certain important detail, or omit less critical detail that overly clutters the design.  Again, the proportions of all of this are not yet ideal, but workable now, with the software.
 
here is how the frieze layout translates to the f'ocsle:
 

You are also welcome, EJ.  What we can know for sure is really limited, but I think we can draw reasonable inferences.  I will ask Michel Saunier whether I can share the list (a much more complete list than I would ever have expected, or have ever found on my own) of the ship's known dimensions and armament.  One might ask - if it is known, then why must I ask him to share?  I think, because he has spent a great deal of time and effort tracking down the answers that it is a matter of respect.  That information is not known by many and he has gone through many archived examples of correspondence between Colbert and many others involved in shaping Louis XIV's navy, to extract those dimensions and many other insightful tidbits of information.  His commitment to the project (his project of re-constructing Soleil Royal) is really astounding; I've made forensics analogies, here before, and Mr. Saunier is really living that.  One could, with that information, construct a reasonable framework for a ship of SR's time period, just as he has done.  So I will ask.

Your welcome for the support and thank you for this wealth of information about S.R.! It has been invaluable to me for my own build and as there are not too many others building this ship right now on MSW, it is good to have another person to bounce ideas off of.

I know you guys are 110% right about this.  When I was experimenting with my week-long trial of Illustrstor CC, it took a few nights, but I started getting the hang of fairing a curved line.  It's just that there are so many tiny curved lines that have to be traced over😱!
 
Anyway, at this point, the build won't progress until I digitize.  I just needed to see that the whole thing was actually feasible.
 
Thanks for the support guys - it is very much appreciated!

I second Mark on this and say go for it! I would be willing to bet that you will be fine tuning this build until the moment you put her up in the case for display so you might as well get started with the next phase. Seriously, your drawings are looking good and I think having them on the computer will help you make those fine adjustments that is hard to do on paper.

Bite the bullet and digitize.  Once it's in the 'puter, it's not that hard to manipulate it.   I use CorelDraw (2D for use on the laser cutter) and once you get the rhythm and workflow, it goes pretty easy.

Alright, so I couldn't stop myself and I sketched in the dolphins to either side of the main deck windows.  Again, it seemed that these were elements that I couldn't simply scan in artwork, trace and scale to fit.  Maybe it really is as easy as that, but I wanted to sketch them to scale.  I also filled in the panel stiles of the middle deck level and settled on a new transitional line from the stern counter, just below the middle deck windows of the stern, and the upper stern; this would be the middle line, which I think strikes a nice balance and makes for a reasonably elegant transition.  But the paper really is starting to disintegrate on the crease.  So, this time I mean it;  digitize or bust!
 

Hello
 
A small update on the build. Continue the main structure work with some parts every evening. Not so much to show actually, only a lot of plywood parts, but I am really enjoying it. So far the fit of the parts are perfect. I also think it is much easier to not to follow the order in the instructions. Just put in on a build stand, get the false keel straight and take it from there. So start the build when you have received around 20 packages.   

 
 
The Lego again. So useful.

 
 
Some force is needed to glues these part at the stern together (the clamps at the right). It is supposed to be like that so its no bad fitting. 

 
 
The most challenging so far was to bend these thick plywood sheets for gun supports. But a plank bender did the work quite well.

 
 
And this is how it looked yesterday. Lot of plywood and more will come.

Alright, so I couldn't stop myself and I sketched in the dolphins to either side of the main deck windows.  Again, it seemed that these were elements that I couldn't simply scan in artwork, trace and scale to fit.  Maybe it really is as easy as that, but I wanted to sketch them to scale.  I also filled in the panel stiles of the middle deck level and settled on a new transitional line from the stern counter, just below the middle deck windows of the stern, and the upper stern; this would be the middle line, which I think strikes a nice balance and makes for a reasonably elegant transition.  But the paper really is starting to disintegrate on the crease.  So, this time I mean it;  digitize or bust!
 

Alright, so I couldn't stop myself and I sketched in the dolphins to either side of the main deck windows.  Again, it seemed that these were elements that I couldn't simply scan in artwork, trace and scale to fit.  Maybe it really is as easy as that, but I wanted to sketch them to scale.  I also filled in the panel stiles of the middle deck level and settled on a new transitional line from the stern counter, just below the middle deck windows of the stern, and the upper stern; this would be the middle line, which I think strikes a nice balance and makes for a reasonably elegant transition.  But the paper really is starting to disintegrate on the crease.  So, this time I mean it;  digitize or bust!
 

Hi Dan!  Thanks for that.
 
No, I haven't yet drawn a top plan view, but I was thinking about doing that because I will need to layout some form of ladder between the quarter and poop decks, and certainly, that view would help resolve the depth of the galleries at the main and middle deck levels.
 
I think what you are referring to is the hash line that runs vertically and parallel with the hard line of the stern.  This is intended to represent the round-up of the stern, above the stern counter.  It may be a little bit exaggerated, but the detail seems consistent with all the good models of French ships that I've seen, from the period.
 
Over the weekend, I've been fiddling with my sketch-in of the quarter galleries.  I went ahead and filled in the aft-edge of the lower finishing, as well as an outline for the officers' waste pipe.  In the drawing from the post above, I had been trying to cheat the lower finishing a little further aft, so that I could clear the last gun port on the lower deck.  I realized, when I sketched in the lower finishing, that the sense of balance of the lower finishing was totally distorted because the carved detail of the lower finishing must be centered on the axis that runs the length of the quarter gallery.
 
So, in this next revision, I centered the LF on this axis and redrew the forward edge of the LF, which will necessitate filling and moving this gun port 1/4" forward.  I wasn't too enthusiastic about this, at first, but then I measured the distance of the middle deck port, just forward and above it, to the next port on that middle deck level.  The distance between those ports is 25/32".  If I move the lower deck port forward that 1/4", the new distance to the next port will be...
 
25/32"
 

 
This is an alteration, that isn't a perfect solution, but one that I can live with.  I think when this whole thing is layed out in the digital realm, the layout will not be jarring.  Moving the port, however, very much improves the sense of balance to the quarter gallery, and that - in my opinion - is the larger issue.
 
I've also settled upon the size of the five lower gallery windows and the extra ornamental details to fill in the extra space above and below.  The top detail, is taken directly from the upper bulwark frieze, where the frieze becomes most narrow, on the quarter deck level.  Again, I expect purists to take issue with all of this, but that is the nature of this build; additions, subtractions - filling in the gaps.

Alright, so I couldn't stop myself and I sketched in the dolphins to either side of the main deck windows.  Again, it seemed that these were elements that I couldn't simply scan in artwork, trace and scale to fit.  Maybe it really is as easy as that, but I wanted to sketch them to scale.  I also filled in the panel stiles of the middle deck level and settled on a new transitional line from the stern counter, just below the middle deck windows of the stern, and the upper stern; this would be the middle line, which I think strikes a nice balance and makes for a reasonably elegant transition.  But the paper really is starting to disintegrate on the crease.  So, this time I mean it;  digitize or bust!
 

Thanks, Mark!  I'm eager to get started, as well, but I feel this is time well spent, as this ship is all about the ornamentation.  I'll get there eventually, and I really appreciate your interest in and support of the project.

Given the crowded and complicated nature of the ornament surounding the quarter galleries, I wanted to sketch in the various elements (the mermaids, the figure if Africa sitting on her caryatid archway, the quarter piece supporting the side lantern, and the crown and flames), in order to get a sense for their relative proportions and whether I could make it all work in the space available to me.
 

 
What I found was that the 1/4" extension I was adding to the stern was not going to be sufficient, however, if I added an extra 1/8" (the dotted, parallel line that previously represented the round-up of the upper stern) - then I had enough room to make it work.
 
once all of those elements were sketched in place, and relatively close to their ideal shape and size, I was able to complete the freize layout around them.  I think that when I digitize this image, I'll be able to shorten Africa a bit, and lengthen the quarter piece just enough to seem right.  Anyway, now that I can see where the frieze falls, in the midst of it all, I am now fully confident that I can pull this project off and produce something good.
 
I can't really continue to fill in detail on this sheet of regular bond paper because the surface integrity of the paper is failing with all of the erasures and re-working of the design.  As tends to happen with this approach - the surface is also becoming too muddy with loose graphite.  I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to commit all of this time to learning software, only to discover that there are layout problems that I couldn't overcome.  An astute eye will notice discrepancies between what I am drawing and what is shown in either the black and white stern drawing or the Compardel interpretation of the same, however, there are a few small choices that were necessary for me to either include certain important detail, or omit less critical detail that overly clutters the design.  Again, the proportions of all of this are not yet ideal, but workable now, with the software.
 
here is how the frieze layout translates to the f'ocsle:
 

Thanks, Mark!  I'm eager to get started, as well, but I feel this is time well spent, as this ship is all about the ornamentation.  I'll get there eventually, and I really appreciate your interest in and support of the project.