Heinrich der Seefahrer

There is some graph of benefits of scratch and kit building and the seem to cross each othe right now. But I am not willing to stop that kit rebuild just aggressive and frustrated.

Dear friends, The Whaling Schooner AGATE is a motivation project that will give some successfully moments to me. Whalers are an other side of my intrests hidden to public as it is no good for your career to stay too close to this blood soaken side of shipbuilding in the eyes of a TV-educated population. That is what she will look like. I'm not completely shure with my choice of scale and may alter it to 1:64. The Ship is an ordinary schooner of the mid-fifties. Some quite little whaler with her four boats. The boats will be a chapter of its own. Our sources are very simple as these are two: Howard Irving Chapelle American Fishing Schooners p.80. She appears in this book as she is relatived to the Grand Banks Schooners. Chapelle gives a fine set of drawings to us - telling us she was built for whaling especially. Traditionally she was the last vessel of large size (Lpp 74"-10' 1/2) built at Essex/Mass. built from local white oak and pine. V.R.Grimwood tells us in American shipmodels and how to build them some quite simpler drawing - but added some transom and stem decor to us plus details of the galion. There are added some details for the rigging ...and hull,too. Also the cutting station is drawn in detail. Trypots and deck furniture is also passed over to us. These were all my sourcrs and I think about the scale changing to 1/64 sceptical because of the built of the whaling boats. On the otherhand why not to try it out by plastic stripes planking? Hopefully AGATE of Privincetown brings me back to some good mood. EDIT: I due to the legth of the rigged model of 23 1/2inch or 588mm and nearly 22inch or 550mm tall at 1/64 I decided to reduce the scale factor down by 25% so the model will fit to an usual book shelf.

Thanks Marc for your kind words. I do follow the track to build the SP - but I do need some more success and all these theoretically genial projects do not bring me so much foreward as I would like to come to. So I will go further on and do some scratchbuilding beside to get a second place I'm completly responsible for anything. Give me some time to find some smart solutions and some new motivation. That is the real reason you figured it out precisely, Marc!

As some warning summary to all those that wish to copy my idea and try to rebuild some XVIIth century ship from the Heller SR hull - in particular the Ancre SAINT PHILIPPE. The scale ist something between the ratio 1/100 up to 1/85. + The kit hull's breadth is the ony measurement that does fit - after adding 6mm. - the hull is too long - the transom is flat not convex - the decks height are too high - the gunports are displaced - the hull is to slim in the front part - the deck does go to the outside of the SPs hull (lower part of the picture above) So as I invested too much time to stop here I'll go on but it is much less satisfying as I thought about this project. As it feels now as the ship turns into wheeling and dealing.

Okay friends - lets come back to the usual criticism for grumpy old men geathering at the bar! I will have to figure out how the hell I can shorten this hull to a realistic length and relocate the hole gunports and nuts & bolts stuff on their point to be. But how to do this? My idea is actually to a) to cut the world in pleasent und unpleasant items. ( This is the right moment to listen to "Tuba mirum spargens sonum..." ...for those how like Mozart and those to whom he always was a honeysweet composer.) aa) enclose all the given "unpleasent gunports" in the thickness of the real frame and adding the frames thickness everywhere to the hull. (So I'll receive some single "pleasant gunpots" still as fixing stars on the then noman's land of plastic, putty and sanddust.) b) As yesterdays pictures make absolutely sure I am on the inner side of the hull on the right point of joining deck (a thick plank called waterway) and inner planking. So all the added detailing can - for God's sake - be added outside. c) And now Marc's great present of half a hull comes to its appearance. At the moment it is resting in the book shelf a more representative style of life and is awayting like an old filmstar her come-back (and will do her job when overworked and painted at my place in the office*). d) I now have the proof of the shorter hull... Decks and side view do a cooperative ...and why this picture is so important? This is to Marc's quote about 7" above the head - the decks are too high... when I sized the bigger copy I dealt only with the hull as a measurement (a little group of French pupils were in there too - speaking with me about French baroque - and one was interested about the Heller SR-kit - mission completed). As the decks are now the proof of measurements the Hellers kit hull is suddenly too high!. Here the too large copy and the hull doesen'tfit on high At the large drawing they do fit Suiting to the decks and scale the don't do! Position of the kit matching copy and the positions of the gun ports Same and so different to the measurement scaled copy. So it will be my job not to stop this project but to decide what to do about this mess: I. The noble scratchmodelers way to handle The scratchbuilders all have to have some kind of lake in their workshop I have been told to burn&burial the misgoing project in the good old Viking way. This door is enclosed for me - due to a missing of lakes. II. The Mafia way to deal with it sink that shitkit in an unseen moment in your neighbours dirtiest dustbin or burry it silently in a flat grave somewhere in the hills. (Send out some professionslal killers to eliminate all the guys that read this thread.) III. The political way to undo the problem I could try to rename the projects headline and reworking the articles to something like SCEPTRE or LYS. Some ship with very little information about - nobody will ever remark the differences. All questioners are corrupt - it is just a question of reprinting fresh bucks. Some brainless expensive thing to do if you have to be reelected some day. IV. The hysteric way to rebuild I could start to enclose all the gunports, remove all the wales, shortening the hull and relocating all the decks to their real point getting an absolutly right completely different hull in- and outside. Than I can restart the project with a highly fitting close to scratch standards built hull in some 25 years. V.The pragmatic way to come to something I may wrap the SAINT PHILIPPE plans as some coat settlement onto the Heller hull by interpolation and stretching all the differences to something that looks fitting. Not the real thing but it will give some solution and at the very end hopefully any kind of hull model. Hmmmm... N° IV and V look right to me perchance I'll mix both up to something less time consuming and more than an any hull solution. But from time to time I wish to fire this damned kit in some dramatic gesture out of some window in my sixed floor - but there is allways some insect netting in my way saving SP to become some airship! So let us keep calm and keen to continue... * as I'm known as the "analogous nerd"

@Hubac's Historian Hello Marc, I cannot proof it as 100% - and still think it must be TONNERANT as there are no further guns in the aft part of the deck over the UD. But you are quite more familiar to the SR than I am. So hopefully you could figure out what name this ship is christianed to. Here the text passage of page 9 and 10 of the SAINT PHILIPPE monography belonging to the wonderful contemporal pen and watercolour drawing There is no direct information of the TONNERANT as name - but as it also has no quaterdeck with guns it looks very similar to SP, so it may be the TONNERANT, SCEPTRE or LYS. What do our specialist say?

Next step barrel counting - let us compare kit "SR" and plan "SP" looking on the plan we get the half of the real numbers and have to add the aft and front fireing pices. So we pass along from stem... ...slowly counting a& comparing towards... ...the stern. SR: Poop- and Backdeck 7x12 pdr over this on a short aft hutdeck 2x8pdr SP: only on a poop deck carries 3x12pdr Rest is parallely* build: UD 18pdr 13 MD 24pdr 14 LD 36pdr 14 SOLEIL ROYAL has 2x 41 = 82 Plus 2x8 = 16 on poop-, back- und hutdeck Summery is 98 + 4x18pdr achtern - and additivly 2 guns fiering tiowards the front = wunderly we can count 104 barrels at the very end of it. SAINT PHILIPPE 2x 41=82 plus 6 on the poopdeck = 88 Rohre due to this there were to integrate two further guns into the transom - so it is a 90-gun-ship. Two items I have to point out: I. All the barrels aiming fore or after are usualy removed from the batterys side towards the other gunport. II.as this ink and watercolour drawing of her sister TONNARANT (?) suggests there only have been two aft gunports - bu they may be guided with guns all over the time. This due to the fact that there is enough space to handle battery and aft guns at the same time and compared to the 36pdrs- desks top view this may be right so without the hidden/integrated gunports in the transom** *that makes me using the hull. ** that seems doubtful to my by a leck of timber to hold the force of recoil out.

I@EJ_L Thanks a lot for the motivation... I really do need it! @Hubac's Historian There are news for all of us - perchance it is a bit academic and rivet counting - but it is factum: The above water bow of the Heller kit is too slim and does give a too frigat-inspired look to a bulky hull. So without doing some immense aggressive surgery to this region on both sides of the hull there will be no way to change it! So what I do is to leave it as it is given tous till over 40 years. LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT - USE IT OR SCRATCH IT. So we left it as it is and by this we keep this bad news in mind (for the two other Heller kits) and leave this depressive moment behind us. Because there are three other very good news compared to this! So we do go to the 3/5 of the hulls lines that by adding 3mm to tje starboards side... ... do fit perfectly and run parallel with the SAINT PHILIPPEs 36pdr deck... ...and lucky me!👍 I've got nearly 1 3/4 inch overlength - and... ...this 44mm I can use to get the transoms transveral concave curve. So there is a game Heller kit SOLEIL ROYAL vs SAINT PHILIPPE 1:3 - and the game does still go on!

Dealing with transoms construction - something looks right but other parts have to be added, changed or rebuild...

That certainly doesn't happen... Murpheys Law was more workable. So I will try to bring it to an end this evening and also try to get some solution for the 36pdr LD fixation in Particular in the middel of the deck has to be more support from below.

Hello friends, for today the ship yard is closing. These were the results of today: The openings for the stand are free and niot closed by baking powder or decosand. Anybody is interested to get a view into the hulls inner parts. The runs inside are from the superglue. The frontview shows me a very littel inconsistenty of the hulls halfs. The putty is only the very first masking and will be sanded mainly away in the next few days. The stern is to be fixed later on but the deadwood can be changed an the run of the hull too. So it is less problematic to add some thickness to the hull to bring it closer to SAINT PHILIPPEs lines what are clear. There is a very much shorter run aft than Heller gives to us till nearly half a century! Tomorrow I want to start with my kangaroo stand to turn the hull upside down without harming the edges of the aft MD.

Glued together and now I have to use putty, more superglued bakingpowder and sandpaper. But I am really happy about the step foreward I did. And the most important thing is - now it is starting to look like a ships hull.

@CaptainSteve I think about it due to the nice white colour at first but also because I would have to do the cut through a hole decks structure. An immense amount of work! Thanks for your helpfull support - the idea is right.

Instead of buying some extra gap-filling-2-components superextraglue I followed Martys' wounderfull idea: of using some drops of superglue and backing powder to fix my gap between Hellers' hull and Heinrichs' bulkheads... but as I have tofill some more gaps I'll try to use some deco sand to get some more stability in there. My main source of touble will come by the differences between the hardnesses of surfaces the quite soft Heller plastic vs. hardened superglue concrete. Further progress will be shown as soon as possible!

Hy Marc, thanks for your kind and frank answer. And that is exactly what I do fear at all: losing the fun as spin of this project and running into the barbed wirded labyrinths of a Sysiphosian work of repairing the new problems caused repaired faults of the kit. Okay lets summarice: A.) So I'll relacate the gunports that were completly out of place - that isn't the work making you get too grumpy from. This as it will happen unter the new planking at all. B.) Relocating the masts is also a point not to be neglected - I still think about not to install any masts due to the amount of daylight shining through the gratings, staircases and mastholes into the 24pdrs MD lightening some detail. On the other hand the white painted masts do have some nice effect onto the decks appearance at all. And the bowsprit does work together with the flagmast aft. C.) Detailling what can really be seen at the very end. D.) Scratchbuild in a diffident way transom, galion, lids, staircases and gratings to multiplicate the detailing after Art.C.) and try to keep timesafing use of resin in mind. Hope this five articels will be some rough guideline to me.

This evening I walked to my favorite copyshop and sized the 1/144 bookprints towards 1/92 so the now do fit to the Heller kit. My very first look was towards the transom-ic source of trouble. But it looks quite nice -the stern post seems to be in the right high.But the wales need to be lifted - the lower end of the lowe wale of the kits hull has to be moved upwards so it rests at its upper wales upper end . I did this test with the cutted in twice and centerboard slice added transom of the Heller kit. But the breadth of the transom looks right!!!

Yes airbrushing has got its disadvantages you can buy canned pressure air or use a care tire. The red inside of the hull and gunportlids will be airbrushed easier and much more comfortable by "gun" than by brush. Due to the less good coating of red colours in general. Wow that wooden hull looks greatly "woody" - did you paint the UD with the same mixture of colour, too? (I'm always affraid of differences in the colours shades.)

Do you paint by a hairy brush or do you airbrush the large sides, Marc?

LIDs Ideas for detailing a bit ...and as I figured out recently a very good trail for the cutting area of the gun port lids, that can be seen. Three to four planks and/or wales and two view-able cuts at every lid makes a huge amount of handcrafted work! I had till now never realised that the lits are really sawn out ot the real plank and wales surface and again reassembled in order to disappear. So every lid will make a real single stand alone kit of a minimum of 50 separated parts to be glued together - mainnumber the fouredged nails on the inside. to make it in a more economicaliy way the lids inside will me made from a single resinpice. But the outside must be from the original material due to continuation of the sanded on grain.

Let us keep calm and transform plastic into wood! The hole stand straight out of the kits bag. It realy needs an Ivar shelf board of 800x300mm to bear the stand. Asvthere will be two furthermore kits to be bashed it's worth yhe work - I do hope. In the manual there are written 4 screws to be needed to fix the stand - and after 40 + X years Heller wasn't able to lectorate their handout a bit!' But it looks so much after plastic that this stand'll win any ugliest-part-of-any-kit-contest easily! ...so I took 2h of time, some 120 and 80 grain sandpaper and a knife to transform the plastic glossy surface into wood. This isn't finished it is just a trial. Due to turn my mind away from the kits troubles.

Now I'm going into my panicroom and immediately after door is locked I'm starting my privat personal panicing...

No... it is really rises from gunport aft side to the stern - the #¢^^ deadwood... ...that lousy trick saves a huge amount of money for the casting moulds inner part forming the inside of the hull... @Hubac's Historian Stay happy to build a WLmodel!

PHy Marc, you asked for the "rise of the deadwood" And if you compare the drawing with the Heller hulls rise of the deadwool the arc of the rise is much higher than this long run on the kit! 😱With its end at the sixth LD gunport - where as the drawing of SAINT PHILIPPE says: "Ending of the deadwood is at gunport N° 3 (three)!" ...as I do hope to understand you question the right way.

Our most beloved part of the hobby: sanding the hull... I'll have to fill the gap between middleboard and hull... The connection between plastic hull and plywooden centerboard will be additivly done by some larger Evergreen L-porfils that take some of the stress of the wight. I'm absutly umhappy with these stem base but I have to sand it this week and then the plastic stem will be rested on some nails driven carefully in predrilled holes. And it is a large hull of 572mm without UDs hanging over measurement. I'm not clear how to build the upperdecks hull sides? They are very different from the kits given parts. Glueing them on now or desperately adding them separately? Best will be to ask the " good ghost of the bottle" @Hubac's Historian Hy Marc, what did you install to give more strength to the flimsy lightblue upperdeck sides so you could work with them? As far as I understood you did all the UD carftmans work before adding onto the hull?

Little steps foreward - not really to be called "progress"... ...butthbutthe light grey makes it easier to see the differences and work may get more precise. All in all no great deal today - but plank to plank a ship is build.