Nek0

Wonderful !! You're a wizard !

Great work !!

Hello Jorge ! I just discovered your build, thanks to the link in your signature. It's a great work, impressive !

Hi Jorge ! Congrats for your build, it's a very neat work !! The ship looks great !

Hi fellows ! I'm currently building the stern, I knew it would require a lot of adjustment and I've not been disapointed. Every single piece of metal has been grinded, the wood parts have been vastely customized, but I'm quite happy with how it turned. I think I managed to make the stern look like the Berain drawing (more or less) better than the manual did. The main work was making the galleries less wide, and trying to respect the continuity in the structure and between the different parts. The work is going on !

Can't wait to see the bow fulfilled !

Yes, exactly ! It's mainly due to the fact that I First set the wales and then the planking. Altaya tell us to fully cover the hull with planking, and finally glue the wales. It's more difficult to get a correct result this way. I Continue the work and it's a real pleasure to see the ship take form. The first metal parts are glued and they are perfect. This kit is a real good surprise !

Thanks Vic ! About the wood, it's the wood of the Sergal kit of the Soleil Royal. Which I didn't ever built because of poor quality. It's ok but it makes a lot of crumbs when sanded so I had to fill the gaps with wood paste. Yes it's quick build, I won't say I rush it but there are a lot of imperfections I would not allow on my Soleil Royal. Here, it's for fun.

L'Ambitieux is progressing well these last weeks, and shows nice volumes and curves. Of course I slightly modified what Altaya planned but not that much. The wood of the decks was too yellow for my taste, so I sand the decks and painted them with a very diluted brown/grey mix. I like the result quite well. It's only a kit but it's very rewarding to see something that already looks like a ship of the line after a few hours spent on it. I would not say I rush the build but I do it as quickly as possible and it's very different to the Soleil Royal, on which I want every piece to be as perfect as possible. L'Ambitieux is a perfect funny and entertaining project. I hope you like it.

Wow, I hope everything is alright for you and your family now ! Very impressive and interesting work, as usual.

Nothing. Gerard is more involved into XVIIIe ships, and I know he wont't speak until he's sure about what he tells. I may ask to M.Lemineur, he maybe will have an idea.

Hello Peter, thank you for your message. I don’t know who made the kit, the back of the first issue only said « in collaboration with Project MC » but I didn’t found anything on them on the internet. Unfortunately the kit doesn’t sell anymore, so I think the only way to get one would be finding one on eBay… Vic, thanks for your message, cheers !!

I asked on the Gérard Delacroix forum, maybe he or anyone else will have a good answer.

Maybe not an error, quite surprising -and I hadn't payed attention before- but if you look at the Berain drawing it may be a walkable balcony. (that's what Berain drawn, but it's strange for a 1691 ship). I was used to Boudriot Monograph and Frölich/Zakimor models that have closed balcony and never noticed the Berain drawing on this point.

I didn’t saw this question. It’s a good one and it’s an error from the kit, you’re absolutely right. Maybe I will try to correct it if it’s simple enough, but that’s not sure. I have not decided yet, I will see when I’m there. 🙂

Thanks Marc ! Yes it will have a final planking with walnut (not the sapelli provided by Altaya) and it will absolutely not be accurate at all under the waterline. Everything will be painted so I will go the easy way. (But the positioning of the wales and the planking between them will be correct) 🙂

And after the fastidious step of sanding, the hull is correct and shows nice volumes. I used the parts provided for the bow, the keel and the sternpost, they fitted perfectly.

For the planking of the hull I managed to do it very quickly (three or four days) so it's far from perfect but it's sufficient since it will not show at the end.

Concerning the guns, Altaya provided guns to prick and I really dislike this solution. So I had to enlarge the guns with brass cylinder, make them mini carriages, and modify the inner structure of the frame. I also had to drill the guns. It was made very quick but I'm happy with the result, it's not great but clean enough for what I want. The bronze guns were painted the same way I did for the Soleil Royal.

Then comes the planking of the decks, with sycomore wood. At first I draw on the deck frame and then glue the planking, with some pencil on the sides to simulate the caulking. Finally I plant the nails (brass wire) according to the monograph. The doors were painted red, and two pieces of wood were added to fit the curvature of the deck. Altaya didn't made any inner planking, but I did. The first lath of wood next to the deck is wider. I made some final tries of golden paint but I wasn't still happy with them so here is the color I chose for the decoration.

Thanks Marc ! Yes I'm 100% back in the game ind it feels great ! Nothing very special about the begining of the build. The frame assemble very well, the keel is straight. Then I made custom planking of the front with custom doors, I couldn't go with the kit ones. They were not ugly but a bit oversized. I also remade the duckboards, according to the scale (and the monograph). Altaya's effort was not that bad, they had the good number of elements and the good size, but the stitch was too large.

Here is what the finished model should look like, and the first parts. I'm really pleased by the castings and the guns. Compared to the monstruous guns they made for their Soleil Royal, it's night and day. The rear metal piece even has a curvature. The scale say 1/59 on the first booklet cover, and 1/74 inside the booklet. If you compare to the 1/72 scale plan of the monograph of Boudriot you can see that it's strictly the same. Other parts are also compliant to the monograph. I tried a golden painting for the decoration but was not very satisfied with it. Ultimately it will be Napoli yellow.

Hi everyone ! Parallel to my Soleil Royal, I'm working on a kit of L'Ambitieux, a ship of the line built in 1691. Altaya did some monstruous kits before this one but I had to admit when I discovered the first parts of their Ambitieux that they were of very high quality. I know this ship quite well because I used the monograph of Jean Boudriot of the same name to help myself draw the plans of my Soleil Royal. Though, Jean Boudriot did something strange for his monograph. He took a original drawing of a 3 deck ship of the line of 1680 by Blaise Pangalo (the plan doesn't show any decoration except for the figurehead that is a lion), and he added the decoration of the "real" Ambitieux (from which we have the drawing of the decorations but not the plans of the hull) except for the lion of Pangalo that he kept. He also named his monograph "L'Ambitieux" because he thought it was an ambitious project. Quite confusing. Altaya was well inspired and they kept the figurehead of the real Ambitieux, and provided some really good castings for the metal parts (guns, decoration). I never saw such good work on a kit, and if you add that I was immerged in the monograph of J.Boudriot since a few years at this time, that the real Ambitieux fought the battle of Barfleur/La Hougue next to the Soleil Royal in 1692 (Tourville even went on the Ambitieux after the Soleil Royal suffered too much damage to continue), and the kit is the same scale than my SR, it was enough to convince myself to have a try at this project. Of course this is a kit and in no way it will look like an arsenal model. It will remain a kit, and will be a recreative, simple, funny project when the SR is very demanding and very laborious. First, here are the drawing of the real Ambitieux by Jean Berain.

No, it's made from the Altaya/DeAgostini kit which is very good. I will open a thread to show what I'm doing with it.

Neko fits me well I'm currently working on L'Ambitieux, which is a recreative project, and I try to go fast. I see that my mindset has changed the last few years because now I manage to be quite quick on this one ! It's exactly what you said, being able to build at 180 on the metronome (in sixteenth notes) but ending up with a good looking result. It's my new goal ! (for the Soleil Royal I'm afraid I will continue to be as slow and obsessive than before but at least I can work agin regularly !)