Soleil Royal by kpnuts - Heller - 1/100 - 17th Century ship of the line

[hof00]

Hi Chap,

I would like to "Qualify" my statement about 4 years to Rig the C/S, it was actually 4 years of Weekends.

I could not work for more than 4 Hours at a time, so 8 Hours per weekend. (X 6.5 years total, about 3,500 hrs?)

Patience and perseverance is the key.

 

More than happy see what comes of your awesome build thus far. ("I'll pull up a Chair", as they say. )

 

Also looking forward to see how you treat the Rig, with or without Sails.

(Endeavour is my current subject, Plastic/Wood does not matter as far as I am concerned, it's the same doctrine.)

(I do tend to shy away from sails as there are many more Blocks/Lines that go with these. I am led to believe that these items were unshipped when in port.)(19th Century anyway.)

 

Awesome to see what happened with your "Plastic Treatment," Looks fantastic!!

 

Keep up the great work!!

 

Cheers....HOF.

[kpnuts]

Hi all, the rest of the cannons are fully visible so I've decided to try and detail them a bit more, there is no wood grain moulded in the plastic sides so I've scratched some lightly with my knife and tried painting and using pastels to get an wood effect, not worked as well as I'd liked but better than nothing, and when they are installed you probably won't even notice anyway.

[EJ_L]

You are right in that the wood detail will probably not be visible once everything is installed especially if you going to fully rig the canons in place. Still, it is a good idea to add texture to the carriages. Even if the wood grain was heavily painted over on a real carriage, there would have been some rough spots and you would have seen the seams between the layers of timber stacked together to form the carriage. 

 

Looking forward to seeing them installed!

[kpnuts]

Hi all these cannons are a bit tedious but I've done a bit more, not happy with them, they still don't look very realistic (each one is less than 1/2 an inch long, well the carriage is anyway), so I can't do much with them but I'm wondering weather the decking from the 1/72 revell flower class corvette would look good stuck on and stained what do you think.

[EJ_L]

Switching to wood is a good idea but instead of laminating it over the plastic just do away with the plastic all together and build them completely from wood. That will look a lot better as the laminated wood on plastic will make the carriages look too thick. Scale wise the wood should be fine. The sides of the carriages were made up of multiple pieces of wood that were nailed or bolted together. If you have to use multiple pieces to make them that will be fine or if you have a piece wide enough to get it in one, at 1:100 scale you will be just fine too.

 

Build a test carriage and see what you think. For what you are trying to achieve I think that would be a good solution.

[kpnuts]

Hi all well i know I've not touched this for a while, Pam just snapped the fore mast, apparently she was just getting the dog a treat  (the bag with the treats in was on the table with the kit) my fault entirely, she is so upset I'm more cross she even tried to, that's what I'm here for to get stuff, trouble is she thinks because she can make it to the loo and make a cuppa she can do anything, I love her to bits and can't wait for her to get better. Anyway when I do get back on this that will be the first thing for me to takle. 

[EJ_L]

Sorry to heat that. Hope the damage wasn't too bad and that you can get it fixed.

[kpnuts]

Hi all well I'm back on this but with a change of attack, it's now going to be a water line model, I didn't like the ships boats on the deck (take up too much space and I don't believe the ship would have operated like that) so it will be towed along side something like this.

[popeye the sailor]

don't know how I missed this one KP...........really great looking ship!

[kpnuts]

Hi all which of these positions do you think looks best, straight ahead or at a jaunty angle.

[popeye the sailor]

usually that's left up to the modeler.......but if it were me,  I'd go the straight route.   are you going to have a rope ladder going down to the boat?

[EJ_L]

I like the straight route myself, mostly as it will make displaying it easier as the angled look tends to take up more space. I think the angle would look better if the display board was big enough to fully surround the ship in both length and width.

[kpnuts]

Hi all well I've detailed up one of the ships boats (I suppose that means I will have to do the other one now)here's the before

Put the bathroom sealant on and started painting the tops of the waves

Loads more wave painting to do.

I've removed a couple of the guns to load the supplies into I understand they used some sort of pulley system from the spars to load the supplies with and I want to depict that has anyone got any detailed drawings of how this was achieved.

I've only used one of the port and starboard anchors, I'm hoping the other two are spares, I can't imagine they used all 4 anchors or am I wrong.

[EJ_L]

Ship's boat looks great and those waves are excellent. Nice job with them. You will have yourself a nice scene when you are all done.

[kpnuts]

Hi all well I've finally finished painting the waved (That's a lot of water) not sure if it needs more colour, I'm trying for the dark brackish water of a harbour.

[EJ_L]

Water looks good!

 

I would suggest making sure it is covered though when you go to work on the ship and just in general. Something tells me that paint and/or glue dripping on it and the natural accumulation of dust will be a pain to clean off that textured surface.

[CédricL]

Hello kpnuts,

 

I discover your log, it's an excellent work !

About the loading of supplies, it was usually done by harbor small ships, not with the ship's boats.

If it can help you, there is a topic on Gérard Delacroix's forum about how ship's boats were hoisted or disembarked:

http://5500.forumactif.org/t3021-temps-de-debarquement-et-d-embarquement-d-une-chaloupe

 

Some of the drawings could be helpful to you, even if the practice is from the XVIIIth century.

 

Regards from Brussels.

 

Cédric

[kpnuts]

Thanks for the info cedric

[kpnuts]

 

 all well I've fixed the foremast and strengthened it with a rod up the middle, making it a waterline model had an unexpected problem to it the main mast locates in an I shaped piece which is glued to the bottom of the hull to keep the mast central and true since I cut the bottom of the hull off obviously that locating area was no longer there also the mast was a lot higher than it should have been, luckily I still had the bottom of the hull that I cut off so I put the mast in it laid a rule across the hull and marked where it cam on the mast and cut that piece off but the mast is tapered at the bottom and the holes through the decks must be the same size as when I put the mast in it Leaned either way so I had a cunning idea and wrapped masking tape round the bottom of the mast till it was a snug fit in the bottom hole ( only problem now is the mast seems to lean sternwards) so now I just have that problem to sort and of course to make sure it is square with the center line as well.

[kpnuts]

Hi all well I've got this back out as Gandale (Alan on another forum posted an easy way to do the stays on this) (That's what's been scaring me from continuing this build) baring in mind this is my first attempt at doing them I'm quite chuffed with the result (obviously I've seen them done millions of times better but hey I can only get better from now on) 

[EJ_L]

Rigging the shrouds is a miserable and very tedious job that I think most of us can say we hate doing. However, they are a very important part to the rigging and one of the signature items on any tall ship. Glad to see you back at it and like you said, they do get easier and better with repetition. You will have a lot of repetition...

 

Hang in there and get through the shrouds. You will be on the downhill slope of the rigging then!

[popeye the sailor]

looking good KP.......glad you were able to repair the damage and get on with the rigging.   shrouds look really good....keep it up !

[kpnuts]

Hi all got this out to do some work on it. There seems to be a problem with the cheap paint I used on the base (Not had this problem before) the base started off dk blue but over time it seemed to go brackish 


Which I didn't mind too much as it just looks like dirty harbour water but worryingly it is doing this from the edges and seems to be progressing inward


Do you think this will progress, if so should I stripp it all off (assuming I can) then start again, any suggestions.

[popeye2sea]

Shoal water?  Might need to put out an anchor!

 

Henry

[EJ_L]

Hmmm... that is an interesting reaction. While I like the green look to the water, like Henry said, you may need to add an anchor detail to simulate closer to shore as the easy fix.

 

I've not had that problem before either but I've not used the sealant approach to water yet. I've only had to simulate small ponds and streams on my model railroad in which I used Woodland Scenics Realistic Water and related products. Great for those uses but, could become expensive for a large display like yours. You might try using a different paint and sealant combo on a test board and see if you get different result after a few weeks. Maybe also try a different sealant as that one may have been expired. I would try a couple combos to see what the results are before digging into tearing up what you have. As for it creeping onto the boarder, I think that is just the residue that smeared over the edge more than it transferring through the paint itself. If you redo it, mask off the boarder and then remove the tape after you are done smearing the sealant around but before it hardens. That should take care of that problem.

[popeye the sailor]

did you use a silicone calking for the water {not having looked back in the log}?   it's age.........over time,  it will turn color and attract major dust.   it is also separating from the board along the edges too     I've even seen some types gather mold.   where I work on trailers,  I've seen some really hideous repair work done on the outside walls.....peeling and separated as well.  I clean them up,  reseal them,  smooth out the sealant I used {which is not silicone},  and then paint over it.  silicone has oils in it that dust can stick to over time.   sorry to see your having this problem....hope you can get it resolved without too much upheaval.  I

m gonna look back in the log to see what you used,  perhaps something can be done.

[popeye the sailor]

August of 2017..........not a lot of time since you did it.    bathroom calking.......yup,  that's silicone   

[kpnuts]

It's strange I used the same stuff on my royal sovereign which I sold to my boss 2 yrs ago and it still looks exactly as it did. 

 

[EJ_L]

It may have been a bad batch. I've had that happen at work where the stuff has sat on a shelf for too long and is no longer good. Air temp and or humidity could also be a factor. Dirt on the surface before applying or as you say, bad paint.

 

Another thought, how long did the paint cure before applying the sealant? It may not have been fully dry and that could cause the staining as well as cause it to separate from the board.

[Bill97]

Kpnuts it has obviously been several years since you posted about your Soleli Royal. I am wondering if you still read or post here on MSW. If you do see this I have a question I hope you will answer. I am about to start my Heller Soleli Royal and I also plan to guild the ship decorations with gold leaf as you did. I am looking at your progress pictures at the beginning. Did you gold leaf the complete piece is hen paint in the blue over the gold leaf. That is what it looks like in your pictures. Or did you paint the pieces and then guild over the painted decorations with the gold leaf?