EricWiberg

Before I can proceed with further work on a more "Dutchy" appearing bow, I need to get my new figurehead done so I can make precise measurements. This is what GuyM said about the figurehead of the first Soleil Royal circa 1668 in his treatise EL SOLEIL ROYAL and the royal ships of Louis XIV... "the figurehead, which consisted of a mermaid with an outstretched arm holding a globe, or sun, crowned, and a sceptre in the other hand folded against her body". I was focused on trying to find something 1:100 scale that I could use as a mermaid... and I finally realized that the figurehead is much bigger than a person. A quick calculation showed that I needed 1:30 scale. Lo and behold, I quickly found a packet of 15 people in 1:30 scale. Here is the future mermaid alongside my figurehead from my unfinished 1977 SR. I got out the saw and did some surgery on both. I will be a lot easier than I thought to reposition the arms to hold a scepter and a globe... but I did pack the inside of the figurehead with ApoxieSculpt to fill the large hollow. Alas, I will let the ApoxieSculpt dry until tomorrow before I glue her on and reattach her arms. I also sanded/scraped away all of the kits details on the figurehead so that I could add my own. This photo gives you an idea of what she will look like - about the same height as the kit figurehead down to a millimeter. Tomorrow I will also be able to pretty her up, starting with Tamiya putty. Guy notes that she was "scantily dressed", with sea shells on her chest and draped with necklaces. Obviously, it will be easier if I go sans shells, and almost all of the ship figurehead drawings and photos that I can find have a bare-chested mermaid. I have time to decide which way to go.

A lot to unpack here, so hopefully pictures are worth a thousand words. These three drawings have the look that I am trying to emulate for SR 1671... that longer, lower beak that looks "Dutchy", per Marc LaGuardia. In order to achieve this, I laid down some graph paper and played around with the kit parts. By playing around with the bowsprit posItion, that seemed to be the easiest path forward to get the "Dutchy" look. The red and yellow and green marker colors are different bowsprit positions/angles. Next, I duplicated the existing Heller kit appearance with its 32 degree bowsprit angle. Again, the existing kit parts were used as it was easier to see against the graph paper. Again, this is the standard appearance. Next, I sawed off 6mm of the black bowsprit support located at the very tip of the bow. This obviously lowers the bowsprit by 6mm and makes the bowsprit almost touch the figurehead. If I had left the blue cheek piece in, it would clearly clash with the bowsprit. Finally, the picture below shows how lowering the bowsprit allows me to "lengthen" or "push forward" the entire head. The bowsprit angle here is 35 degrees, compared to 32 degrees for the kit. I am not sure yet as to what my exact bowsprit angle will be, but in the next day or so I will be able to determine the curve of the head rail (which will also allow me to trim the bulwark extensions that wrap onto the bowsprit deck. I am not sure that I will have quite enough room to have the entire bowsprit plunge through the bowsprit deck, as opposed to primarily going through the beakhead bulkhead as in the kit. The black oval on the bowsprit deck indicates a potential hole for the bowsprit to go through. It may have to cheat every so slightly through the beakhead bulkhead, Finally, I have a friend who has a lathe and is a very good woodworker. I saw on Dfolgado's SR build log (Ships of Scale) that he thought the Heller kit masts were often incorrect. I did check the bowsprit against the St Phillipe monograph dimensions and it does suggest the kit bowsprit is too long and thin(?). It will be interesting to see how the lathe turned bowsprit turns out.

Well, the extension of the front bulwark that partially wraps the bowsprit deck has gone very well. Like many aspects of this build so far, what appears to be daunting turned out to be fairly straightforward... and Marc's suggestion certainly made this a lot easier! First, I used the St Phillippe monograph to see where the extension tapers down to the bowsprit deck. Then I added the (temporary) vertical forming pieces as Marc suggested The front bulwark is 2.3mm wide at the base and tapers to 1.60mm as it rises. So I first "planked" with some 0.4mm sheet, and then added additional planks of varying width and thickness. I finished the outside with 4mm wide planks which almost exactly match the plank widths on the Heller kit. Once the starboard side is done, I will attach the hull halves together (temporarily) so I can work on my beakhead... and that will allow me to see what the sweep of my head rails will be, as the tapering downward curve of the bulwark extension will match the sweeping curve of the head rail. The only "scary" part will be wasting away the vertical formers and gently shaping the bulwark extension.

Marc, I get it all now! Thank you

Marc, I like your idea and want to make sure I understand this! Here is a very crude paper template I made, basically following what I see on the ST. Phillippe monograph... I am assuming the top wales would continue to wrap on this cheeking piece? Neither of the drift rails would continue as they are too high,. I used a few dots of super glue to attach some 2mm thick rods as drawn in your sketch by attaching them to the inside of the hull, and I am holding a piece of plank to show how they would wrap the outside of the formers. However, I can't wrap my head around how I plank on the inside of the formers? Also, wouldn't the formers, as they are glued onto the inside of the hull, interfere with the fitting of the bowsprit deck? P.S I think I will stay the course for SR 1671. It's possible I could eventually fit the masts but NOT rig it yet, but start again on a hull for either Royal Louis 1668 or Dauphin Royal 1668. I think I could proceed a lot faster on a second hull, using what I learned from this hull. Also, I am thinking 3D printing technology continues to jump ahead by leaps and bounds, and just maybe, the complicated sculptures on Royal Louis will be a lot more feasible to make in 1-2-3 years??

And just a side note as I finish the nails in the wales... well, a drift rail. I sourced some tiny brass nails.... from top to bottom, the round head diameter is 0.020", 0.027", and 0.47". It wasn't too bad to use the middle nails for the wales... but I decided to try the tiny nails on top for the top drift rail, always thinking of scale (the bottom drift rail will have listons d'ors, so need to apply nails). Thank God I only have about 40 nails/bolts to apply as these little buggers are hard to handle - I am happy if I only lose 30% to the universe! Will it make a difference? Thanks to Marc (Hubac's Historian), I try and make my first thought "is it to scale?". And the best I can say is.. "I know that they are there!"

Marc, I am planning on having those exterior bulkheads sweep forward... I wish I knew the proper name, but I am very interested in your idea!

Ahh, the toothbrush will definitely help.. thank you!

So in the last two weeks, I have been able to put a lot of work into the ship... but yet, if you look at the following pictures, it would seem that nothing has changed. By way of explanation, I have found myself doing what Penelope (wife of Odysseus) did.... whereas she wove a burial shroud by day, she unraveled most of it every night. So in the last two weeks, I unraveled a lot of things on my ship! By way of explanation, I did a lot of detail items, like rabbeting the gun ports, making through bolts for the wale scarf joints, etc. BEFORE I filled in the hull plank lines with Tamiya putty so I could rescribe plank lines to match the sweep of the wales. Also, I didn't know I would be attaching the bulwarks at such an early stage; Apoxie Sculpt did a wonderful job of filling any gaps between the hull and the bulwarks, but talk about dust! And then I grew unhappy with the gun ports on the top deck - I felt that I hade made them too small (7mm x 6mm). So I cut out all of my prior rabbeting, and enlarged and then checked every gun port for level on the top gun deck, as well as the quarterdeck and poop deck. OK... I liked that a lot better and just finished rabbeting the gun ports. So.... I am back where I was two weeks ago! And that means glue in the cleats on the inside of the bulwarks, and I might be priming the hull this weekend. I do have a general question on ship clean up... I find myself creating lots of dust and small particles, from scribing plank lines, from drilling out the Tamiya putty that settled in gun port lid holes, sanding Apoxie Sculpt, etc. My only solution has been to bathe the hull pieces in a bath tub with a bit of dish soap. This does seem to get rid of the dust, and it doesn't seem to cause damage to the ship or cause tiny parts to break off. But is there a better way to clean this debris off?

I clipped the hull halves together and made sure that all of the decks and bulkheads fit nicely.... because I planked the inside of the bulwarks with 0.5mm thick planks, I "lost" 1 mm of width that I had to compensate for by trimming away the planking. The nice thing is I don;t have to be incredibly precise, as the weather decks will all have spirketting to cover up any subtle gaps. I also panelled/filled in the last seven timberheads on the last and highest rail. I have seen this look on some drawings, and when I looked at Micheal Saunier's model, I realized that filling in those timberheads would allow me to have the poop royal deck as high as possible; if the timberheads were not filled in, you could see the edges of the poop royal deck halfway up the timberheads. Also, that extra flat surface allows me additional surface area to decorate... Finally, I got a better look at the beak. It looks like I will have to double the thickness of the stem to make it more substantial for the beak. Finally, I am doing a last inspection of every gun port, every wale, every plank line, every copper bolt and bolt head, etc. Better to find and correct now than after the the hull painting.

The closer I get to painting the hull.. the more I discover things I want to correct. And I have discovered the beauty of plastic is that you can basically make - and correct! - anything. For example, I naively made an assumption about gun port sizes. The gun ports below are on the upper gun deck; the port on the left is exposed to the elements, and won't receive a lid; whilst the gun port on the right is sheltered bvy the forecastle deck and will have a gun port lid. I assumed gun ports without lids would simply appear larger, as they didn't have rabbeting. Wrong. Well, that's a simple fix with Evergreen and some Tamiya putty. So all gun ports. lid or not, will appear to be the same size. Of course, I then had to drag out the laser leveler and recheck all of the gun ports that I last checked two months ago. I don't think I have seen how other people check for vertical plumb on items like gun ports or fenders, but for me it is extremely fast and easy to use the laser level on a tripod and just move the model gun port by gun port. And of course, I found four gun ports that I didn't feel were true enough on the port side! I just check for vertical plumb, as it seems my eye is good enough to check for, and correct for if needed, horizontal level. The good news is that major surgery wasn't required, just some very light scraping and file work. I would rather find these things that need corrections now then when I am painting the hull!

Marc, I did it deliberately, but I can't claim I did it for the brainy reason you just offered. I believe my thinking was that IF the lower wales were beefier than the middle wales, and the middle wales were beefier than the top wales (now, is that even true?), then I might want to space the wales a bit further apart as I went up the hull as those lower wales would be so strong, the next wale didn't have to be as close.... again, not even sure if that is a correct way of thinking

Thank you for that observation, Marc. I will make a few more.. they wouldnt be applied until after hull painting

The various scuppers are done... it's been an interesting several days learning abut scuppers, as the subject is a little more complex than I thought! First, the small deck scuppers. Positioned at the lowest run of a deck to let gravity get the water out, and I have assumed that more deck scuppers would be needed on a weather deck. I decided to basically make them flush to the hull; sometimes they are portrayed as being a block that looked out past a wale. You can see 10 deck scuppers below; 5 on the top gun (weather) deck, 3 on the middle gun deck, and 2 on the lower gun deck ( do have a scupper hole for the manger at the bow). The holes are 0.030" (to simulate 3" at scale), and the scuppers are positioned below the level of the deck. The pump scuppers were a bit more interesting. The St. Phillippe mongraph states that SP had 6 total elm pumps. 4 at the main mast and 2 at mizzen mast. Surely another large ship like Soleil Royal would require 6 elm tree pumps, and I assumed at the same locations. So my first attempt was making large scupper boxes that protruded from the hull. But then I found a short video on YouTube that showed an elm pump being worked on the refurbished Hermione.... and the volume of water seemed rather small. One source said that HMS Victory elm pumps could do 25GPM, compared to the 1,000+GPM of a chain pump. So decided to downsize my pump scuppers... and I found another video by Animigraffs. This screen clip shows how the water is discharged from an elm pump, into what seems to be troughs that run the water through a scupper at deck. This seemed confusing... until I corresponded with Marc LaGuardia (Hubac's Historian"). He mused that the wood troughs were very likely movable, and would be moved into place as needed. So, while the deck scuppers are positioned several feet below the run of a deck, the pump scuppers must be right at deck level. The pump scupper holes have been downsized to 0.041", or 4" in scale. Note the smaller deck scupper to the right. BTW, all of the six scuppers were at the lower gun deck level, as that is where the elm pumps were worked and the moveable troughs would be laid on the lower deck So I learned more about scuppers than I thought was possible to know. I did mess around with 28 gauge copper wire rings that I gently tapped with a hammer, in order to make a thin ring that would suggest the lead that scuppers were lined with. Even 28 gauge is too thick; I really would want the ring to be super-thin so it could be flush with the hole; and tapping it to make it thin enough makes it too large in diameter - at least I think it appears out of scale.

Interesting observations on the scuppers, Marc. It would be interesting to try and model a "sock" on several of the lowest scuppers...hmmm And I agree completely on the J-shaped hancing pieces...

Finished the ladders. It would have been easier to keep the kit steps, but... they vanished when I ground off the wales. I made a simple template and placed them 3mm apart. It was actually very easy and took no more than 30 minutes to affix all of the steps (despite my dread months ago whem I ground the kit wales/steps off). Steps on a wale were only 0.5mm wide; while steps in between the wales were 1.0mm. Some clean up work needs to be done, and when I get several inches away with my magnifying headset, I see plenty that I don't like. However, when I back away a few inches, or look at the more distant perspective in photos, I can't see most of the flaws. I can live with that, and my technique will be better when I make my second ship. The boat fenders were 1.5mm wide (6.0 inches in actual size), while the ladder railings were only 1mm wide (4.0 inches in real size). On to scuppers. There seems to be a large range of latitude in scupper design and their numbers. Some models have scupper holes flush with the hull; some models have "boxes" that protrude a bit from the hull. Mondfeld (by the way, someone suggested a few months ago that I get Historic Ship Models... what a fantastic book!) suggests that three-deckers had two or three pairs of scuppers on the middle deck and upper deck, so I think that is what I will try. And I have to bear in mind a set of larger scupper holes for the pump, and he says these are located "above the waterline" (lower gun deck?) and located between the main mast and mizzen mast...

I have settled on the idea that the beakhead should appear "longer/lower" than the Heller kit model, something like this VDV drawing of La Reyne. I made of a copy of the St Phillipe monograph bulkhead and shrank it from 1/48 to 1/96.. and that is more of the look that I am trying to achieve. Compared the kit parts to the St Phillipe Evergreen cutout... Obviously, there is going to be a lot of scratch building. The first thing that I had to do was to complete the bottom wales all of the way to the stem (I hadn't run them all of the way before as that area was going to be covered up by the kit parts). It looked to me on the St Phillipe monograph that the thickness of the bottom wales really thinned out as they wrapped around to the stem, so I sanded/shaved them down. I then added the hawser... "holes"?... back by using 4mm copper rings that I countersunk a bit into the original plastic holes (I didn't worry about them being perfect as the anchor ropes will obscure most of the hawser holes). I will also add the ... name?? ... of the rounded moulding just under the hawser holes. I also started to make changes to the bowsprit deck by eliminating the round houses, and I wanted to see the layout as the foward bulkead "cheeks"(?) wrap forward around the bowsprit deck. Of course that means scratch building the beakhead bulkhead, but I was going to have to do that anyways as I raised the height of the forward bulkead by 5mm. So I now have a long list of things that need to be done and be considered regarding the beakhead appearance, but the hulls have to be painted and glued together first for that to proceed! The fenders are finished on both sides, so now the side ladder steps/railing must be finished... getting me ever closer to where I can start painting the hull halves.

Marc, I have been thinking about what you just mentioned for my next build.. is it possible to remove 1/8" of spacing between lower/middle gun decks and middle/upper gun decks. I will have plenty of time to look at this... for example, if I do a Royal Louis 1668, or SR 1671, I would likely redo all of the wales again to get the aft sheer sweep... and maybe a cut could be made unobtrusively that would get covered

Henry, you are correct. Basically if I use the kit bowsprit fit as is, I can have longer/lower for the beakhead... OR a slightly higher angle of the bowsprit. There is one possibility though.... the Heller kit has the bowsprit going through the beakhead bulkhead. Cedric, in his La Reine build, stated that French ships before 1690 had the bowsprit go through the "first deck".... but I didn't know what he meant by that. I happened to look at Micheal Saunier's build, and his bowsprit is pushed forward and enters through the bowsprit deck - ah ha! the "first deck" - and NOT through the bulkhead. Marc (Hubacs Historian) agrees that this does seem a plausible design consideration for me.... so by pushing the bowsprit forward and have it enter the bowsprit deck, I does appear I can get the beakhead "longer/lower" AND maybe even tweak the bowsprit angle up (not sure how far yet). Playing with paper templates suggests this is possible. 🤞

Back from a week of vacation in a warmer place than Wisconsin, and had a lot of time to relax and review other build logs. And I came to the conclusion that if I am really trying to model "Soleil Royal 1671", then I couldn't stop at simply bashing the wales/bulwarks to have much more aft sheer. I also had to make the bow more "Dutchy looking" (I think I first saw that term reading Marc's Hubacs Historian blog!). I want to: 1) change the bowsprit angle, 2) lower the catheads, 3) wrap the forward bulwark around past the beakhead bulkhead (not sure what this is called), and 4) lower/lengthen the beakhead Below you can see my tracing of the Heller kit supplied parts. The Heller kit has 34 degrees angle (orange marker below). Mondfeld says in 1665 it was 40 degrees, then 35 degrees in 1675. The St Phillipe monograph is 40 degrees, and I found a Zeven Provincean plan which is also at 40 degrees. Sooooo, I am thinking I could do 39-40 degrees and be just fine; see the new black lines drawn in. With a known bowsprit angle, the other items like cathead placement and headrail positioning will fall in place (yup, I am thinking I will scratch build the head rails..). Where I am struggling now is is with the beakhead design... "lower and longer". By increasing the angle of the bowsprit from 34 degrees to 40 degrees, the figurehead APPEARS to be lower. Perhaps I just need to examine some prints like the VDV drawing below and take cues to "lengthen" the beakhead a bit from the Heller kit part?

Finishing the starboard skids. I had fabricated the skids to extend down to the "top" bottom wale... but if the "lower" bottom wale is dipping into the water amidships, then it made sense to me to lower the skid down to the "lower" bottom wale. I am also doubling/reinforcing the thickness of the skids at the bottom wales; I have seen that on a few drawings and models... not sure what that is called besides "reinforcement". The next step will be the skids/hand rails at the ladder steps on the hull. However, I am a bit puzzled as... were all of the ladder steps jutting out the same amount from the hull.. let's say 6 inches? But if we have steps on a wale, they will stick out farther than a step not on a wale, if this makes sense. I am thinking that the ladder steps stuck out to to a fixed point, whether they were on a wale or not, that followed the tumblehome of the hull. So let's say we pick 12 inches out from the hull... on a 6 inch thick wale, the step would be 6 inches wide. but the next step - NOT on a wale - would this have to be 12 inches wide?!? Hope this makes sense

College soccer is done and outdoor preparations for winter are complete... so finally a lot more time is available for me to work in the shipyard! The wales and drift rails are complete on the starboard side. The upper wales and bottom drift rail will be covered with a golden listons d' or "rope", but the upper drift rail will be plain, so I am using bolts on the upper drift rail as I did on the lower and middle wales. I used 0.5mm (.020") diameter bolt heads on the lower/middle wales, so I used 0.3mm (0.012") diameter bolt heads on the top drift rail. I also fabricated new fenders and am ready to glue them in place... fortunately I remembered to make them a bit more proud than the listons d' or rope will be. That leaves the outside ladder steps/rail to be completed. So after the port side is completed in several days, I am on the verge of being able to paint the hull halves.

Well, that wasn't too painful! After Marc's observation that, in actual practice, the sheer of the hull planking would have aligned with the sheer of the wales... I had to fix it. Perhaps hard to see, but it should be much easier to see after painting and a wash coat. Of course, I have some touching up to do... Now to affix the upper wales to the port side. It was actully very easy to do, as once I got the lower bottom wale on ages ago, that became my guide. I just cut little spacer blocks to maintain the desired seperation between the wales, just by sliding the block back and forth and then clamping the wale in place. And I finally got a sample listons d'or available to see how it fits. The listons d' or is two 16 gauge copper wires twisted together so the diameter is 0.090"; then the wire is laid in a channel created by wood strips 0.055" high. A couple of passes with a belt sander results in a flat side and a rope that is now almost half its orginal thickness. As per Marc (Hubac's Historian) and GuyM, when laid on a wale, the goal is to have it appear that the gilded rope was carved down right out of the wale strip.

Thanks, Ian! Not sure about the brave part, though... maybe... "not aware of what I got myself into"!

Well, Marc... I agree with you regarding the plank lines. The photo below from your Pinterest site clearly shows the plank lines match trhe sheer lines of the wales. I have come too far on this 1671 SR path to ignore an inaccuracy like this. So with a little bit of Tamiya putty... The good news is that there really is no issue at the bow or amidships. My "new" wales start to sheer up closer to the stern. Now, after light sanding and the rescribing, the hull truly will look like Frankenstein's Monster, but nothing that some primer and the eventual paint scheme won't cover up.