rybakov

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. 
 
 
 
 

Thank you, guys, for all of the ideas and input.  Dan, as a glasses-wearer for most of my life, I had that same thought about bending eyeglass arms in sand.
 
I took a look at Heller’s on-line part order form, and that all seems very straight-forward.  I may, yet, try another more gentle heat approach.  I’m leaning toward securing the straight part into a rounded form and submerging in merely very hot, and not boiling water for a period of time.
 
In the meantime, It was necessary to make new corbels for the upper balcony.  The stock is made up from a piece of .0625 and a piece of .020 styrene laminated together:



Below is the kit’s stock corbel for this balcony level:

I ordered my Bitumen of Judea from an Italian vendor, who subsequently emailed to say that he couldn’t ship this small bottle of combustible material.  So, then, I tried to order from a UK vendor.  We’ll see whether that order sticks.
 
I’ve made the window panes and have begun painting the third-gallery window plate.  There’s a whole bunch of stuff that is very nearly ready to go together.
 
Thank you for your interest, the likes, your comments and suggestions.

Well, like Michael, I had a spare section of the same railing that I was trying to bend, so I prepared it in exactly the same way.  I also kept the plastic floor that I had cut out.
 
Results were mixed.  I had the water at a low boil, and I started with the floor piece first.  There was a distinct moment when the plastic became floppy, so I took it out and had enough time to press it around my camber form:
Not too bad.  When I did the same for the pierced railing, results were not too good.  When the part became malleable, it shrank and distorted in the thinner areas:

This would not be salvageable.  I wonder whether tying the part down to the form and submerging in less than boiling water might induce the bend I’m after, without all of the distortion.
 
The other variable is that my test pieces are made from this brittle gold styrene, which lacks the suppleness of the grey stuff.
 
I could just go for it and try a second experiment on my keeper piece tomorrow.  I glued the center sections together today, and wanted to give them a day to fully harden.
 
Or, I could simply extract the pierced rail stanchions and build up everything around them, as I did for the middle balcony.
 
I’ll mull it over for a day.  Re-making those rail stanchions by hand would be a very time-consuming carving project to do well.
 
 

I’m a little stalled on the bow, while I await delivery of Liquid Bitumen of Judea, for staining of the hawser cables.  And, so, I have returned to the stern.
 
I’ve made up and fitted the upper stern balcony base:


Relative to the balcony below, you can see to some small degree how the starboard side projects slightly further aft.  It is not so visually disruptive that I absolutely must decrease the starboard depth of this upper balcony to compensate.  If I have to, I will do so later, but in the meantime - I am doing a bit of an experiment.
 
I am trying to see whether I can salvage the ornamental facade of the stock upper balcony, while successfully incorporating the round-up of the stern.  The stock part is flat-faced, but I have two of them to pull from.  As it happens, I can see a path toward filling the center section and the step-back panels to either side:


After cutting out the floor and rough-wasting:

After cleaning up the top scarf and wasting the bottom moulding:
 

If I were to extract the outboard panels from my extra balcony, and splice them-in the same way, then I can perfectly fill the span with what would be a relatively labor-intensive thing to make from scratch.
 
The deck camber is right-on.  The difficulty lies in introducing the round-up.  I had a spare middle balcony, so I cut out the floor and tried to induce a heat-bend over an open flame.  The results were not so good:
 







The variable thicknesses of the part lead to unequal heat distribution of the flame, and when the part becomes malleable, it happens very suddenly.  If you’re a second too late, the thin parts become irreversibly distorted.  I don’t think this is the way.
 
I will cut out and join the additional segments I need, and I will join and glue them together.  I may glue the whole thing to thin backing plastic, and then I will try taping the assembly to my camber form, which is almost identical to the round-up pattern.  I will see whether a natural bend can be induced over a period of time.
 
For a moment of Zen, here’s the Tanneron model on her waterline:
 

 
 

It’s been a pretty solid week.  Headrail painting continues in the evenings.  I also finished up the window plate detailing.

I had trouble making the raised panel framing out of a single piece of .020 styrene, as I had done before.  Rather than make myself crazy, I cut out and used the curved lower portion of the frame, and then I pieced-in the straight sides and tops from strip plastic:

I cut raised panels for the doors from the stock stern plate.  For the door handles, I had run out of scroll castings, so I just made a pair from sheet styrene:

Completed window plate:

The acetate windows before greying-in the leading and trimming to size:

I hope everyone enjoys a happy and safe new year!
 
All the best,
 
Marc

Alright, so this is a go:

Also, I might add, that this headrail arrangement is indicative of this later evolution in head construction in the 1680’s:
 

And a dated (1692) drawing of Le Terrible, also by Berain:
 

In contrast to the 1670’s:
 


 

The Berain drawings date to the time of the refit.  Berain does not officially become designer of ornament to the King’s arsenals until after Lebrun’s death in 1690, but his famous stern drawing is a re-working of the original design by Puget - the underlying conception for which was established by LeBrun.


The quarter drawing, I have argued, is consistent with the evolution in QG design (closed lower bottle on middle deck level, wrapping main deck balcony, QD amortisement), in the 1680s.  There is strong correlation in the design elements that make up the windows and decorative rails between quarter and stern drawings.  What is somewhat confusing to me is that this quarter drawing lacks the flawless continuity of the stern drawing; there are design problems with the quarter drawing that would lead to an impractical construction, if taken literally.  Also, this drawing shows the extremely pronounced aft sheer that would have been a feature of 1670 (see how the wales/precients are cut completely by the aft ports), yet the stern height is definitely not as high as that time period.

Also baffling is the cropping of the image.  At the right margin, the drawing ends in a soft line, but the angle of that line, relative to the digital right margin, makes it seem as though the ocean water is cascading downhill and that the ship is sinking, bow first.  Rotate the drawing 15 degrees counterclockwise and one’s perception of the thing changes dramatically.
 
All of this suggests that the heading, “Bouteille du Vaisseau…” is a later notation than the date of the drawing.  It is the heading that has determined the modern cropping of the drawing.  Why it is notated at such an odd angle to the original intent of the drawing is anyone’s guess.

The yellow is so fragile, and it already needs re-touching.  I will wait for that, though, until after the installation.  As I have throughout the model, I use the darker gold Citadel Armor as a base coat, and then I highlight with the bright gold.  It creates a nice, if subtle sense of depth:

 



Next, I’ll do all the gilt work for the starboard side.  I’m also ready to begin making the third tier of stern lights.
 
Thank you for stopping by.  More to follow..

Michael and T_C - thank you very much!  And, of course, thank you all for the likes and stopping by.
 
Painting on the headrails continues.  I’ve been through a round of re-touches and I’ve applied the distress wash.  If I may so so, they look pretty good.  The wash does a world of wonders.  Pics to follow after gilding and grey-washing of the horses.
 
I have also been busy drafting the third and final tier of stern lights.  This was interesting, for me, as I had to remind myself of a few important design considerations.
 
Firstly, I had increased the camber of the middle-tier of lights because the arc of the lower tier would have appeared too flat (in a shorter arc segment), if I had remained consistent.  It seemed like an additional increase in camber, for the top tier would not pay dividends, so I maintained the middle arc of camber.
 
I believe this will frame a nice upward sweep to the tafferal frieze for Apollo and his chariot.   What I am aiming for is best expressed by the magnificent work of Olivier Gatine on his magnificent La Belle.

There is an elegance of line, IMO, that really elevates this model above any other attempt I have seen of this subject - and there have been many really good ones.  He really captures something, here.
 
I can only dare to dream and attempt to emulate the finer points of his craft.  Here is where my upper tier stands for now.  I have to apply this drawing to a card template so that I can really see it on the model:

The drawing is a bit muddled from previous camber lines that were flatter, and subsequently fixed under hairspray.
 
As I have always said - this model is an amalgamation of compromises, and my process has yielded a few less desirable inconsistencies.  Because I have had to draw each level of the stern, as the model has become a concretely measurable thing, there is not always perfect continuity of line:

I missed my opportunity to make fine adjustments in that middle tier of drafting.  Here, it is readily apparent that the pilasters don’t line up very well from one level to the next.  Fortunately. the balcony rails help to soothe the visual dissonance.  The Four Seasons figures are also giving me a big assist, here, in obscuring these alignment problems.
 
Comme-ci, comme-ca.  It is all still a vast upgrade over the stock kit.

Well, I’ve got the ocher cut-in on the port side, and I’m a third of the way through the ocher, starboard.  You can’t really tape these lines because of the limited access and curved shapes:
 



There is still much to paint here.  I have to grey-wash the horse and the cathead figure.  I still haven’t muted the colors of the red and yellow ocher, and of course none of the gilt work has been done.  Little by little, though, we are getting there.

Hello,
many thanks to you for your interest and your contributions, as well as thanks to the many LIKES.
 
Continued: Clarifying the yard arms
After researching contemporary ship models from the Musée national de Marine, I assembled a collection of yard arms as shown below:

As you can see, there were the most diverse forms of yardarms, probably also depending on the shipyard in which these yards were manufactured. But they all have the "spiky" cleats, which do not always stick out vertically, but often horizontally and are mainly to be found on the topsail yards. The yard arms of the lower yards were somewhat simpler and often designed like the following example from L'Achille 1804:
 

Source: Musée national de Marine, L'Achille 1804

Source: monograph La Créole v. J Boudriot
 
Taking into account the results of the research in connection with Boudriot's drawings, I tried, initially in drawing, to represent the yards of the Mars yards of La Créole as they might have looked. In particular, I orientated myself on the yard arm of the yard on the model of the Le Suffren 1829. Not only does the period fit, the Le Suffren was also designed by the naval architect P. M. Leroux, like the La Créole. Therefore, I see my subsequent attempt at reconstruction as a thoroughly realistic variant.

The cleats may also have been vertical. In this respect, I will also draw a variant and then make a decision.
Sequel follows …

At LA CRÉOLE the stun'sail boom irons probably looked like this:

It turns out that coaching my son’s 5th grade CYO basketball team has been more involved than I anticipated; owing to the pandemic, we are essentially starting from scratch, so I have spent quite a lot of time finding good fundamentals drills, while I learn the broad-strokes of the Pack-Line defense.  It is all good fun, but it has cut into ship time.
 
I did manage to finish up my starboard bow angel:

I did a final/final fitting of the headrails and their supports.  Those have now been masked, primed and I’ve begun putting them into colors.
 
Per Nigel’s suggestion, I am filling-in the missing stair treads on the lower beakhead bulkhead, where the turret seats of ease used to be.
 
I made a cardboard pattern for the forward terminus of the head grating.  I’ve found that saturating this thin card with common CA (thin) makes it into a durable pattern:


I made a rub-tracing of the middle headrail profile, so that I could pattern the arcing slats of the grating.
 
I am also very happy with how this representation of scroll heads came out, in simulation of the headrail supports actually finishing beneath the lowest headrail:


As these are thoroughly impossible to carve at this scale, I make these from two diameters  of styrene rod.  It’s a little fiddly to mate the beveled end of the larger diam. rod to that of the smaller diam. rod, but I found that touching my knife point to a drop of liquid styrene cement enabled me to pick these tiny bits up and place them onto a glue spot where they belong.
 
I’ll be painting for some time, but soon the whole head structure will begin to come together.
 
Thank you for stopping by.

Continued: Clarifying the yardarms
 
After an extensive web search I came across this book: "Description de l'art de la Mâture" (published in 1778) by Charles Nicolas Romme.
Below are excerpts of the yardarms: Fig. 38 clearly explains the "oval" cross-sections in the area of the cleats on the yardarms.

In connection with the design of the yardarms for the La Créole, the question of the chronological classification naturally arises: The Le Rivoli is from 1810, the Le Sphinx from 1829 and the Le Neptune from 1836. In this respect, this is for the epoch of the La Créole applicable.
 
Apparently I'm not the only one who stumbled across this problem. So thanks again to G. Delacroix who gave me the crucial hint.
For my model, however, the question now arises as to how I can reconcile this detail with the drawings by J. Boudriot. I would prefer to stick to the original model. Unfortunately I don't have any meaningful detailed pictures. Ultimately, I will have to make a decision about this detailed design, even with the risk that it will not be entirely correct.
 
 

@G. Delacroix
 
Thank you in advance for the valuable information.
I obviously misinterpreted the drawing by J. Boudriot. Now following your hint I see that it only works graphically as an oval.
I also researched my picture collection again and found a picture of the Le Neptune 1836 from the Musée national de la Marine Paris. A yard can be seen there as a reserve, comparable to that of the Rivoli.
Allowed me to include your drawing and that of J. Boudriot in this example.

Source: Musée national de la Marine Paris, G. Delacroix, J. Boudriot

I also found a very interesting picture of a yardarm from the mizzen topsail yard of Le Sphinx 1829.

Source: Musée national de la Marine Paris
 
Will now try to make the yardarms of the topsail yards for the La Créole in the oval version according to the drawing by J. Boudriot.
I am very open and grateful for further hints and examples.
 

Hello,
Please note that the cleats on the yardarms are not square, they have this shape (the front part of the yard is at the top of the picture):

 
Example on Le Rivoli :

 
GD

Continuation: Making the yards - Fore topsail yard - Vergue de petit hunier
After making the lower yards, I started working on the topsail yards. In contrast to the yardarms of other navies in the comparable period, the ones of the French navy seem adventurous. Probably due to a higher flexibility of the sailing maneuvers, these topsails are a certain challenge for the modeler, as can be seen on the following pictures for the mizzen topsail -, fore topsail - and main topsail yard of the La Créole.

Source: Monograph La Creole by J. Boudriot 
 
Unfortunately, I do not have sufficiently sharp images of the original model from which one could derive further details. So I rely on the plan drawing of the monograph except for the formation of the studding sail booms at the yards of the mizzen mast. For this I again follow the original model, which clearly shows no studding sail booms at the mizzen mast. Further research shows that many contemporary French models also do not have studding sail booms at the yards of the mizzen mast. John Harland in his book "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" writes about studding sails on the mizzen mast that in his opinion they were neither popular nor particularly practical. 
After several attempts, the fore topsail yard seems to have succeeded according to the drawing specifications, at least I am satisfied. 

The next picture shows the fore topsail yard compared to the main yard, where the yard arm has a simpler design. 
The drawing with dimensions for the main topsail yard is already available.
 
Soon it will go further ...

 

@Gahm
@matiz
@FriedClams
@Vladimir_Wairoa
@dvm27
Hello,
I am very grateful for your interest and the nice comments, as well as for the many LIKES. That motivates immensely.
 
Continuation: Production of the yards - Vergues
We continued with the production of the yards. With the help of G. Delacroix I was able to clarify a few questions about the dimensions of the yards. Accordingly, I used the following table for the dimensions of the masts, yards and spars of the "La Blonde", which is identical in construction to the "La Créole".
 


Source: Monograph on La Créole by J. Boudriot, page 56
 
There, among other things, the diameters are given in addition to the lengths. As a rule, the small diameter of a yard is 2/5 of the large diameter, as I could learn from G. Delacroix.
As you can see on the following pictures, the lower yards with the studding sail booms have been made so far in the meantime. Various details on the yard arms, such as for the installation of sheaves for the sheets still require final clarification.


Also with the studding sail booms there are still questions about details, as shown in the following example of the model of the "Le Cotre 1830".
I would be very grateful for any suggestions and hints.
 

Source: Modèles Historiques au Musée de la Marine - Volume 2 - Jean Boudriot
 
To be continued ...
 

I’m a little stalled on the head construction, this past week; I just haven’t had much evening time to focus on it, unfortunately.
 
I have, though, been trying to carve the bow angels that sit right behind the headrails.  I had the hardest time carving this, considering the scale:

As before with the stern angels, the faces are not great, but I can live with them.

Thank you all for your well-wishes and for your kind comments.  Although, I have generally felt pretty ok, throughout (congestion, mostly), today was my first day where I tested negative.  It was nice to have a little time to rest, but my compulsive nature has me bouncing off the walls, at this point.
 
So, after much fiddling/fettling, I finally have the forward and mid supports dialed-in where I want them:


But, for the fact that I underestimated the angle of the buttressing knees on the forward support:

Okay, not a big deal; I added some plastic underneath the knee, so that I could fair the top surface flush with the headrail profile:
 


After fairing, and adding the support ledge for the grate slats:



I think the fleurs shaped up nicely, especially considering how small they actually are:

I had to add some plastic to the foot of the split supports, in order to raise them up about a 1/16”, but that is not a big deal either.  This is the beauty of a plastic build; you can make these mistakes and still salvage the part.
 
The next tricky bit of business is to fashion the forward terminus for the head grating, which fairs into the upper head knee.
 
More to follow..

Hello!
 
The difficulty I’ve been having with these headrail supports has to do with my fidelity to the idea that some portion of the support should fit beneath the lowest headrail.
 
I started by first adjusting the adjoining angles on the starboard side.  I found that I had to add plastic shims, here and there:

This all worked out well enough on the starboard side, but I was not having nearly enough of a supporting ledge, when I shifted over to the port side.
 
More-over, when I positioned both headrails at the same time, I realized I was going to have to add significant plastic the the lower coved profile, in order to create a port-side ledge.  Rather than continue to add plastic, I decided to let the matter rest for a few days.  I am glad I did.
 
In the days that followed, my second bout with COVID (pretty mild) has afforded me the time to really think this through.  I remembered that I had already set the position of the headrails so that the forward medallion was below the sprit mast.  That was the whole impetus for re-designing the headrails, in the first place.
 
Further, I had set the cathead supports to meet neatly beneath the cathead timbers.  Despite all that forethought and pre-work, I had only visually placed the starboard cathead, before fitting the supports, on the assumption that my glue blocking would locate them properly.
 
Wellllll, that was not a safe assumption to make.  My forward medallions were actually encroaching above the spritmast, and when I put the cathead timbers in place, I could no longer fit the supports beneath them.
 
Once I could see the proper positioning of all of the affected elements, I knew what I must do:



The way forward would be to lop off these supporting ears (middle support)

Note: The vertical web you see on the split supports, closest to the hawsers, are only temporary for the sake of strength while I make and fit these parts.  Once I did that, the support pieces nestled against both sides easily:


I can simulate that under-connection, a bit later, with an applied scroll-head.
 
From there, I focused on what sort of decorative embellishments I would add to the exposed face of these supports.  I settled on a raised lip moulding:

I am playing with the idea of applied fleur ornaments at the base of each support.  These will extend out beyond the sides of each support, which may or may not be pleasing.  So far, though, they are coming along nicely:


The other tricky bit is that these cambered transverse supports for the head gratings have buttressing knees, running aft.
 
I had applied a glue ledge for the grating slats, and at the ends I have applied these blocks that I will fit to the headrails, and then file to shape.  What I have drawn upon them is only a rough approximation.  Again, these details are always easier to dial-in with the files:


Steadily, now, the bow is rounding into form.  Thank you all for your likes, your comments and for looking-in.