rybakov

I guess we’ll find out if this forum has the patience for another Heller 1/100 Soleil Royal build log. This one will be focusing on changes, mods, upgrades, additions, styrene-bashing, and general mess-making in pursuit of something just a little different from the boxtop. Hello modelers—my name is John. I’m a lifelong plastic model kit enthusiast who never builds anything according to instructions. I first saw Heller’s 1/100 Soleil Royal when, as a commercial art student, I worked for a short time at Revell in Venice, CA, airbrushing backgrounds for box cover art. It was around 1978–79. One of the big shots had the unbuilt Heller kit opened on his desk. I was gobsmacked, and vowed to build the kit one day.
 
Unfortunately, display space at home was scarce, and I knew that the model wouldn’t survive the irregularities and frequent moves of a twentysomething punk’s lifestyle. I kept putting off getting the kit until things got settled a bit.
 
Now, 45 years later, I figure it’s now or never.
 
In the half-century the kit’s been in production, it’s been controversial, an inspiration for a lot of palaver and condemnation. For a supposed “scale” model, there’s a lot that’s questionable about it, and if you aren’t familiar with the shortcomings, it’s because you haven’t read the other Soleil Royal build logs yet. However, the more I read and the more knowledge I picked up, the better this kit looked. I decided I could build an attractive representation of one of Louis XIV’s premier rang (first rate) ships-of-the-line from this kit. It would be impressive, if not wholly accurate. Many features would be exaggerated, but I’ve never had a problem with a certain degree of caricature modeling in small scales. I’m not a fine-scale modeler. I’m familiar with all the compromises accepted in other categories of modeling. Why not ships?
 
Besides, I had decided my Soleil Royal would look different from the usual. I love to add stuff and change the detailing on kits. I haven’t found a kit yet I couldn’t customize.
 
Here’s what I started with in November, 2022.
 

 
The kit is beautiful, well-detailed and nearly free of flash and mold lines. State of the art when it was released in 1974. Parts fit well and the few large pieces that were slightly warped (no kit is perfect) were fixable with a little work. The box was delivered in November. I stared at the pieces for a while and then started reading reference books, websites, and build logs. I learned a lot from other Soleil Royal build logs on this forum and others. I am continually delighted, amazed, and entertained by the work of Marc LaGuardia (Hubac’s Historian) and his correspondents. The work I’ll be showing off here is the direct result of the knowledge they have generously shared. I’m a metaphorical fig newton, standing on the shoulders of giants, or however it goes. 
 
I didn’t clip a sprue or squeeze a glue tube until February, but here’s what my project looked like in August, after six months work—finally ready for masts and rigging. (More beauty shots at the end of the post.) 

I propose to show how I got to this point in weekly posts that will also contain some hopefully-interesting-slash-useful history and background of the ship. There’s a lot of stray information (and disinformation) about this ship floating around, and I’m going to try and assemble all the important bits in one place. The prototype was a remarkable work of Baroque art as well as a weapon of war. A floating castle of death-dealing artillery decorated by the same artistes who built and filigreed the palace of Versailles. The dichotomy is delicious.
 
SO WHAT IS BEHIND HELLER’S KIT?
The model is patterned after an 1837 wooden ship model in Paris’s Musée National de la Marine, made by the skilled ship modelmaker Jean-Baptiste Tanneron. You’ll be hearing about the Tanneron model a lot. Copying it was a logical thing for the Heller mold-crafters to do, since it was the only well-known detailed representation of the Soleil Royal from historic times. One of the first things I did was tape together half the hull and propped it up to make a comparison photo.
 

 
But copying the Tanneron model brought Heller problems. The first is the true identity of the ship. There were three ships built in Louis XIV’s time named Soleil Royal. The first was built in 1668–70. Hereafter, I’ll call that one Soleil Royal I. The second was a from-the-keel-up rebuild of the first ship in 1688–90. That’s Soleil Royal I(a). The third was a new ship built in 1692–93, Soleil Royal II. All three were 100+-gun premier rang three-decker royal flagships, extravagantly ornamented to reflect the glory of Louis XIV, le Roi Soleil, the Sun King. The Musée de la Marine is noncommittal about which ship Tanneron’s model represents.
 
According to Heller’s literature, the kit represents the first two ships (considered as one), which met its fate in an encounter with an English fire ship in 1692. I’ve come to believe this is the wrong ship. Heller is partially to blame for the confusion, but in their defense, the Heller die-makers working in the early 1970s didn’t have the instant access to books and internet information we enjoy today, and the museum authorities they consulted were apparently not very helpful.
 
The second major problem with the model is that the hull has too shallow a draft. According to surviving records, the 2400-ton 170-foot ship should have a draft of 24 feet. The Tanneron and Heller models—nope!
 

 
Third, to compound the problem, the above-the-waterline dimensions are exaggerated. The gundecks have lots of headroom—eight feet, compared to the six feet on actual 3-decker warships. There would be very few cases of concussion by clumsy gunners going bonk on overhead beams if they sailed on a ship with Tanneron’s dimensions. Here’s the Heller model with a scale line drawing of another ship from the same time period, the Foudroyant:
 

 
Aaaand… let’s quit there. Let’s not even discuss the height and width of the stern.
 

 
What was Jean-Baptiste Tanneron thinking? Unfortunately, we can’t ask without a ouija board. It should be noted, however, that before the invention of photography, representations of historical objects in artwork (or sculpture, or modelmaking) weren’t anywhere near modern standards of accuracy. Living in an information-and-photography-saturated society, our attitudes about fidelity to prototypes have evolved a lot.
 
For myself—I think the impression of a tall, castle-like warship is enhanced by Tanneron’s exaggeration of the proportions. And this is no modern interpretation. Have a look at the only eyewitness sketch of one of the Soleil Royals in action. Look how high the exaggerated sheer is in the drawing and compare that to the Tanneron model. Oh yeah! Both artists made this ship big, and high, and a true seagoing fortress. That should be the biggest takeaway from seeing artwork or a model of this leviathan. I think the Tanneron model (and the Heller kit) gets the point across nicely. 
 

 
So in the end, if you choose to build the Heller Soleil Royal, you’re really building a model of a 19th-century model, and it’s a caricature model anyway. For complete intellectual honesty, you should get out your wood-colored paints and wood-grain-duplicating techniques and make the model look as if it were carved from fine hardwoods; a model of Tanneron’s model. That would be a commonsensical approach.
 
Fortunately for me, I have no common sense when it comes to models. I want have fun detailing, painting, and rigging a plastic model ship. Here are more photos of my progress up to August, 2023.
 

 
Not much gold leaf on my version of the ship. After some reading, I don’t believe there was a great deal of gilding on the prototype. Figuring out what to paint the ship, based on surviving descriptions, old artwork, historical painting practices, and antique models, was a major part of the research. Paint choices and decorations will be discussed in later posts.
 

 
Deck furniture got changed. Many trips to Ikea.
 

 
Much time was pi—ah, productively spent—rigging tiny guns and rebuilding tiny boats.
 

 
Guns were either replaced or rearranged and drilled out to the right calibre. Colorful gunport lids will be installed as soon as I finish the channels and shrouds. 104 guns were mounted, same as the ship had in the period I’m trying to model (very early 1700s). The waterline got raised to squeeze in a few more feet of draft. Quarter galleries got entirely rebuilt to better resemble a surviving historical drawing.


 
I believe that the enclosed “bottle” quarter galleries on late 17th-century French warships had removable panels—whether for weather or for war. I left the upper gundeck balcony open to demonstrate this. 
 

 
Most of the ship’s gilding is up high—out of the way of waves and wear. 
 

 
Wasn’t happy with the too-big kit-supplied figures, plus, I needed a few new ones to match the drawing of the quarter galleries I was referencing, so I sourced new figures from the Shapeways 3D-print marketplace. Figuring out all the ship’s iconography was a deep research rabbit-hole, but a rewarding one. For the curious, the figures on the forward edges of the quarter galleries are Kronos, “father time,” (starboard), and his consort Rhea, mother of the Olympian gods (port). The other two figures are replacements for the kit’s too-large allegorical figures of America (port, with feathers) and Africa (starboard, with elephant-head headdress). The figures were “dressed” with additional sheet styrene.
 
Next week we’ll get the project going by seeing what mods and additions were made to the hull, plus background on the three Soleil Royals and the whys behind which one I’m modeling. I invite discussion in the meantime. Happy modeling 'till then!
 
 

Yesterday witnessed the arrival of our first adult dining table and chairs which, sadly, ushers out the butcher block trestle table that was my work station and the backdrop of this project for the past six years.  It was a bitter-sweet day because I love that old workhorse of a table.  I bought it second-hand for $50 and refinished the top three times.  On the other hand, it is very nice to walk into our place and immediately see a touch of sophistication.  There will be no painting or gluing on that marble-top table, though!
 
Fortunately, IKEA makes a very nice birch gate-leg table with built-in drawer storage, which will soon become my new designated work station.  In the meantime, though, I wanted to get the model to a stage of crispness and clarity before I had no place for paint re-touching.
 
Please forgive me my self-indulgence.  Here is where we are at, presently:


I am very satisfied with the head-grating, and the way that all of the head elements integrated together:

One thing that was niggling on my conscience, though, was the fact that the aft headrail rosettes were glued under tension.  I have a solid welded bond, and I did wick CA into the joins, where I could, but I wanted a little extra insurance.  My solution was to drill two small holes a side, through the third headrail and upper bulwarks, to feed a length of annealed wire.  You can see where I painted over the exposed wire with red:

And inside, you can see how I twisted the wire ends taught, and then fixed the whole thing in-place with liquid CA.  This is all minimally detectable and will quickly fade out of view with everything else that will be going on around it.  I feel better now 🙂





I made a start at roughing out the figure of Africa.  I had quite a lot of the same wood (linden, maybe) that I used for the lower quarter galleries.

Unfortunately, this material really isn’t suitable for carving fine detail.  I will have to get my hands on a little boxwood, or some fruit wood like apple or pear.
 
A little fun with pictures.  Here, the juxtaposition with John Ott’s near-Van de Velde:


As I’ve said before, Heller really does manage to capture the early sheer of these ships very well.  Despite it’s many imperfections, my hypothetical recreation does, I think, capture something of the essence of what may have been.
 
Moving forward, I have been figuring out where I will source line and blocks and pins and cleats.  I really like the blocks from Dockyard Models, and the polyester rope from Ropes of Scale.  I can get most accessories I need from Dockyard, but anything else I will obtain from HisModel.
 
For the time being, and until the new worktable arrives, Soleil Royal Redux will shelter in her dry-dock:

I will occupy myself, until then, taking measurements of the materials I need, and developing an understanding of what needs to be done with the rigging.  Along those literal “lines,” John Ott has been a tremendous help in sharing his sources, and the rig and belay plan that he has developed for his model.  My belay plan will likely look a little different, but only because I do not intend to make the same use of pinrails.
 
If anyone is not yet aware, John has begun a build log for his magnificent Soleil Royal of 1693, which can be found here:
 
 
Many thanks to you John, for your help and generosity, and to all of you for sticking with this project for such an absurdly long time.  It is greatly appreciated!

As always, first check whether plans show really can be. You should. Really.



Somehow it seemed strange to me that the jeers block had a double strop at the top and a single strop underneath the binding.

What to do with the two unused ends? No use, or not much use. So I looked in other literature and, lo and behold, everywhere a double strop is shown at the bottom. Makes sense.

So I tore off the wrong strop and glued on the double strop with the right lengths, in one groove the rope for the two shorter legs, in the other the rope for the two long ones.





Then made the seizing that holds all 4 ends together.



Then tied in the eyes for the shorter legs.



And then the ones for the long legs.



And suddenly ...



... the model parts come to life 🙂



XXXDAn

Thank you druxey for your confimation. Very appreciated!
 
A little project in between, the Vic's fire buckets on the railing of the cabin deck.





And since the good pieces are made of leather and not metal, I gave them a little deformation as a little dafinistic touch.



XXXDAn

The upper capstan:

@druxey
Many thanks for the lovely comment and the reply.
I would also like to thank everyone for the many LIKES.
 
Continuation: Equipment of the main topsail yard - Jackstag, blocks for leech lines and bunt lines / Filière d`envergure, poulies de cargue de fond et poulies de boulin
The topsail yards on the La Créole were also already equipped with jackstays. The two-piece and fully served jackstay for the main topsail yard was made in the same way as shown in the main yard and fore yard. The following picture shows part of the jackstay with the lanyard.

 
On the next picture I show the blocks for the topsail yards again in size comparison (tye block of the main topsail yard, tye block of the fore topsail yard a bit smaller). Contrary to my sketch shown, the blocks for the braces are 4 mm long.

In the meantime I have installed and lashed the jackstay on the main topsail yard and also lashed the blocks for the leech lines to it.


So the lifts, the blocks for the braces and the footropes are still missing. I will also pull in the sheets and the clew lines as far as that.
Sequel follows …

Continuation: Equipment of the topsail yards – blocks for bunt lines / poulies de cargue de fond
Also mounted at the topsail yards were a number of blocks for the braces, leech lines and bunt lines. Due to the diameter of these ropes, the block sizes are 3,4 mm long. In order to be able to file the notches for the block strops better into the wood, I invested in a new needle file and equipped it with a nice handle made of service tree.
Admittedly not exactly cheap, but this file has a diameter of only 1.0 mm at the top of the handle and tapers to 0.5 mm at the tip.

Of course, there are other uses for this filigree tool. However, extremely careful handling of this filigree tool is required, as it can be damaged very easily.
 
I equip the topsail yards according to the sketch below.

 
In the meantime, further blocks for the topsail yards have been made. Among other things, the blocks for the bunt lines, which were already rigged to the main yard on the strop of the tye block, as can be seen in the next two pictures.
 
Sequel follows …

The second collar conglomerate was quickly done, the third - the foremost one - bobstay was exciting again. There are 2 versions here.

First, in white yarn, a temporary test version like the one McKay shows in his book. The doubled stay goes down to the cutwater, is tied together there and then goes left and right to the hull.



It used to be shown like this on the Vic in P. I assume this is how the pulling force is distributed better among other stable components.



Alternatively, there is also the variant where the 3 stays on top of each other all go to the cutwater. During the last renovation the Vic in P. was also converted in this way.



The attachment points of the bobstays at the top of the bowsprit are well documented. Only the attachment to the cutwater is not. In later years, only the variant with the 3 superimposed holes was found, also due to the feedback from @Morgan, who knows the Vic around 1803 best, I tend towards this solution, which I also prefer, as it was last shown on the Vic in P.

See more of the discussion here:
https://modelshipworld.com/topic/35115- ... nt=1003053

So the white test stay was cut off and the third hole drilled. The heart is tied into the stay in such a way that one leg ends exactly under the binding and the other is more than twice as long.



Then I threaded the stay through the hole, averaged out the length and glued it to the top of the heart just below the other end and then put the binding over the intersection.

Then I put the binding at the bottom of the stay, so that I can even out the length of the two legs if one side is a bit loose.



Afterwards, as usual, I replaced the white tackle at the top with the final lanyard, which has become quite fast work by now http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif



And here are a few more views of the collar conglomerate. Now the forestay and the preventer forestay are missing, each sitting in front of the two inner collar rings.













XXXDAn

fixed all guns









 

Hello,
so far for today. The counter is planked. For tomorrow stands more sanding on my plan.
 
Theodosius, thank you for your nice comment
Jaager, I'm sorry, but I could't follow you. At the windows are no right angles and nothing is horizontal or vertical, except at the window in the middle. The paper at the plywood is from the original plan, so I think I'm right when I'm building it this way. At my post #1006 you will see a larger part of the plan. Jaager, I know what I'm doing here, if not I ask.

Hello,
Greg, it rained the whole night. Was that your work? 
 
So far for today. When I saw the last picture, I know what I have to do tomorrow. Or immediately  

Hello,
now after three weeks of summer, it is cold and rainy again  So, not to see the disaster, I'm back at the shipyard. 
 
The upper counter rail and there supporting parts. Just to say it, it was't easy. But at least I think I got it. 



And here the parts who did't make it. To fill the space between the lower and upper rail would also be a challenge

Continuation: Equipment of the topsail yards - quarter blocks / poulies d'ecoute et poulies de cargue de point
The quarter blocks, usually two-disk blocks, were also referred to as thick-and-thin blocks by the English. The sheaves for the topgallant sheets were thicker and the clew lines ran over the thinner sheaves. The lower yards used separate single sheave blocks for the sheets and clew lines.
For my model of the French corvette, I made the 4 mm long double blocks using the method already described several times. Since the main topgallant sheets and the fore topgallant sheets with ø 19 mm and ø 17 mm do not show a big difference, the difference in thickness of the block disks is only marginal.



With the block strops, the first attempt seemed too out of scale (on the left in the picture). I found the second attempt with thinner strops much more appropriate.


The last two images show the lashed quarter blocks in position.



I haven't gotten any further with the research into the execution of the reef tackles.
You may have information on what the French looked like.
 
See you then …

And the adventure continued.

Many attempts were made to dress the thin ropes: first rope wrapped in the classic way, various diameter combinations, resulting in extremely high workload, extremely high rejects, when bending around the blocks the tapes broke open and above all: it looked like crap somehow ...

I also wrapped the thinnest wire with copper thread and blackened it, the same result, but it looked even crappier.

After many attempts, I decided to use an imitation with 3 layers of white glue and black paint for the dressing of the thin ropes.



Then it was on to the impressive head gear. First comes the collar for the bobstay, then starboard and then port shroud and in front of that the stays of the foremast. Three of these rows of cleats have to be filled.

The hearts were tied into the stays using the same binding principle as the thimbles.



I still had to feel my way around the first one ...



... and the next ones went very quick 🙂



The tying of the collars was again a good fiddling job, because the tying does not slip or even out. You just have to get it right from the start.





But when I thought that was fiddling, open-heart surgery was performed, even though these hearts were closed: The tying of the lanyards into the hearts. Because the hearts only have one big opening with 4 grooves and no separate holes, you have to secure the rope with glue after each new loop so that the lanyard doesn't jump out of the groove again.

But once you've done that, the sight is just sha 🙂















This was the first of the 3 collars, two more to go 🙂


XXXDAn

some progress:

I finished the chain pumps:










 

It has been a minute, and I still haven’t gotten to all of my paint corrections, or the glamour shots, but I have been taking the necessary time to as nearly as I can, perfect the crowning of the stern.
 
Once I had secured the backboard, and installed two pre-painted moulding strips to the outside edges of the backboard, I turned my attention to fitting the side-lantern box mounts.  Time and again on this build, despite careful pre-fitting of sub-assemblies, I have been amazed to discover just how much additional tweaking of a part becomes necessary, when it must finally seat next to an adjoining assembly.
 
For these lantern boxes, I had carefully set the quarter pieces (that support the boxes) so that the boxes met the sheer-line.  Nevertheless, that was before the aft upper bulwark had been secured to the model - after which, it takes on a more bellied shape.  Adding to that complication are the fact that my upper bulwark extensions flare out a bit, also, the aft rake of each upper bulwark piece is slightly different from one side to the other, AND, the transom camber introduces another angle to this compound-geometry soup.
 
I spent quite a lot of time filing-in the required geometry and shimming beneath the starboard lantern box before I was satisfied with the way that these pieces married into the astrological band of carvings on the backboard.  I only had to use a little bit of filler at the top of each box, but this was an acceptable outcome as this joint is mostly covered by the legs of horse and camel:

Above, you can finally see the degree to which my transom winds out of square.  This is really the only vantage point where it jumps out at you.  All things considered, it is acceptable to me.
 
The above picture already shows the thickening I added to the backboard, in order to make a reasonable seat for the Europe and Asia carvings.  Initially, I was going to double-plank with 1/32” styrene strip to make up this thickness, but I ultimately decided it would be much easier to make a close-fitting card template and transfer that to two layers of styrene sheet:

The trick to doing this in layers is recognizing that the top edge of this reverse-curve tafferal must bevel down to follow the sheer.  So, first I fit the inner layer, traced the tafferal line and removed waste close to the line, so that it would be easier to gauge where the outer layer needed to end up.  Ultimately, that’s how I determine the spacing of my scribed planking layout.  I haven’t had to use too much putty on this model, but a little was necessary on the inboard corners of this piece:

With that much established, I could do the final fitting of the Europe and Asia carvings.  Again, these were initially fitted to the backboard when it was flat and significantly thinner.  Despite all of the material I added to the inside face of the backboard, these carvings still extended past the inside surface.  It is quite difficult, without resorting to transfer paper, to gauge a good fit when you can’t clearly see the joint line.
 
Rather than add a third styrene shim, I decided to round down the bottom line of each carving:


This rounding isn’t a bad thing, as it adds a little shape and dimension to the inner surface of the carving, while leaving a little bit of the ledge visible:

The whole objective of all of this was to make the reverse-curve profile of the tafferal apparent on the inboard face of the model, as these carvings would have been scribed to this profile, in actual practice.
 
It is very difficult, however, to make a tafferal cap-rail, at scale, that follows this complicated shape.  My solution was to add an in-board half-round moulding that completes the illusion.  I love using painter’s tape to transfer exact shapes:





Above, I found it much easier to shape the top half of the half-round while the moulding was still part of the sheet.  Obviously, the thing becomes very flimsy, when you cut out the bottom profile.


I decided to leave a slight step, and I am toying with the idea of picking-out this moulding in yellow ocher, just to emphasize the detail.  Opinions are certainly welcome on this small detail.  In the end, though, I may just paint it flat black like the rest of the top-cap:

Next, I secured Europe and Asia.  For a little extra bond insurance, I decided to experiment with an idea.  I used a #11 blade to scrape thin shavings of styrene:

After a liberal application of liquid plastic cement to the bottom of the carving, I bedded a thin layer of shavings over the glue.  Another application of cement turns those shavings into plastic goo.  I got a little bit of squeeze-out, which won’t be difficult to clean, but I am satisfied that I have a strong bond, here:

All of this fiddling and filing makes a mess of the paint-work, and the model is full of plastic dust, at the moment, but here are a few perspective shots:



With those carvings in place, the model just barely still fits inside the folding halves of its build-box - less than a 1/16” to spare!  I’ll make a small relief in the box leaves, as insurance against catching the nose of these carvings.
 
The other thing I managed to establish is the stern perspective of the Africa carving:

Between a pair of vertical parallel lines, I transferred elevations of key reference features from the sheer view.  I used a steel ruler much the same way that you would on a full-size drafting table; I simply aligned the top and bottom hash marks for 1” with the left  vertical margin, to ensure a square transfer of points.
 
Undoubtedly, there is some margin of error, here, so my primary reference will be the stern view, as that is what determines how the figure seats and fits in relation to the quarter piece.  Any discrepancies in the sheer view will be reconciled to the stern view.
 
Later, I’ll get to sheer and stern elevations for the port side figure of the Americas.  This will be trickier, as I have no original Berain sheer drawing to refer to.  In that instance, I suppose I will start by drawing the stern view and transfer points for the sheer view.
 
Well, that has all been quite a mouthful!  Thank you all for looking in and sticking around.  I’m gearing-up for another busy school year of coaching youth sports and ferrying kids all over creation.  I hope to continue making reasonable progress on the ship, as we go.
 
All the best,
 
Marc

When I was working on the main yard, I noticed that I was missing good jeer blocks. So I programmed and printed some right away. And the hearts for the stays and the head gear also came with them.



And since that went so well, the other special blocks were also added, here the shoulder and sheet blocks.



In the past, I had made the thimbles from pierced and drawn sprue at great effort. Printed is quicker and cleaner and above all more true to size.



Then the moment of truth: Binding the thimbles, here the 1.75 mm size:
Apply a drop of superglue with an applicator to the back of the thimble in the groove ...



... and hook the rope into the groove at the back of the thimble and pull it forward.



Then I pressed the rope together at the front with some glue using tweezers and pinned the thread for the splice imitation at the desired distance from the thimble and fixed it with slow super glue.



Then knot the two ends alternately at the top and bottom, always moving the knots in the direction of the thimble until the gap was closed. Then the final knot was secured with glue and cut off the excess lengths.



With the pointed tweezers it goes really fast.



Using an almost dry brush, brush on some black paint to cover up any light glue residue.



Then cut open one of the hooks from my etched parts set at the eye, bent it open and inserted it, ...



... bent shut and that's it. Here are the patterns for 2 mm, 1.75 mm and 1.5 mm.




They are also used in a not entirely uncritical place, the bumkin shrouds.
It is difficult here to produce the right lengths so that it fits on both sides and also looks the same.



Here, the shoulder block for the foresail's tack is tied in.



This is then the set.



And this is how it looks in place.









XXXDAn

Somehow I always like screwing myself. Like when I enthusiastically ordered the crew to the heads for their relief. I had simply put aside all the heads gear :-0



So I put the sling for the gammoning over the bowsprit and threaded all the lashings with the 50 cm long and still quite balky rope through the crew like this ...



... so that no one felt inconvenienced in their businesses or even knocked off their thrones.



Somehow I actually managed without any accidents. Afterwards, I had brushed the gammoning minimally with white paint to match the colour of the rest of the appearance.



When I looked at the lower edge of the gammoning, I noticed the hawse pipes. I had already had the pleasure of looking at an original of the St. George in Thorsminde. These were made of lead with a nice bead around the outside.



It took me a few attempts to find the right material for it.



I ended up with 0.4 mm copper wire, which was hammered flat to lose the wire character.



Fitted, glued on ...



... and painted.



XXXDAn

A completely different construction project that I've been sneaking around for a long time: I finally got to work on the main yard.



All fittings were better articulated ...



... the lunettes for the stun´sail spars come from my etched parts set ...



... and as always: The colour makes the difference 🙂


According to Lee, in wartime the rope hangers were replaced by a chain. I think 1803 to 1805 might count as wartime.



I still made the chain hanger the right length and added a shackle to make it easy to hook and unhook the yard.



And only in the sideways position you can really see what a big hulk it was :-0



Our little dreamy midshipman has also returned to his favourite spot.



XXXDAn

Equipment of the Topsail yards - topsail yard parral and topsail yard tye / Racage d´une vergue et poulie d´itague
The rigging of the topsail yard differs from the lower yards in particular in the following peculiarities:
Reef tackles, parrals and tyes with halyards.
The parrels of the topsail yards had the task of holding the yard firmly to the topmast, but at the same time there had to be enough play to allow the yard to catch sharply. In addition, the parrel should ensure that the yard can slide up and down the spar. The parrals of the topsail yards were less complex than those of the lower yards and therefore not adjustable.
When the La Créole was fitted out, parrals with ribs and trucks gradually went out of fashion. As already mentioned several times, this corvette already had many "modern" equipment elements, not only in the rigging.
According to the description in the monograph by J. Boudriot in connection with the following image section from the original Paris model, it is clearly expressed that this was a pure parral, without ribs and trucks. The rear area around the topmast was protected against wear and tear with a leather cover.
 
Source: Monograph La Créole by Jean Boudriot, page 169
 

I derived the further detailed design for my model as shown below from Seamanship by G. S. Nares, with the difference that a closed eye was formed on one side. This is evident from the description in the monograph.
 
Source: Seamanship, G.S. Nares, 1868
 

This corvette passed double tyes for hoisting and easing topsail yards. The tye blocks at La Créole were three large blocks. The tye then goes through the one block in the middle of the yard and through each of the blocks placed under the cross trees of the topmast head.
At the end of the tyes, the blocks of the halyards were integrated, which were fixed to the channels.
  
Source: La Créole monograph by Jean Boudriot
 
 

The following pictures show the implementation of this rigging element for the main topsail yard:

 
 
 
For the further rigging of the main topsail yard I still have to clarify various details, such as B. reef tackles, jackstays, blocks for sheets, clew lines, bunt lines and leech lines.
Sequel follows …

In the meantime, Lieutenant John Pasco and his assistant have also arrived at their workplace on the poop deck. The canvas curtains in front of the flag lockers have been drawn back ...



... but oh horror, they are all empty!



So quickly placed a bulk order of the current signal flags, 64 pieces, carved from 1.5 x 1.5 mm plastic strip, about 2 mm long, in the colors of the 1803 signal flags.



Then covered the hull so no one would get hit by falling flags in the gunroom ...



... and generously assisted him in filling it.

One more brief inspection of the result ...



... the flags at the top of the locker secured with weight bags to prevent them from flying away ...



... and he can prepare his flags well ...





... for, after all, it will be him who will translate Nelson's pre-battle greetings to his fleet into usable signals:

"England expects that every man will do his duty."

XXXDAn

dafi  Post subject: Re: To HMS Victory and beyond http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/styles/subsilver2/imageset/icon_post_target.gifPosted: Mon Aug 14, 2023 3:21 am  http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/styles/subsilver2/imageset/en/icon_user_online.gif http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/images/avatars/gallery/MW-custom/shipyard%20worker.gif
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:13 am
Posts: 865
Location: Ludwigsburg/Germany It went meanwhile to the hammock tinkering.

I rolled the hammocks as already seen of my cut versions with spacers out of Fimo into the right diameter and rolled in the structure with a rake, folded and baked them.



A little color ...



... and shading ...



and whoopee into the hammock cranes ...



... and ready it is.



From the quarterdeck it looks like this.





Maybe I'll send the guys to wash the hammocks some more, the washing is a bit heavy, but how clean were the mats actually back then, so before the days of washing machines and chlorine bleach?

XXXDAn  

Post Sixty-one
Looking at the guns - Part One
 
The carriages are laser cut from 2mm pear and are nicely detailed, incorporating the bracket lines.
 Part of the design includes a tab at the front end to slot into a mortise in the deck to hold the carriage in place. (The guns are added later)
The system should go a long way towards preventing the rattle of loose guns rolling around the lower decks in places they can’t be retrieved.
The drawback of this system is that cap squares are of necessity omitted as the guns are fed thro’ the ports to be glued into place.
Not much of a loss where the decks are to be closed in, and better than loose cannon.

1687
My first job is to make a simple jig to hold the parts that make up the carriages which consist of four separate pieces for the main structure.

1688

1689
A jig speeds up assembly, and there are a lot to assemble.
There is the usual issue of square axles fitting round holes on the trucks. The merest pass with a sanding stick is required to knock the corners off the axles to allow fitment of the trucks. It is a fine line between fit and the square peg in a round hole image.

1691
It is impossible to get a proper fit to the truck with undersized square axles, as the above photo shows.
Ideally the axles should be slightly over size to allow for accurate rounding. I suppose they could be shimmed, but that’s a lot of extra work.
On a practical note, this deficiency will not stand out once the guns are fitted.
 
The trucks are a miniature delight complete with engraved bolt holes and section joints. There is enough room on the axles for the addition of truck keys for über detailers.
 
As with previous kits I am not generally keen on the supplied eyebolts that represent the hoops on the carriages sides that take the tackle hooks, but with this chunky 24 pdr carriage, they don’t look too bad.
 
I did feel it necessary to modify the one fitting to a ring bolt to take the breeching rope.

1697
In this shot the yet to be blackened ringbolt has replaced one of the supplied eyebolts.
 
The sharp eyed may also notice the handle added to the Quoin.
This is simply a short length of wire with a blob of pva on the end.
 
I won’t be using the peg and slot system for gun securing as access to all decks will be available on my build.
The tab did prove useful to hold the carriages during painting, and scored each side it snaps cleanly away when finished.
 
In part two I will be looking at the Resin gun barrels.
 
B.E.
10/08/2023

Completion: Equipment of the mizzen yard - footroopes, mizzen topsail sheets, lifts etc. / Marchepieds, ècoutes de perroquet de fougue, balancines etc.
Based on an older photo of the Paris model of the La Créole, I was able to trace the execution of the footropes for the mizzen yard as far as possible (see picture detail).
 
Source: Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Corvette La Créole [modèle réduit de bateau exposé au musée de la Marine, au Louvre] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol] 1904-1908
 

Source: Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Corvette La Créole [modèle réduit de bateau exposé au musée de la Marine, au Louvre] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol] 1904-1908 - detail of picture
 
The corresponding size of the mizzen yard of a corvette obviously did not require stirrups in the footropes, as can be seen in the above image detail. In this respect, I based the execution of my model on this specification.
In front of the footropes, the grommets, the strops with thimble and finally the lifts were attached to the yardarms of the mizzen yard of the model.
The next picture shows details of the 4 mm long blocks of the lifts, which will later be attached to the top of the mizzen mast on corresponding eyebolts.

 
The next picture shows a yardarm with the previously mentioned rigging elements and the already retracted mizzen topsail sheets. 
 

And finally two more pictures of the finished rigged mizzen yard:


See you soon ...