rybakov

Good morning and thank you all for the likes.
more photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Un Saluto.

Today I mounted the last piece on the hull, the strip that will become the oarlocks. It is only roughly shaped before installed. The final shaping will continue when I have plugged it firmly with tree nails. They should be made in individual pieces, one for each oarlock. But I will skip this, and only indicate the joints between them.
 

The shape to aim for is this:

 
I have also finished the last footlings, and have added decks in the fore and aft. Here are some pictures before I put stain on the new parts.
 
The footling under the fore deck.

The fore deck. It is separated in two levels, otherwise the incline would have been to steep. There are no remains left of the decks in the archeological find, so the reconstruction work came up with a plausible construction. This is what I have included in my model.

The mid section and aft deck (with rudder).

And a last picture with the oars, mast and yard onboard.
 

 
 
 
 

Hello
and many thanks for your likes,
because we had last week here three days spring, my garden needed my attention. But I painted the steps and build the hind fenders for both sides.
 

 

 

Good morning and thank you all, more photos....
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Un Saluto.

I made a mistake on coloring the light cables
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

I have finished laying the shrouds of the low masts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Dowmer
@GrandpaPhil
 
 
After mounting the main mast backstays, I was surprised to see that they go very close to the top and partly touch it.
What happened there? 
Is the plan wrong? 
Are the attachment points for the lanyards on the channels incorrect or too far inside? 
In my search for explanations I found what I was looking for. On the one hand, I read that it apparently often happened that the backstays came too close to the tops, and thus there was a danger of rubbing. 
And, this is exactly the case with the L'Hermione as well. And, as you can see in the next picture, the backstays were dressed in the critical areas. 
 

 
So this detail would also be cleared up. Accordingly, I will additionally serve the corresponding backstays in the said areas.
 

Finally, I would like to show you the double blocks for the shifting backstays that have been made in the meantime. The smaller double blocks are for the shifting backstays that lead to the mizzen topgallant.

Painting continues.  Although the following pics don’t reflect it, all the yellow ocher is done and the walnut ink distress wash has been applied.  I’ve begun the gilt work, and am making my way around the gallery.
 
The purpose of these photos is to illustrate the middle balcony tier, supporting corbels. The middle three are stock kit parts.  The outer two were scratch-made because even the secondary kit corbels that are more shallow, in depth, still extended beyond my balcony edge; I had made a conscious decision to reduce the depth of my middle balcony because I knew there were limits to how far I could stretch the Four Seasons figures - more on them, in a moment.
 


Among the myriad tiny considerations is the fact that the corbels must align with the tilting angle towards the centerline, as delineated by the pilasters, but they must also account for the secondary angle introduced by the round-up.  These were very fiddly to fit.
 
As is my practice, I had masked-off strips on the underside of the balcony to ensure a welded styrene bond.  Naturally, this necessitated a certain amount of re-touching to the yellow.  The Vallejo paint I’m using is not model-specific, but from their artist’s line, instead.  It thins beautifully, but requires numerous passes to achieve good color saturation with a brush.  The paint also remains rather soft for a number of weeks after application.  For my tastes, these are worthwhile trade-offs for the ease of application and a smooth painted surface.
 
The middle gallery side bulwarks are rounding into form.  I made and fit the pilaster pieces, and carved the port side lattice:

Not surprisingly these pieces became significantly more stiff when I CA-glued the resin name badges.  I will have to heat-form these, before painting and installation, with a hairdryer so that they take the curve of the gallery without introducing stress.
 
As I did for the upper bulwark frieze, I cut hard shoulders and shallow reliefs to suggest an intertwining of the frieze banding:

This may seem hard, but it really is not and can be accomplished with nothing more than a #11 blade to cut the shoulders, and a narrow, curved blade to sneak in and cut the reliefs.
 
I was going to add resin scrolls around the name plate, but the flexibility issue, together with the fact that I’d have to relieve these resin scrolls too far into the nameplates, changed my course; I decided, instead, to simply model and define the scroll shapes surrounding the nameplates.  I still have yet to add the diamond flower ornaments to the Xs on either side of the nameplates.
 
By far, the most enjoyable phases of this project are those times when I discover an opportunity to re-incorporate stock parts of the kit to my new architecture.  Adding the bow extension pieces was the first formidable challenge of this kind.  The Four Seasons figures present a similarly challenging attempt at plastic surgery.
 
Tanneron most likely drew inspiration from this later drawing of what I believe is SR1693:

As such, there is a projecting lower stern balcony, and the Four Seasons figures have a more upright posture, in supporting the balcony above.  The Heller kit reflects this same architecture.
 
In closing-in this lower stern balcony, I have also brought it in, closer to the stern.  Consequently, if I want to use the stock figures, I realized I would have to alter their posture and lengthen them.  Starting with the outer two male figures of Winter and Autumn, where the overhang is less extreme, this is what I have done:

The magic entry for cutting these figures is through the back, just above the elbow, and stopping the cut before breaking through just above the hand.  This weird gold plastic is more brittle than the black stuff, and I snapped the first figure, Winter, just above the hand.  This was not a problem, though.
 
I then took a piece of 1/16” styrene strip, double-stuck it to the edge of a piece of scrapwood, and then filed a taper ranging from the thickness of the kerf (about a 1/32”) to the full 1/16”, at back.
 
I am always emboldened, in these surgeries, when I have a fall-back set of parts.  The difference in posture is slight, but it is just enough to help these side figures conform:

I then added a piece of 1/16” styrene to the bottom, so that I can simultaneously increase the height of the figures, as necessary, to meet the underside of the balcony, while simultaneously adjusting the outboard angle.  Here is how these two outboard figures took shape:


It may seem difficult, but modeling the new plastic to appear like a seamless continuation of the clothed figures really isn’t that hard:

The road map of where you need to cut in and continue lines is already there for you.  Also, draping clothing is fairly forgiving:

Autumn (right) really made out well, in the deal, with some additional bicep definition!  It makes me wonder how well my own living body might respond to a little styrene enhancement.  I haven’t been to the gym much, lately.
 
That is all well and good for the outer figures.  I will still need to add another 1/32” at bottom, and fettle the top joint to the balcony, but I should be able to fit these without much trouble.
 
The middle figures required a little more extreme hunching of their posture, because the balcony above steps out, away from the stern, by about an additional 1/16”.  It seemed reasonable to laminate two different thicknesses of styrene strip (1/16”&1/32”), for my torso wedge.  Here is how that is taking shape:

As can be seen next to the Autumn figure, now the arching of the female backs is notably more pronounced.  I will probably need to add some extra plastic to the top edge of the bouquet and model it so that it appears to cope neatly around the bottom moulded edge of the balcony above.  All of this may seem like a lot of fiddling about with these figures, but I can assure you that the investment in time is far less than making them from scratch.  Besides, Heller did too nice a job of modeling them to believe I could do any better on my own.
 
So, that’s where things stand as of today.  In the coming weeks, I will likely have to take a break from Soleil Royal, as my wife and I have made the difficult decision to move, yet again.  We barely got to know Brooklyn, and certainly the Pandemic robbed our neighborhood of much of its charm.  Nevertheless, an “affordable” 3-bedroom apartment is a unicorn worth chasing.  I will periodically still post updates as small work progresses.
 
As always, stay well, and thank you for stopping by.  

Hello and thank you all for the messages and likes.
More photos.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Un saluto.

Hello and thank you all for the likes, more photos of the sculptures.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Un saluto.

Hi ☺️
another pictures, double capstan (part 2°)
 
 

Good morning and thanks to all, some progress made

 

 

 

 

 

 
Un Saluto.

Good morning.

After this short side walk, I continued on the middle deck....
 

 
Now with all parts, so also etching supports for the fall protection.
 

 
Then with paper strips determining center and left and right edges ...
 

 
... aging parts and glueing the coaming in place.
 

 
Note that the staircase will not fit through the top because of the rabbet, so it must be pulled up from below with thread ...
 

 
... flaps inserted ...
 

 
... and the thread pulled with surgical precision and ready the open version 🙂
 

 
Then closed the flaps, removed the supports and inserted the capstan.
 

 
Here is the whole thing then finally with my small scaling companion.
 

 
And in the overview 🙂
 

 
All the best, Daniel
 

Once again the typical Dafinist shift of the scene of crime. Since I know that I soon will need another stern for the Vic, I dared to tackle an issue that I could only solve by clever colouring when I created the last one.
 
But one after the other. Here are the parts of the kit as they fell out of their box.
 

 
First the courageous cut to separate the lower part, which makes the assembly immensely easier later.
 

 
Then I filed out the name cartouche and levelled it with a matching sanding block. The wood structure also went to wood-structure-heaven.
 

 
Then a cut between the profiles above the pilasters ...
 

 
... and one below.
 

 
Then using the chisel to discard of the old pilasters.
 

 
Then trimmed the profile from the top side ...
 

 
... and cut it so deeply from below that it came out in one piece.
 

 
And everything smoothed out with the small files and the matching sanding blocks 🙂
 

 
And then *tata* the new pilasters came out of the hat 🙂
 

 

 

 
And in situ.
 

 
Fits 🙂
 

 
I also re-pilastered the side galleries. Here the comparison with the originals of the kit.
 

 

 

 
And the parts are so fine that I only saw in the super macro that the volutes of the pilasters had slipped up a bit during the first adjustment, or better saying that the upper volutes had not moved down with the rest when they were shortened ...
 

 

 
So I went back to the computer, moved the volutes in the 6 panels and reprinted them ...
 
So, as a little titbit, the following picture. I wanted to know if this resin can be moulded under heat like the cast resin. And I was surprised, a short dip in hot water and you can almost tie a knot in the pilaster ladder. Honestly - I swear!
 

 
The reason for this action is that the kit parts are getting on in years and have plenty of sink marks in the area of the pilasters that are very difficult to iron out. But admittedly, it also looks nicer. I am already looking forward to do the the painting.
 
This is how it will look like.
 

 
Ok, and the printer is already running, more pictures soon.
 
XXXDAn

Hello and many thanks for your likes,
today the first results, the steps for the port side are ready. That was a harder job then expected.   
 

If it were solid timber, John, they could conceivably laminate several pieces of spruce, for example, as would be done for the figurehead.  That assembly could then key into the wales, just as I made for the model, and then be through-bolted into the hull framing, so that the quarter gallery structure, itself, weren’t carrying the weight. This approach would allow complete freedom of form.  Maybe though, as you suggest John, it was all light framing and thin plank.  I have no idea, really.
 
Painting of the stern continues at a snail’s pace.  It is all crisply done, though, so the time is well spent.
 
I’ve been making the port and starboard gallery bulwark lattices.  My technique has improved since the making of the trailboard, so I am no longer breaking these delicate lattice pieces as I go.
 
Rather than mostly trying to file these delicate pieces into shape - which fatigues the plastic in the narrowest sections of the design - I have learned to pare to my lines with a razor sharpe no. 11 blade.  I’ve also learned my lesson about how to scribe part blanks for the bulwarks around an angled, curving surface:

The trick to this sort of multi-level relief is to use styrene sheet of varying thickness.  The bulwark uprights are cut from .030 sheet, while the lattice relief is .020.

From the stock middle balcony rail, I extracted the ship name plate

I will have to offer the bulwark blank up to its place on the QG, so that I can mark out the exact pilaster locations from the level below.  Then, I can glue the lattice to the bulwark, and secure the pilasters and the diamond lattice detail.  The pilasters will be cut from .030 sheet, and will sit just a little proud of the lattice, thus creating the desired depth effect.

I made rubber moulds of the nameplate, so that I could duplicate it and have the name on both the stern and quarters.

There is a significant investment in time just to get to this:

I will also surface mount smaller resin scroll ornaments around the name plates, as well as diamond flower ornaments to the lattice.
 
In other musings, I have been in contact with Mr. Portanier.  He has been helpful in sharing several of his sources.  Among those were several key articles from the French nautical journal Neptunia, published by Les Amis Des Musees de la Marine.
 
In a separate posting, site members directed me to the following resources for finding back issues:
 
https://www.aamm.fr/neptunia/recherche_articles
 
The above links to an index of every issue and article that Neptunia has ever published.  The index spans 75 years and over 300 issues.  I am indebted to all of you who have been so helpful to me and this project.
 
A listing of issues in print that are available for sale can be found here:
 
https://boutique.aamm.fr/neptunia
 
In going through the index, I discovered around 25 articles that are specific to my time period and/or subject.  A number of  additional articles, based on the abstract description, seem like they may he helpful.  For 5 euros, per older issue, that seems well worth the gamble.
 
A number of issues that I would really like to have, like a multi-part series by Bernard Frolich on the development of his model of L’Ambiteaux, are currently unavailable in print.  Courtesy of Mr. Francis Graviou, I can contact the site administrator to see about obtaining those issues digitally, perhaps:
 
contact@aamm.fr
 
I think, perhaps, the greatest value of a substantial piece of research, like Mr. Portanier’s dissertation, is where else it may lead you to keep searching for answers.  His cited works are extensive, and I can assure you that there is often great value in the reading of footnotes.
 
I may never find the portrait of my gilded ghost ship:

 
But I do, now, know where to look for the following:

 

 
Now, I merely need to figure out how to contact the national archives and obtain a copy of these documents.
 
I am not expecting the expansive detail that Hyatt provides in his description of the RL, but it would be reasonable to expect to glean some key information about Soleil Royal’s original structure and appearance.  That could go a long way toward fleshing out a portrait of her appearance between the years 1670 and 1685.
 
I also stumbled across this:

From a time when the lead architects like Laurent Hubac were being continually nudged by Colbert’s administration to conform to a codified prescription of dimensions, this I would say, is a pretty good insight into the design modality of, perhaps, the most intractable of the arsenal shipwrights.  Laurent Hubac liked a broad-beamed ship, and that is exactly what this drawing indicates.
 
Also, if one makes a very close examination of the starboard side of this drawing, they will discover a series of regularly spaced hash marks.  This drawing is of the broadest, lower main battery deck.  I believe that these hash marks represent port piercings.  There are 15 broadside hashmarks, with what appears to be one more “hunting” port hash mark, near the hawse entry.  In other words, something very like this closeup of La Reine’s port bow:
 

photo, courtesy of Chapman
 
There were only two Hubac-built ships, that I know off, that were pierced for 16; La Reine and Soleil Royal.  Very interesting, indeed!
 
As always, stay well, and more is to follow...

Good morning.

Over the weekend I worked on the rudder trunk and benches. Of course, Chuck's laser cut parts made things relatively easy. The tricky part was getting a tight fit between all the parts. The top of the rudder trunk needs to be angled where it sits up against the transom. I had to sand the bevel almost to a point in order to get a clean joint. When it came time to add the benches, I found that I needed to sand the bottoms slightly curved in order to match the camber in the margin plank. Further adjustments were made to insure that the benches did not sit on the deck.
 

 
Mike

Hello,
because all these steps are different, I decided to profile them from above and below.  The fronts of the steps are between 4 and 4,6 mm
 

 

 
So, one profile from above

 
and one from below
 

 
and the result
 

 

 
So, if you hear the next weeks nothing from me, I'm busy  😉

Hi 🙂
The double anchor capstan (part 1)
 
 

Hello,
after a short break at the yard, now the steps. I made them 3,5 mm wide and 4 mm high as at the plan. At all models I looked at, they where higher than wide. At least they are at there places. 
 

 

@mbp521
Hello,
thank you for your positive comment. I also want to thank the others for the many LIKES.
 
Today I made the standing fore topgallants backstays.
For these standing backstays, two on each side of the ship, I make the lanyards from Japanese silk 3x 3, which gives a diameter of 0.40 mm.  The backstays are made of rope with a diameter of 0.77 mm, also made of Japanese silk 7 x 3. The dead eyes have a diameter of 3.4 mm.

 
 
Here you can see the fore top head with the standing backstays:

 
And you can also see the mizzen top backstays. Please note the metal plates for the fids.  

 
 
 

little step:

 

 

 

 
 

foremast shrouds: