CédricL

11 hours ago, EJ_L said:

Martyn the Confused,

 

Two things t keep in mind when you are having this debate are:

1. No one knows exactly what she looked like. We only have some artistic renderings of her to go off of and while yes, they are credible and come from notable artists of THEIR time, they are by no means absolute nor do they clarify which version they are of as she underwent many changes of appearance during her career. In fact, as built in 1669; as refitted for the battle of Beachy Head in 1690 (when he took part at the battle with unfinished carvingsand probably painted pearl grey due to lack of time) and as rebuilt in 1692 till destroyed .

Note that blue was quite a really expensive color then, it's also possible that the upper sides of the ship were painted red ! Blue being then reserved for the royal coats on the poop. But there is no evidence about that fact.

2. Ultimately this is your model. Unless you are under contract by a historical society or museum, (in which case congratulations) then this is a model whose purpose is to please your eye and not necessarily be historically accurate. Paint as much blue as you would like on her and be happy in your decision! You're perfectly right !!

 

 

 

Good morning EJ_L and Black Viking,

To add some confusion, I completed EJ_L's comment.

Also four your information about the scarfs, the ratio length/height must be 4 to 1. Both vertical cuts in the wale must each have 1/4 of the height of the wale.

Have a nice day !

Hello EJ_L,

The question of the blue "shade" is quite difficult to answer via a computer screen (too much parameters). But at least, I can say that this blue should not be present under the sixth wale, who has yet to be placed.

About those wales, it's maybe a distorsion effect of the picture but it seems that the fifth one is not paralell to the 4th at the prow.

But otherwise, it's indeed a really nice work you're doing, knowing that this kits is not the best men can expect.

Have a nice day.

Marc,

The "sheer" (or camber ?) of the wales don't follow the one of the deck (in other case, it could be impossible for the wales to cut the aft gunports).

As I have a good drawing of the ship (thanks Van de Velde) I will follow the general rules of the time, knowing that the first wale comes close to the underside of the first gunport. Then all others wales will be placed parallel following the description of l'Anonyme du Havre de Grâce.

About the decks, it's far more difficult to find correct informations, so I will have to decide by myself with Van de Velde forward seeing of the ship, as the underside of gunports is always fixed at a certain distance of the deck.

You're right to say that it will means a serious work on the upper bulwarks, but as those were différents from Le SR, I knew that I will have to cut, scrap and sand...something who, I must admit, becomes a common rule in this project.

Hope to let see some progress before the end of the month or begin september.

Have a nice day.

Good morning EJ_L,

Your planking looks nice, but I don't understand why the second wale is not in place ?

"Courage" !

12 hours ago, yancovitch said:

oh cedric.....just had a thought...what about spraying a few coats of primer on the hull to fill in the grain, depending on how much grain you want to fill, then a fine sanding ?....do you think that could work, or would that be just as tedious etc, and maybe not as effective for whatever reason?.....just curious.....

  haha...from now on, i'll just watch, and see how this exciting and informative build evolves......cheers.....

Good morning yancovitch,

It could probably help, but in my case, as I have to redraw the whole wales, gunports and decks, it was more easy to sand all off.

All in all, for someone working on the Heller's base, I think that a small sanding would give a correct rendition. But that's Something that is purely personnal.

Marc,

You're right about the hawser parts, never understood why, except maybe for some technical "demoulding" reasons (???).

It's a good idea to scribe the missing gunports, more easy than creating new ones, I can confirm !

Note that you will have to do the job for the 4 rear ones, overscaled, and who also have to be square.

I don't know what happen in NY, but here we prepare ourself for a sunny Sunday, something that invites me to lazyness in the garden in place of working on my model or autocad drawings.

I'm still in trouble with the sheer of the decks, the ones made by Heller are far too pronouced by the prow and I'm now sure that I'll have to scrap them. But...no pain, no gain

Have a nice day.

Hello kpnuts,

I discover your log, it's an excellent work !

About the loading of supplies, it was usually done by harbor small ships, not with the ship's boats.

If it can help you, there is a topic on Gérard Delacroix's forum about how ship's boats were hoisted or disembarked:

http://5500.forumactif.org/t3021-temps-de-debarquement-et-d-embarquement-d-une-chaloupe

Some of the drawings could be helpful to you, even if the practice is from the XVIIIth century.

Regards from Brussels.

Cédric

Hello Marc,

Great work on the skids.

About the "grain" of the wood, it's clearly overscaled, why I sanded all the hull of my kit. But it's a ......work to do and I would not recommend it to anyone (the time I spent was terrific).

Just a question, are you in the way to put another gunport near the prow ?

It seems on your pictures that you didn't do that.

And about your probable failure with those 1/2, 3/8 of inches, you will only miss what you did not dare to try. So go on !

Regards from Brussels.

Cédric

Hello Marc,

I take a few minutes to look at your progress,

Nice work on the wales, and your work on the stairs is also well done !!

My work is currently suspended due to lack of free space and time, hope to restart at the end of the month.

In between, I read Duhamel du Monceau and Blaise Ollivier treatises in order to lighten some obscure points of hull building.

Have a nice day...

and happy birthday to you.

Good evening EJL,

I don't know if you know the existence of the manuscrit of "l'Anonyme du Havre de Grace" ?

If not, you maybe could download it from Gallica:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8626226w?rk=21459;2

There are, on pages 25 - 26 the dimensions for the outer planking of the ship and those of the wales. Also are the dimensions of the gunports (wich are not correct on Sergal, particularely for the upper row)

Sorry, it's in old French, but it's worth the effort to translate it. (or you can ask to some french-speaking native...)

Have a nice day.

I even did not see that button.....

Thanks vossiewulf.

2 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

I also like the dueling SR stern drawings with HH and Cedric's profile images 

 

Hello vossiewulf,

My profile is the stern of La Reine, not le Soleil Royal !

Both were near sister-ships indeed, but you'll find lots of différences between them.

Have a nice day.

(still don't know how to add smileys)

Good evening EJL,

I just finish to read your log. That's an impressive work !

Just two informations, the first is that they were no entry on the hull for the ship. It was a common british practice, not a french one (except maybe for some earlier vessels not built in France).

The second is that you absolutely need R.C. Anderson's book for the rigging of the ship. As the kit's instructions are (as usual it seems) far from being correct.

There is also an interesting work made about the running rigging of the ship here:

http://www.jans-sajt.se/contents/Navigation/Modelling/Belayings_Collection.htm

Good luck with the sanding of the hull.

Have a nice day

1 hour ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

Yes, I will not be modifying the sheer of the wales, nor the upper bulwarks.  I will, however, make small adjustments to my tracings of the quarter galleries.  And I may, yet, remove that upper most round port, and/or pierce two octagonal ports.  Not sure about all of that, as yet, but I will figure it out.  My inclination, though, is to leave the round port, arm it with a gun, and add both octagonal ports, un-armed.  My reasoning is that adding the octagonal ports, allows for greater fidelity to the Berain drawing, while keeping the round port maintains my armament at 110 guns.  A compromise.

You are probably right to do so.

I suspect those octogonal gunports to be in fact small windows for quarters for officers on the poopdeck (I do not know the exact term for that in English, those are small wooden structures acting as cabins for one officier).

Maybe could M. Saunier tell us more about that fact and the presence of them on the Soleil Royal..

PS: I will try to scan the drawings in J. Boudriot's book you asked for and post them in a few days.

Hello Marc,

A lot of reading since my last passage.

About the sheer of the decks, and of the wales; be careful that any modifictions will involve some major surgery (I 'm still busy with that problem).

So, and if you do not plan to transform the hull itself I would suggest you to let them as molded and to build your QG in the shape of the existing wales and the avalaible space.

Notice also that Jean Boudriot gave an example in his book "Les vaisseaux de 74 à 120 canons" of the différences that could be seen between the drawings and the real execution of the ship (from aship taken by the British and then redrawn). Wich means that the drawings of Berain could also have been interpreted by the sculpors of the Brest arsenal.

"Bon courage !"

Have a nice day.

Waow !

It's not only a vessel from an era I love, but also a way of modelling I love too; starting nearly "ex nihilo".

Respects. It's simply...fantastic !!!

Thank you all,

But, for those who will take a seat, I just can tell you that I have absolutely no idea about the time I will spend on this.

It depend about the drawings and plans I will try to draw during the construction of the kit.

For now, I'm trying to correct the sheer of the lower deck on autocad, because the Heller kit have a far too pronouced one; and I absolutely need a correct shape to implement the lower gunports on correct heigths (at first on autocad, then onto the hull of the kit).

So, there will always be periods of drawings and periods of converting the kit...

Have a nice day.

1 hour ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

Hi Dan,

....

I'm not sure it bothers me enough to go to the effort (which is considerable), but then Dan - you have planted a seed, and you know how that goes!

That could goes to a better rendition of the ship !

An idea I had when I was still thinking to improve Le Soleil Royal with a 16 guns lower row (what needed to realign all of them) was simply to cut the raised framework of the gunports and replace them onto a new plastic card. All the molded carvings (repetitive) could be of printed in 3D or made in resin ?

This will also improve your model because the inner sides of those upper bulwarks is quite terrible with the ejections pins marks and absence of a inner planking engraving, and they are also a little too short on breadth (I mean here taking the inner and outer planking plus the size of the upperframe).

Just my two cents.

Do it. Labor omnia vincit

HELLER : La Reine…an attempt

The title says all…it’s only an attempt !

This idea came to my mind about two years ago when I had the chance to find à  Soleil Royal for 50 euros on a second hand site. I built my first one in the late eighties, direct from the box ; and a second one a little later (unfortunately destroyed during a home-moving), and still another one is still lying around in the bottom of my garage. I thought, that I could, on this latest attempt, go a step further with details and correct the many faults that I was unaware of in my earlier attempts.

I spent, thus, more than a year collecting sources about the first Soleil Royal and discovered also that the ship was, in fact, quite different from the one beautifully carved by Jean-Baptiste Tanneron in 1839 (model of the Musée de la Marine – Paris).

In fine, I found the document above. After further researches, I discovered that this ship, the « Royal Duc » - who’s name was changed in 1671 to « La Reine » was nearly a sister-ship of Le Soleil Royal, with the immense advantage of being drawn by Willem Van de Velde the Elder in 1673.

Keeping in mind that reliable sources of information an drawings of the first Soleil Royal virtually do not exist anymore, and using these known drawings as my basis, I changed my idea and decided to convert the Heller kit into La Reine.

To give you an idea of the future build, I roughly drew on Autocad both profiles of the ships :

Le Soleil Royal, Heller version :

La Reine, redrawn from J.C. Lemineur’s book :

Both superimposed for comparaison ; to the same lenght for the Heller kit. In fact, my model of La Reine will be slightly overscaled in comparaison of the announced 1/100 scale (more near the 1/90) :

You’ll better see now the problems to solve :

The stem must be changed, the forward bulkhead must be extended down to the first deck, on which the bowsprit mast was placed. It is a caracteristic of the french vessels built before 1690 to have the bowsprit mast anchored to the first deck. This is a feature that so many captains will criticize that, following the La Hogue disaster in 1692, new vessels will have their bowsprit placed on the second deck.

A new figurehead and bow timbers must be made from scratch, only with the help of Van de Velde rough sketch…

The distribution of the gunports is completely different. It is a specific caracteristic of La Reine, and of the first Soleil Royal, to have 16 gunports on the lower battery. They were the only French vessels with such an arrangement of gunports on the first battery at that time. The third battery was less armed in order to have place for the officers quarters, and the poopdeck of La Reine was left unarmed, a substantive difference to Le Soleil Royal.

The position of the masts must be slightly modified, with the understanding that their dimensions and those of the yards were proportional to those of the hull.

All the poop and side galeries must be fully scratch-build, but in this case, the drawings of Van de Velde and Desclouzeaux are truly of great help.

Hello Marc,

Really a nice work !

Have you yet an idea how to proceed to build that Framework ?

In my case, I really envisage to ask a czech manufacturer to make a fret of fleur de lys at a small scale (1 to 3 mm heigth, things I really can't do).

Just a question what are those things drawed between the lower wales on the second pictures ?

7 minutes ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

....

Cedric, how complete are you going to make your plans? ....

Well, it will dépends on the help I can obtain to have a correct hull shape first.

Things like the angle of the keel from waterline, the main frame and how to develop her (his or her ?) in both directions fore and aft, also I presume that the sheer of the first deck on Heller's kit is far too pronouced to the bow. I remember reading somewhere that the correct sheer was 2 lines per feet (or one feet divided by 60). So there is still a lot of work before speaking of "plans". The heigths of the gunports was dependant of the sheer of the decks.

Also I wait the return of Mr Saunier from his week-end to discuss about the dimensions given in the document of L'Anonyme du Havre de Grâce.

If the first part depict a first rate wich is without doubt Le Soleil Royal, I'm still asking what could be the second part of a first rate of 2000 tons.

Except La Reine and le Royal Dauphin, I did not see such ships at that time.

As you can see, plenty of questions to resolve before going further with my plans.

Re-reading my previous post, I don't know if I should have said "miles away from me" or "miles ahead from me", wich seems more correct !

Have a nice day then, time for supper here.

2 hours ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

One question I have about the amortissement: your drawing shows the detail starting at the level of those middle deck windows, in line with the open gallery rail and rising up to the sheer line.  This is often how I have seen it modeled (Royal Louis 1692, the Tanneron models of L'Agreable and Le Brilliant).  However, would it not make design sense - for the sake of continuity - for the amortissement to continue down to the open gallery decking?  Even if only as a framework of ornamental rails and stiles?

I think not !

Design sense as "common sense" was clearly not a way of thinking then.

Your best reference in this case is the model of the so called "Louis XV" in Le Musée de la Marine. It exactly depict the arrangement of the side structure you are in plan to do.

I do not know if you know that fact, but I found a old source (just have to remember wich one) who said that le Soleil Royal rebuild was not finished when she leaved Brest with Tourville on board for the battle of Beveziers. The vessel was simply painted with a pearl grey (gris perle) and carvings of the poop were even not completed.

And Tourville absolutely needed some assistants and domestics for his service, a "common sense" who added more or less 100 people more on board !!

I will try to find this source in my souk.

To answer your other question, I work with Autocad.

Have a nice day (full sunny here in Brussels).

Hello Marc,

Well, you are miles away from me with your plans.

Hereby my two cents about your last drawing:

Hope it will helps.

Ave a nice day.

Cédric

14 hours ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

Hey Dan - that is certainly an intriguing thought.  Much as fhe superficial interior bulkheads would be struck as the crew beat to quarters, it would make sense to have removable quarter panels to both preserve these expensive decorative works and reduce the carnage causing splinter potential of wood flying through the air, during battle.

 

But, I don't know whether that was a thing or not.  All the best source material is written in French, and I could very likely have skimmed past that detail in deciding what passages to translate more thoroughly.

 

That's the "good sense" of a XXIth century citizen, note of the common people of the XVIIth.

I never found any indication that those side windows could be open or removed.

Just to give an idea, after the 1673 campaign, the intendant of Brest wrote to Colbert that some captains did not make their ships "clear". In one case (if I remember, it was Le Tonnant), the lower decks were found full of animals déjections...(animals wich served for the food of the officers).

Also, King Louis XIV in a decree expressly ordered to the captains not to remove anything ont their ships (carvings and so on...).

If you need some help for traduction, you know you can aske me, just send me a PM because yahoo.com is now banned from my mail server (décision of the IT direction following last cyberattack).

Have a nice day.

15 hours ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

Why couldn't the marine "photographers" of that time, the Van de Veldes, have drawn more of the important French ships?

Mostly because they didn't saw them !

Between 1671 and 1688, Le Soleil Royal spent all of his first life disarmed in harbour, La Reine was drawn only because she served once as flagship during the anglo-dutch war, others first rates were in Toulon.

Furthermore, France en the Netherlands were not on friendly terms during those years.

 

When it comes to stern architecture, little is more confusing than French practice.  Ships of a similar size to SR, but still slightly smaller across the main beam, nevertheless, often had more than SR's six stern windows; as shown, the Monarch had seven and I believe La Reyne carried eight (not including the quarter galleries).  This seems to have been a matter of scale and builder's preference, although certainly in many cases, the number of stern windows would be inextricably tied to the layout of the proposed decoration.

 

When it comes to the question of open or closed, or partially open quarter galleries - generally speaking, the quarters before the Reglement of 1671 (or is it 1673?) are largely open.  Thereafter, increasingly, there is a shift toward closing the quarter galleries, as the English had long been doing, by this point.  Yet, there was little enforcement of any of these early regulations, which were early attempts to standardize construction practices, so there remained a great deal of variation on the subject right up to and into the construction of the Second Marine, following the La Hogue disaster in 1692.

Most of the drawings from that period (1666-1670) indicates an enclosed lower gallery surmonted by a balcony, sometimes with upper carvings around the side windows onto the hull itself (french term is "amortissement"), here the Van de Velde drawings can be of great help. The case of the Royal Louis is quite an exception, due to Puget's interpretation of "naval-decoration"

15 hours ago, Hubac'sHistorian said:

 

That is why, in the absence of credible drawings from the period, it really is anyone's educated guess as to the actual or intended arrangement of the stern for any of these great ships.  In the case of La Reyne, though, the arrangement is really pretty clear.  All of the important information is laid out in those two VDV drawings.

Why I prefer to focuse on La Reine ! At least I have one definitive start point. That doesn't mean that my problems are solved, but it's another story.

Hello Marc,

I have also found some month ago this picture of the "Soleil Royal" . I also remember me reading that the first figurehead of this ship was a mermaid, holding on her hands a terrestrial globe surmounted by a cross.

That figurehead could have been carved by Antoine Coysevox, but I'm not sure about this. Sure Michel Saunier will know that better than me.

On the other hand, there is only 15 guns on the lower row; and the SR had 16 of them... and I count only 49 guns per side, (3x15 +4 on the poopdeck, being unable to determine if some are present on the forecastle).

At least, this picture can give us a good idea about the figurehead of the ship before reconstruction.

Have a nice day.