SJSoane

Thanks so much for the kind comments, Yancovitch and Steve. Slow but steady!
 
In my last post, I express doubts about the way I had managed the hair bracket, sitting tenuously on top of the knee at the stem. After pondering it a while, I decided there was nothing for it but to cut down the top of the knee that I had shaped in 1998 when I started construction (see image below). It was too short for the hair bracket, the gammoning slot and the hole for the mainmast stay collar were in the wrong locations. To this day, I don't quite know how I got that so wrong. I might have copied something out of Lavery's book on the Bellona, which I have subsequently discovered is not  accurate enough to build a model from. And I started construction years before I finally started drawing more accurate drawings--always a mistake!

So, I made a complete new piece, combining the hair bracket and a carved ornamental piece that stands directly behind the figurehead. It seemed more solid the two together, and they are the same thickness relative to the figure head:
 

 
And after a lot of faying and tapering, the new core for the hair brackets now holds everything firmly together.
 
I made up a dummy of Bellona (don't tell her I said that, she is supposed to be a very scary warrior...), just to see how things are starting to fit together. The first image below shows the new core piece still covered in the paper pattern, showing the bas-relief carving to come on the piece behind the figurehead (she is pulled away from it a little in this photo). It also shows the captain standing on the cheeks. Gives a good idea of the size of the figurehead.
 

And here are parts starting to fall into place:
 

 
I have been reading David Antscherl's excellent explanation of how to carve a figure head in Volume II of the Fully Framed Model. I might start with the maquette, and see how it goes...
I have pondered what wood to use, to carve the figures on the ship. My boxwood is not buxus semperivens, the stuff the old modeler's used, and that David recommended when he first wrote his book. But I can find no supplier anywhere in the world of buxus semperivens anymore. I know my boxwood is from South America, but I don't know its actual species. It seems to be stiffer in relation to what others have written about working true boxwood. I think it will have to do. And I can always blame a bad outcome on bad tools or bad wood, not lack of skill!🙂
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
edited with higher resolution image here:
 

 
 
 
 
 

Thanks, Gaetan, someday when I get further along, I would be interested in studying French ships of the period. Always fun to see what is universal, and what is culturally different!
 
Further progress today. I finally got in the second layer of the hawse lining, ready for drilling the hawse holes:
 

And now on to that pesky support for the hair bracket. I tried letting a liner down into a rebate I cut today on top of the knee, but I may sleep on this. It seems flimsy, kind of cobbled together. I may consider making the entire core in one piece. A decision for tomorrow!
 
 

 

I have now drilled the hawse holes, and fitted a bolster waiting for final assembly for final trimming:
 

 
 
 
I now have to turn my attention to the trailboard. I am getting closer to painting the blue around this area, and I want to know where the trailboards need gluing.
I want to build the Bellona as first designed, and shown in the first model. But the trailboard detail is frustratingly difficult to see or to reconstruct, from the photo I took:

Unless someone has a better photo, I may have to build the trailboard on the second Bellona model:
 

If I do the latter, do you have any advice for how to glue this down to a backing board for piercing and carving, and then how to get it unglued from the backing board with those tiny, fragile pieces holding it together?
 
Mark
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I have now drilled the hawse holes, and fitted a bolster waiting for final assembly for final trimming:
 

 
 
 
I now have to turn my attention to the trailboard. I am getting closer to painting the blue around this area, and I want to know where the trailboards need gluing.
I want to build the Bellona as first designed, and shown in the first model. But the trailboard detail is frustratingly difficult to see or to reconstruct, from the photo I took:

Unless someone has a better photo, I may have to build the trailboard on the second Bellona model:
 

If I do the latter, do you have any advice for how to glue this down to a backing board for piercing and carving, and then how to get it unglued from the backing board with those tiny, fragile pieces holding it together?
 
Mark
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I have now drilled the hawse holes, and fitted a bolster waiting for final assembly for final trimming:
 

 
 
 
I now have to turn my attention to the trailboard. I am getting closer to painting the blue around this area, and I want to know where the trailboards need gluing.
I want to build the Bellona as first designed, and shown in the first model. But the trailboard detail is frustratingly difficult to see or to reconstruct, from the photo I took:

Unless someone has a better photo, I may have to build the trailboard on the second Bellona model:
 

If I do the latter, do you have any advice for how to glue this down to a backing board for piercing and carving, and then how to get it unglued from the backing board with those tiny, fragile pieces holding it together?
 
Mark
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Marc, I really appreciate how you are as interested in the history and rationale for various reconstruction decisions as you are in the exquisite model construction itself. The best of both worlds!
 
Mark

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Beautiful work, Siggi. Your craftsmanship is spectacular, and your carving and painting set the very highest standard for everyone else. I wish you could offer lessons in your techniques!
Mark

Finally finished all of the square frames.  That was a good day and a milestone.   I have faired the outside of the hull pretty good but stopped short of the outmost frames because I didnt want to over fair.  Those will be done as I work on the cant frames next.   The forwards cant frames are next.  I also did some preliminary fairing inboard where I could reach.   Just a little to make my life easier when the time comes to do that later.   
 

I basically just repeated the instructions I already mentioned until all the square frames were completed.   It is really important to check the heights and positions of the sweep ports and gun ports as you progress.   I have provided the laser cut parts to simplify that and yes you can measure up from the baseboard to check their heights.   But I was also using a template I created.   I just havent showed it before in my previous updates.   This will be provided on the plans.  This in combination with those other means of measurement will really help ensure that your ports all end up where they are supposed to.   The top of the template aligns with the sheer.   The bottom of the template actually aligns with the top edge of the wales.  The heights are most important for the ports and dont go nuts if your openings are a 1/64" to the left or right.   It will all work out in the end.   You can always fix slight issues before you start planking if you have to do some shifting.  But I highly recommend that you use this template from the start of your framing to check the port positions as you progress.   If you do this before you glue the actual sweep port fillers into position permanently (and the gun port sills),  you can adjust them at that time to ensure the opening are in the correct spots.   Then after you get a match glue them in permanently.  Using the template is really the key to successfully and easily taking the guess-work out of positioning the ports.
 
With any POF project there is a lot going on and a lot of parts.  It is inevitable that some frames may not end up where you want them exactly.   Thats OK and certainly it happened to me.  You may get a slight bend in your frame etc.   Your wood thickness might be a little over or under with your frames.   Maybe a frame isnt perfectly perpendicular to the keel after it settles once glued in.  Creep can be an issue after 20 frames etc.   But regardless of where you frames end up you can easily manipulate the sweep port fillers and sills using the template to get them exactly where you want them.   As you can see the framing looks perfect to the naked eye but I can assure you they are not...the template is your salvation!!!
 



The hull is really shaping up after doing some fairing.   I hope you guys and start to see the shape in the photos I have taken.
 
I will take a few days to a week to get organized before I start on the forward cant frames.   I want to prepare the parts files for final laser cutting up to this point.   What you see in these pictures should constitute the starter package or chapter one.   It will cost more than a typical chapter because there is so much wood and so many parts.   But it makes for a nice start.  I will also prepare all of the carvings for casting before I start on the cant frames so it may be a while before my next update....A couple of weeks maybe.   Any questions or comments are welcomed.  Chapter 2 begins really soon!!!
 

Marc, I really appreciate how you are as interested in the history and rationale for various reconstruction decisions as you are in the exquisite model construction itself. The best of both worlds!
 
Mark

Hi Alan,
 
You might have a look at some conversations about this problem at my Bellona website.
 
In posting #173 (about page 6) and onward, is a discussion about the stern roundups. I found out years later in Steel's Naval Architecture that the roundups of the beams at the stern of the upper deck and quarterdeck are indeed intentionally higher than the standard beams further forward on each of these decks, for the aesthetic reason druxey described. These are faired in smoothly so the deck does not have a bump in it at any place; but it means that every beam from the stern to the point of fairing into the standard beams is a slightly different roundup. Sneaky! I kind of faked mine, making beams a little larger and then smoothing down the upper deck surface. I didn't understand why at the time, but got there in the end. I think....
 
In posting #198 and onward, I show a jig I made to manage all of the roundups and arrangements of the vertical stern timbers, to keep everything in place and symmetrical. A lot of work to make the jig, but then everything fell into place very quickly.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Mark

Hi Alan,
 
You might have a look at some conversations about this problem at my Bellona website.
 
In posting #173 (about page 6) and onward, is a discussion about the stern roundups. I found out years later in Steel's Naval Architecture that the roundups of the beams at the stern of the upper deck and quarterdeck are indeed intentionally higher than the standard beams further forward on each of these decks, for the aesthetic reason druxey described. These are faired in smoothly so the deck does not have a bump in it at any place; but it means that every beam from the stern to the point of fairing into the standard beams is a slightly different roundup. Sneaky! I kind of faked mine, making beams a little larger and then smoothing down the upper deck surface. I didn't understand why at the time, but got there in the end. I think....
 
In posting #198 and onward, I show a jig I made to manage all of the roundups and arrangements of the vertical stern timbers, to keep everything in place and symmetrical. A lot of work to make the jig, but then everything fell into place very quickly.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Mark

Hi Alan,
 
You might have a look at some conversations about this problem at my Bellona website.
 
In posting #173 (about page 6) and onward, is a discussion about the stern roundups. I found out years later in Steel's Naval Architecture that the roundups of the beams at the stern of the upper deck and quarterdeck are indeed intentionally higher than the standard beams further forward on each of these decks, for the aesthetic reason druxey described. These are faired in smoothly so the deck does not have a bump in it at any place; but it means that every beam from the stern to the point of fairing into the standard beams is a slightly different roundup. Sneaky! I kind of faked mine, making beams a little larger and then smoothing down the upper deck surface. I didn't understand why at the time, but got there in the end. I think....
 
In posting #198 and onward, I show a jig I made to manage all of the roundups and arrangements of the vertical stern timbers, to keep everything in place and symmetrical. A lot of work to make the jig, but then everything fell into place very quickly.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Mark

Hi Alan,
 
You might have a look at some conversations about this problem at my Bellona website.
 
In posting #173 (about page 6) and onward, is a discussion about the stern roundups. I found out years later in Steel's Naval Architecture that the roundups of the beams at the stern of the upper deck and quarterdeck are indeed intentionally higher than the standard beams further forward on each of these decks, for the aesthetic reason druxey described. These are faired in smoothly so the deck does not have a bump in it at any place; but it means that every beam from the stern to the point of fairing into the standard beams is a slightly different roundup. Sneaky! I kind of faked mine, making beams a little larger and then smoothing down the upper deck surface. I didn't understand why at the time, but got there in the end. I think....
 
In posting #198 and onward, I show a jig I made to manage all of the roundups and arrangements of the vertical stern timbers, to keep everything in place and symmetrical. A lot of work to make the jig, but then everything fell into place very quickly.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Mark

Marc, I really appreciate how you are as interested in the history and rationale for various reconstruction decisions as you are in the exquisite model construction itself. The best of both worlds!
 
Mark

Yes, John, I have been very lucky that this project has attracted the attention of such a diversely talented group.  I guess, at the end of the day, we all like our painted ladies 😏
 
I’m intrigued by your choice of avatar, John.  Le Fleuron by Jean Berain:
 

Are you planning a scratch-project of this ship?
 
As for the question of removable panels that conceal gun ports, you are spot-on.
 

The lowest tier of 3 lights, where the functional toilet resides, are all false lights.  The forward panel likely conceals an additional gun port.  The middle two lights, in the amortisement, are also false lights - the forward, of which, could also be an armed port.  As a side note, I kinda wished that I had done all of the stern lights in this stylized black.  The upper tier of balcony lights is giving me fits, at the moment, but I’ll address that more fully in the next post.
 
The only real light in the quarter gallery is that of the Captain’s cabin on the quarter deck.  Interesting side note: I had always assumed that this was the Admiral’s cabin, and that Tanneron had perhaps incorrectly placed the crenelated bulkhead on the wrong deck, when it should reside on the main deck below.  Well, as with so many of my early assumptions, that proved to be wrong.
 
The insight comes from the survey drawings of the cabins.  These drawings, which include pre-refit drawings of the three cabins, as well as post-refit drawings with the new 6-window layout, illustrate dimensionally that the Captain’s cabin must always have resided on the quarter deck.  I discovered these, dare I say, facts through a closer reading of Guy Maher’s research document.  I wish I could take credit for it, but that is all Guy Maher.
 
And, so, this is why Guy posits that Tanneron perhaps intended to build a model of SR as she first appeared upon launching; the framing of the stern that his model shows reflects the rather severe tumblehome that the pre-refit cabin drawings dictate.
 
Tanneron chose a 5-window layout, as opposed to the five window + 2 half-light layout of the pre-refit great cabin.  As discussed in earlier posts, Tanneron was not a stranger to simplifying window layouts on his other Musee models - see L’Agreable.

Another assumption of mine has been that Tanneron adapted Berain’s design to fit within the reduced area of this taller, more narrow stern.  Perhaps, though, at the time he made this model he had access to the mythical Puget drawing which was, itself, a reworking of the LeBrun conceptual drawing.  Guy suspects that this drawing may still exist somewhere in the archives, but he has not yet located it.
 
I have long believed the Tanneron model is a composite of the ship from 1670 and the second ship of 1693, as it shares distinct construction characteristics of both epochs.  The quarter galleries share the overall shape of the 1690’s and beyond (see Louis Quinze model), however, their fully open, terraced design is an artifact of the 1670’s.
 
That Guy is one sharp guy!  I can’t post a link to it directly, but if one were curious to see his particular vision of the ship, just Google: “Guy Maher, Soleil Royal 1671”
 
In my next post, I will detail my travails with my stern.  Oh, and my liquid bitumen finally completed it’s epic pilgrimage from the shores of England!  I’ll be able to resume work on the head soon. 

Hello,
the gratings are finished and the boomkins build. 

Hello,
just to schow you that we are not lazy, here a picture of our current work

Thanks so much for the kind comments, Yancovitch and Steve. Slow but steady!
 
In my last post, I express doubts about the way I had managed the hair bracket, sitting tenuously on top of the knee at the stem. After pondering it a while, I decided there was nothing for it but to cut down the top of the knee that I had shaped in 1998 when I started construction (see image below). It was too short for the hair bracket, the gammoning slot and the hole for the mainmast stay collar were in the wrong locations. To this day, I don't quite know how I got that so wrong. I might have copied something out of Lavery's book on the Bellona, which I have subsequently discovered is not  accurate enough to build a model from. And I started construction years before I finally started drawing more accurate drawings--always a mistake!

So, I made a complete new piece, combining the hair bracket and a carved ornamental piece that stands directly behind the figurehead. It seemed more solid the two together, and they are the same thickness relative to the figure head:
 

 
And after a lot of faying and tapering, the new core for the hair brackets now holds everything firmly together.
 
I made up a dummy of Bellona (don't tell her I said that, she is supposed to be a very scary warrior...), just to see how things are starting to fit together. The first image below shows the new core piece still covered in the paper pattern, showing the bas-relief carving to come on the piece behind the figurehead (she is pulled away from it a little in this photo). It also shows the captain standing on the cheeks. Gives a good idea of the size of the figurehead.
 

And here are parts starting to fall into place:
 

 
I have been reading David Antscherl's excellent explanation of how to carve a figure head in Volume II of the Fully Framed Model. I might start with the maquette, and see how it goes...
I have pondered what wood to use, to carve the figures on the ship. My boxwood is not buxus semperivens, the stuff the old modeler's used, and that David recommended when he first wrote his book. But I can find no supplier anywhere in the world of buxus semperivens anymore. I know my boxwood is from South America, but I don't know its actual species. It seems to be stiffer in relation to what others have written about working true boxwood. I think it will have to do. And I can always blame a bad outcome on bad tools or bad wood, not lack of skill!🙂
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
edited with higher resolution image here:
 

 
 
 
 
 

Thanks so much for the kind comments, Yancovitch and Steve. Slow but steady!
 
In my last post, I express doubts about the way I had managed the hair bracket, sitting tenuously on top of the knee at the stem. After pondering it a while, I decided there was nothing for it but to cut down the top of the knee that I had shaped in 1998 when I started construction (see image below). It was too short for the hair bracket, the gammoning slot and the hole for the mainmast stay collar were in the wrong locations. To this day, I don't quite know how I got that so wrong. I might have copied something out of Lavery's book on the Bellona, which I have subsequently discovered is not  accurate enough to build a model from. And I started construction years before I finally started drawing more accurate drawings--always a mistake!

So, I made a complete new piece, combining the hair bracket and a carved ornamental piece that stands directly behind the figurehead. It seemed more solid the two together, and they are the same thickness relative to the figure head:
 

 
And after a lot of faying and tapering, the new core for the hair brackets now holds everything firmly together.
 
I made up a dummy of Bellona (don't tell her I said that, she is supposed to be a very scary warrior...), just to see how things are starting to fit together. The first image below shows the new core piece still covered in the paper pattern, showing the bas-relief carving to come on the piece behind the figurehead (she is pulled away from it a little in this photo). It also shows the captain standing on the cheeks. Gives a good idea of the size of the figurehead.
 

And here are parts starting to fall into place:
 

 
I have been reading David Antscherl's excellent explanation of how to carve a figure head in Volume II of the Fully Framed Model. I might start with the maquette, and see how it goes...
I have pondered what wood to use, to carve the figures on the ship. My boxwood is not buxus semperivens, the stuff the old modeler's used, and that David recommended when he first wrote his book. But I can find no supplier anywhere in the world of buxus semperivens anymore. I know my boxwood is from South America, but I don't know its actual species. It seems to be stiffer in relation to what others have written about working true boxwood. I think it will have to do. And I can always blame a bad outcome on bad tools or bad wood, not lack of skill!🙂
 
Best wishes,
 
Mark
edited with higher resolution image here: