Soleil Royal by Hubac's Historian - Heller - An Extensive Modification and Partial Scratch-Build

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

One question are you going to build in the decks before glueing the hullhalf to eachother finaly? Or what is your way to build? 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Hey, Chris!  Thank you for sharing this model of Soleil Royal.  It is an interesting amalgamation of period 17th and 18th century details; the modeler gave her Victory’s beakhead bulkhead, the Napoleonic-era styling of the gun strakes, and a pretty faithful recreation of Tanneron’s stern.  I had never seen this model before, and like all models of Soleil Royal, it is an attempt at reconciliation.

 

To answer your question, the decks will be incorporated into the build as I go.

 

I must first create a flat base plate from 1/16” styrene sheet, which will delineate the outer parameters of the model, while establishing the new round-up of my custom fabricated stern.

 

The hull halves will be joined at their stem and cemented to the base plate, with an appropriate opening left at the stern, into which I will frame and plank (all with styrene sheet and strip) the new lower transom.

 

On the interior, the joint between the hull halves and base plate will be heavily reinforced with alternating 1/8” blocking and fitted gussets, at spaced intervals.  These gussets will become the attachment point for transverse (no camber) deck beams.  The hull/plate joint will be further reinforced with epoxy.

 

I will probably also glue in a 2-3” band of transverse doubling of the base plate, at the fore and main mast locations.  At the moment, I can’t remember where the mizzen mast steps on the stock kit, and I haven’t decided, yet, whether to also use the plastic of the lower mizzen, as I will do for the fore and main masts.  I may make tue mizzen entirely from wood.

 

For the lower and middle decks, I will use the kit supplied decks, which I have separated, on both sides, along the raised lip that establishes the depth placement of the gun carriages.

 

Because I have no intention of shifting the mast locations, it is convenient to take advantage of the mast locations that are pre-cut into the kit decks.  I may increase the aft rake of the main mast by a degree, but that will require a little mocking up to see how that affects the relationship between the shrouds and the main deck guns.

 

More gusseting and false beams will support the middle deck.  The difference will come at the main deck level.

 

Starting at the main deck level, I will introduce camber to the false beams that will support the new decking.

 

This new decking will be made from 1/16” styrene sheet, which will be laid out and scribed with a more period-correct arrangement of butt shifts and tapering plank widths.

 

The good news is that I am close to completing the painting of the lower hull, which means I can soon start assembling it into a THING!

[yancovitch]

ooh...can't wait to see this ''thing'' 😄

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hy Marc,

 

that sounds like and wellplanned step-by-step progress.

 

 

As I think of relocating the masts I'll turn the plasticdecks upsidedown and gluing a new planking (0.5mm) on them so the ugly plasticplanking of an nearly English planking style is off the decks;

 

and when the decks are completly

French planked I can redrill the mastholes where I do need them. And as the masts can be seen throughout the gunports (painted white*) I have to move them a bit.   

 

In case of you will use a set of SR-Heller yards and masts - I can send it to you as for my hull modell they are a only some surplus. 

 

Before buying some expensive 2-compoment - glue why not trying out the Australien idea of Woolworth supeglue and WallMart bakingpowder? Or for even more powerfull connections mixing small or not so small sand and superglue - it fits in all the grooves and FBI division of Behaviorism says it deals like concrete.   No it is really so hard that it is used in oltimer "lost tin by rust"  restauration, too.  

______________

*as far as I remember from the SOYAL LOUIS monography by Commisair Hayet ~1670.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[Hubac's Historian]

I am home, now, after an enjoyable week in Bovina, in the Catskills.  This is serious cow country(!), where I saw many unusual sights, such as this:

Just a small herd of bucolic cows grazing along the woodsy hillside. I became a little nervous, though, when they started to climb toward me, and I couldn’t see udders!

 

All in all, a restful family vacation in the mountains.  While I was up there, I continued with my super-detailing and assembling of the main deck gun carriages.  Work, there, is coming along nicely and I will soon have a montage post on their construction.  Hull painting continues at home.

 

Now that I have completed my light re-design of the Berain/Vary quarter galleries, I also had time to reflect upon some of the questions and criticisms that scholars levy against the likelihood that they are the rightful companion to the known Berain stern drawing, for this time that I have targeted in 1689.

In correspondence I have held with these individuals, they cite anomalies in the scale and execution of this drawing.

 

The lower false stern balcony, for example, is grossly exaggerated.  They also mention that the relative proportion of the windows at each of the three levels does not neatly correspond with the relative proportions shown on the stern drawing.  If that weren’t enough, the diamond-hatch, leaded cames of the lower gallery windows is of the antiquated (First Marine) style, and it does not match the cross-hatched mullions on the stern drawing.  I agree that these anomalies are hard to jibe with what is clearly an exquisitely rendered stern drawing, where not one line or detail seems out of proportion or place. 

 

All of these individuals point toward the missing elephantine head-dress of the figure of Africa; has Berain suddenly forgotten that what he shows from the stern perspective must also appear in the quarter view, they wonder?  I wonder that too.

 

Not lastly, but also notably, these individuals point to the mermaid figures as being wholly inconsistent with the stern allegory, and more likely a relic of the earlier First Marine style of ornamentation.  Again, I find it hard to argue against these observations.

 

In fact, I will probably never be able to definitively say that this QG rendering is the hand of Berain, because as these men also point out, it is not archived as a set with the stern drawing.  Nevertheless, these considerations won’t stop me from attempting to bolster my central argument - that these stern and quarter drawings do correspond.

 

And so, ever remaining consistent with my approach to research, I am always studying SR’s better documented contemporaries and near contemporaries in search of structural and ornamental patterns of consistency.

 

This book, Floating Baroque (thanks again to Heinrich) has been an invaluable resource because it provides me with archival quality reproductions of ornamental sets that are known to correspond with each other, from a specific time, and originating at the hand of Jean Berain.

 

For the first time, I am able to closely examine exquisite renderings of the sets for Le Brillant, for example:

The coronation of the QG upper finishing, and the ovoid window, at the quarter deck level are closely consistent with that of the SR drawing. The same can be said for the filigree banding, along the upper balcony level, and the paneling beneath the lower gallery level of windows.  These are all familiar elements of Jean Berain's oeuvre, arranged in his characteristic style.

 

While it is known that this set corresponds with each other, it can quickly be observed, however, that there are also strange anomalies between the stern and quarter views.

 

As in the SR stern drawing, at the quarter deck level, there is a shadow line that suggests an overhanging stern balcony for Le Brillant.  The quarter view confirms this.  There is, however, nothing in the stern view of Le Brillant to suggest that the stern counter also projects as an open, walkable balcony, and yet, that is precisely what the quarter view shows.  In fact, this lower balcony seems to project even a small bit further than the upper balcony.

 

The trouble, here (so far as my research seems to indicate), is that by this time in 1690, the French had long abandoned walkable stern balconies at the counter level.  They remained, only, as vestigial shelfs for corbels supporting open galleries above.

 

During his illustrious career as a model maker at La Musee, Tanneron also made a model of Le Brillant.  His resolution of these incongruities is, I think, the correct one:

(Pic from Wolfram Zu Mondfeld)

 

Curiously, though, while his execution of the ornament is, for the most part, extremely close to what was drawn, for some reason he chose not to include the royal drapery swag that flanks the central medallion of Louis, on the tafferal.  He also chose to replace the lambrequin tasseling above the medallion, as it was drawn by Berain, with a foliate garland.  Certainly, the relative complexity of execution could not have been a deciding factor for a talent like Tanneron.  He must have settled on this interpretation for other reasons.

 

Likewise, I have found the stern and quarter views of L’Agreable to be equally fascinating.  Following are studies drawn by Berain for the ship’s major refit in 1696/97:

They are signed and dated by Desclouseaux, the intendant at Brest at the time, where the work was performed.  As an interesting side note, L’Agreable was originally a Toulon built ship from 1670, and she was one of the longest-lived ships of the French navy, serving faithfully until she was condemned in 1715.

 

It is also interesting to note that Berain drew the lower transom in the architectural manner of ships prior to the Reglement of 1672 - whereby, the wing transom that defines the widest span is located above the chase ports.  This is also, notably, the case for Berain’s stern drawing of SR.

 

For those interested in period coloring, I also found a colored print of the stern, which gives an idea what that all may have looked like:

Anyway, what first drew me in with L’Agreable was the split-tailed triton above her quarter deck level, QG window.  This figure, it seemed to me, was closely reminiscent of the First Marine stylings of Pierre Puget.  Here, on Puget’s portrait of the Monarque (yes, I can hear the Royal Louis nay-sayers) are the very same sort of figures supporting the main deck quarter gallery walk:

Likewise, these figures are not un-related to the antiquated-seeming mermaid figures on the QG of Soleil Royal.  Yet, here this figure appears on L’Agreable, in 1697, by the hand of Jean Berain.

 

So, what shall we make of that?  Personally, as I have presented earlier, Jean Berain’s presentation of Soleil Royal’s stern isn’t a wholly original composition, but more an updating of the earlier execution of Puget, as first conceived by LeBrun.  If it is true that some of the original ornament survived and was re-incorporated into the re-build, in 1689, why is it so far-fetched that these Puget-like mermaid figures might not also be re-imagined into Berain’s tableau?

 

Perhaps, in her first incarnation, split-tailed mermaid figures supported the main deck, open-walk of Soleil’s quarter galleries - as opposed to the tritons you see on the Monarque.  Perhaps Berain has simply chosen to re-style them as low-reliefs that flank the upper finishing.

 

While none of this is certain, or even provable without a detailed and reliably attributed contemporary portrait of Soleil Royal, circa 1680, I think I have at least succeeded, with earlier posts, in demonstrating that ornamental motifs were carried over from one iteration of a ship, by a given name, to the next.

 

Returning to the drawings of L’Agreable, it is also of interest to me that the lower gallery windows are drawn with the antiquated diamond-hatch caming, in opposition to the cross-hatch mullions of the stern drawing - just as is illustrated in SR’s stern and quarter views.  Perhaps, this diamond hatching isn’t so antiquated, after all - even in 1697.

 

Tanneron didn’t seem to think so.  In fact, in his model of L’Agreable, he chose to represent the lower stern windows as diamond-hatched, instead of the cross-hatch that Berain drew.  Why?  It’s anyone’s guess:

What I really find fascinating about this Tanneron model, though, is the number of windows represented.  Tanneron modeled five windows within the extension of the quarter galleries, from the ship’s sides.  However, Berain’s drawing shows 7 window frames within the QG extensions!

 

Now, it is quite possible that the outer two frames are merely representational, and not actually glazed.  They are of a more narrow silhouette.  Whatever the case may be, Tanneron decided not to include them.

 

It could be that, with reference to whatever other sources were available to him, Tanneron decided that these two vestigial windows cluttered the presentation of the stern, since they did not also carry up to the quarter deck bank of stern windows.  That would essentially amount to the same kind of artistic editing I performed with my drawing of SR’s QG, when I reduced the lower gallery tier from five to three gallery windows.  I felt that the fifth, forward-most window was representational, at best.

 

All of these considerations, though, bring us full-circle to one of the fundamental questions about Tanneron’s model of Soleil Royal:  just why did he choose to model a five-window stern, as opposed to the six-window stern that Berain drew?  In truth, I can not say, but perhaps Tanneron demonstrated an artistic preference, there, for a lesser profusion of windows.  Along that line of reasoning, he certainly simplified the tasseled lambrequin carving that Berain drew for the lower, false gallery.

 

Whatever the truths may be, I think it is clear that there is precedent for divergence in the model makers’ art when interpreting these primary source drawings - even when there is a high degree of congruence between stern and quarter views.

 

Until better sources emerge (and I’m always looking🤓), I’m going to stick with this as my operating theory of the epoch.

 

And just because they are interesting, here are a few drawings for the ornamentation of a Versailles fountain barge (I believe that’s what it represents) that Berain collaborated with Philippe Caffieri to create in 1688:

It is, in my view, a mixture of old and new styles, with a bulwark frieze that echoes that of Soleil Royal. 

Edited September 10, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[EJ_L]

Informative as always! I wonder too if some of the discrepancies could be contributed to concept vs. actual? Were either the drawing or the model an artistic concept for presentation and the other an actual representation of the ship after construction? The subtle changes in decoration, window patterns, number of windows, alignments etc., could easily be accounted for in this case. 

 

There could also be the human error of remembering details wrong. While these people were indeed masters of their art, as we all know, models and even drawings/paintings take time to build. It would not be too far off base to suppose that one was started while the ship was in port or close enough for the artist to view however, it may have left before the project was complete leaving the artist to reference notes, memories or other similar vessels for the details. Any one of these could easily result in the inconsistencies we are currently faced with.

 

Marc, as you have said repeatedly, all we can do is make educated guesses into what these vessels looked like. I think that with what resources are available to us, those educated guesses can be supported with reasonable facts and that as long as we stay withing period appropriate methods, an accurate representation of the ship will be created.

 

I am still thinking that I will attempt to build a model of the Monarque as one of my next builds. In doing so, I know that I will have to have a lot of guess work into her details but, much as you have been doing on S.R., I think that I will be able to recreate a reasonable representation of her, with some liberties.  

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hy Marc,

 

that is the same obstacle to the buildings progress I rushed into, too. 

The problem I look onto is that we habe got on the QG yhe mid window that is 1:1 but the stemside windows and parts must be shorter in the drawing than they reakky were - due to perspective. So I binned the drawings I made and are strting to redo them by the use of a pair of campasses to take the real length from the top view. And take it into a side view so there we have got

an "unrolled lateral surface" (pink in the drawing). That does not look very nice but is right. Hth - being in a hurry.

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, everyone for your likes, your comments and for looking in!

 

What’s interesting to me, EJ, is that these sets of drawings were created for approval, first, so there is every likelihood that the actual construction varied, somewhat from the drawings.

 

The models, though, are a different story.  Before 1700, there aren’t many (if any?) contemporary models that still exist.  It isn’t until the late 1820s into the 1830s that the Musee de la Marine, under the direction of Admiral Paris, makes a serious effort to re-construct the best examples of each rate, from the time of the Second Marine, in the early 1690s, when the practice of French naval architecture finally begins to coalesce into a codified discipline.  This is where Paris’s Souvenirs De Marine come from.

 

For his part as the head model maker, at that time, Tanneron was tasked with making models of at least the four primary rates; hence we now have La Capricieux (a fourth rate, of uncertain date to me), L’Agreable and Le Brillant (both dated to 1827), and finally culminating with Soleil Royal (1834).  Additionally, for each of these rates, a series of mostly un-planked frame models were made to better illustrate the underlying structure of Soleil Royal, Le Brillant, La Capricieux, among others.

 

It appears likely that Tanneron’s sources would have been concentrated around this time of the birth of the Second Marine, and the choice of subjects appears to reflect that.

 

For Soleil Royal, though, where there are conflicting sets of ornamentation, it appears to me that Tanneron struck a compromise between what was known of the early First Marine (open quarter galleries, for example), and the Louis Quinze model, which was a near contemporary of the re-constructed Soleil Royal (1693):

Concurrent with the Musee’s efforts, at this time, other contemporary marine artists of the 1830s and the decades following, helped to broaden the revival and stoke interest in the baroque shipbuilders’ art.

 

August Meyer gave us Le Foudroyant of 1723, in colors:

And Christian Molsted would eventually paint several excellent portraits of the Danish ship Christianus Quintus:

Above at the Battle of Koge Bay in 1677, and below - perhaps of the same action:

I would love to speak with someone at the Musee, in order to obtain a better understanding of Tanneron, and the sources for his work.  Unfortunately, the Musee has remained largely un-responsive the last several times I have sent email inquiries.

 

Years ago, they sent me the following collection of imagery, which Victor Yankovic (who had made his own inquiries) was gracious to forward to me, more recently:

It came, though, with no explanation or context. It seems as though one must arrange a sit-down meeting at the Musee, in order to get any clear information about the collection.  I wish a trip to France were in the offing for me, but that will have to wait until my kids are done with college! 

Edited August 28, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Great research you did, Marc! Very very helpfull to all of us here - thanks for sharing! 

The joining of transom and QG is the real test of concept. Why not some trial-/dry fit in paper and cardboard?

P.S.: When I train the words

K_eep

I_t

S_hort &

S_miple

 

everyday in the office for calls - why not using it here also for trials?

Edited August 28, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer
P.S. added

[Hubac's Historian]

You are certainly welcome Christopher!  And, yes, I’m sure there will be a certain amount of trial and error in making card templates - particularly for the main and quarter deck balcony rails which will have to follow the camber of the stock kit stern windows that I am re-cycling.

 

I may even be able to extend, and thereby salvage the QD stern balcony because I have an extra one and the balusters are a simple, repeating element.

 

I wish I were capable of sweet KISS(es), Chris, but all I do is

 

S entences

L ingering

O ver

B reakfast

B usiness

(&) E arly

R etreat (to bed)

[Hubac's Historian]

So, some bit of progress.  The lower hull is completely painted!

 

The most time-consuming aspect of this was getting good clean lines where the wales join the side planking.  One of the peculiarities of the kit is that the wales are moulded with tremendous variation in their projection from the hull planking; around the bow, it’s almost 3/32”, but in other places, it’s a shy 1/32”.

 

The important thing is that the line be clean, and not bleed onto the planking.  I have had little success with masking, so the best way was to cut it in by hand.  When I did bleed, I would quickly wipe away the mistake with a dampened Q-tip.  If I noticed other irregularities, in process, I would very gently scrape away at the still-soft acrylic until the mistake disappeared.

What was satisfying is that I found an application for all of the distressing mediums that I had bought to experiment with.

 

The Van Dyke Brown oil paint was, of course, the main distressing agent.  I found that the starboard side - which I distressed after doing the port side - was darker in appearance, so I had to then go a little darker on the port side.

 

Rather than a full application of VDB, I applied small dabs with a Q-tip, in a sparse but well-distributed pattern, along the run of guns and between the wales.  I then used my “dirty” chip brush to spread and blend the paint, evenly, across the surface.  This was an easy solution to the problem, and quickly brought both sides into agreement.

The walnut ink was the perfect distress medium, over the ModelMaster Insignia Red of the gunport linings.  It was very easy to dial back the effect with a slightly damp brush, if the accumulation was too heavy.

Lastly, I was able to muddy the spray-primed ultra-white waterline  with two different Testors enamel stain washes; first, I brushed on a light layer of grey wash, and wiped off the excess with a Q-tip wrapped with a t-shirt scrap.  I found that two applications of the grey - one after the other, with only a 5-minute set time in-between - gave me a satisfyingly lead-white color.  To finish, though, I used a brown enamel wash, and only one coat was sufficient to give me the ring-around-the-ship effect of the vessel anchoring at what was likely a pretty polluted waterway, at Brest.  This was one area where leaving the moulded kit grain was beneficial because the grain caught traces of the brown wash.

 

The very last thing was to seal everything under a spray-coat of clear matte medium, which homogenized the two different kinds of black acrylic that I used for the port and starboard sides.

 

So, now, I can begin laying out the mounting base and constructing the model - 🥳!!

Edited September 5, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[yancovitch]

looks pretty skookum ...yes? 😀

[EJ_L]

Breathtakingly beautiful! All of those long hours of tedious detail work and testing of paints have really paid off. I raise my glass in salute to you my friend!

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you very much EJ and Vic, and thank you to everyone else looking in and liking the process.

 

I’m excited to get down to business! Tonight, I trued up the bottom edges of the lower hull (which still needed some flattening), while ensuring that my stem joint remained true.  I will probably use a gap-filling epoxy to secure the hull to its base, because I don’t think I can reasonably eliminate the last sliver of daylight, in this joint, without compromising symmetry of the two hull halves.

 

This weekend, I will lay-out the 1/16” styrene sheet that I’ve been “seasoning” (flattening) under the living room carpet for the past six months.

 

I’ve also completed the basic assembly of the main deck gun carriages, and can now add all of the through-bolt detailing on the 16 guns that may ever even be partially visible.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

On 9/6/2019 at 12:36 AM, Hubac's Historian said:

So, some bit of progress. (..)

 

. 

(...)

 

Marc, You absolutely made my day by ink and moccablack wales and a wounderful woundelfull gold effect. Thanks a lot! 

[yancovitch]

as wonderful as it looks, my only thought is that i would have preferred a flat finish....but that's just a matter of taste.......cheers, vc

[Hubac's Historian]

I hear what you’re saying, Vic.  It is a matter of preference, as you say.  When I applied dullcoat, in my experiments, it seemed to rob the surface of all it’s life.  The matte finish I have applied is somewhere between flat and the burnished effect I achieved after blending the VDB oil paint with the chip brush.  That burnished surface has great warmth, but it really stretches the bounds of credulity.  This, I felt, was a reasonable compromise.

 

I could experiment, on my samples, with just dulling the wales, in order to see what that would look like.  It’s only really the Ventre-de-Biche that I wish to preserve.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[yancovitch]

yea, some clear flat sprays or whatever don't work very well and almost leave a whitish haze...but i think some do work well.......it's mainly to avoid any plastic like appearance......i find that a satin spray worked well for me, but then again, that was on wood......anyways whatever you do, it will look super!.........smiley

[Hubac's Historian]

The kit gun carriages are mini models unto themselves, comprised of 5 parts for each carriage.  This is why I have opted to use simplified dummy carriages for the lower two decks, where they would be largely unseen, anyway.

 

The main deck is another matter though.  Because I have shifted the stock middle deck guns up to the main deck - and will continue that shift in increasing caliber, as I move upwards - I have an opportunity to do a little extra detailing on the 16 carriages that are ever likely to be seen.  The added 1/2”+ of width across the decks kind of necessitates a little scaling up of the guns.

 

The kit, for some reason, supplies you with 40 carriages, in this 24lb caliber, but I only need 28.  Nevertheless, I made 4 extra to choose from.  I will not mount any bow or stern chase guns, as this was not done, in practice, while the ship was in harbor.

 

Much of the tedium involved in this process is cleaning away flash lines and truing up surfaces.  A good number of my carriage base parts were notably warped, for some reason, and I had to heat them with a foil-wrapped (do NOT ****-off your wife;() curling iron, in order to flatten them.  This sometimes left foil marks in the plastic, but they were on the bottom surface of the carriage base, and most of that was removed while truing on my emory stick.

 

So, the first thing I wanted to do, as a detail enhancement, was to scribe in the stepped joint of the carriage sides.  For this purpose, I made a two-sided scribing jig from white styrene, into which I also drilled a locating hole for the breeching rope hole.  I didn’t actually drill through my jig, as that would quickly distort my jig.  Instead I used an ordinary push-pin, through this marking hole, which the drill tip could easily find, afterwards:

Although it wasn’t strictly necessary, because I only need to detail 16 carriages, I went ahead and scribed and drilled all of the carriage sides.  The scribing process isn’t always super clean, so this gave me a wider pool from which to select.  Ultimately, I divided the gun carriages into first-selects - group A - for the visible guns to be further detailed, and a B-group for those guns hidden behind the bulwarks.

 

For assembly of the carriages, I found it easiest to glue one carriage side to the base, at a time, and allow a full cure time before attempting to glue the other side.  This ensured that my carriage sides would remain at a 90 degree angle to the carriage base.  As a side note, once the basic 3-part assembly was complete, I came back with my EXACTO, and broke the edges just a bit, with a few back-and-forth scrapes; my goal is always to reduce the plastic appearance of the kit, and super sharp edges read as “un-natural” to what you would see in real practice.

Next, I attached the wheel trucks.  The stock kit, provides alignment lines for each truck axle, on the underside of each carriage base.  Unfortunately, the spacing is too close together and not reflective of actual practice.

 

The forward truck should be positioned beneath the barrel trunnion, as this is the natural balance point of the gun barrel.  The rear truck should be placed beneath the elevation quoin.  The reality of this kit is that it is not strictly possible to exactly follow this geometry, because the aft wheels would, then, extend beyond the end of the carriage.  I got it as close as I possibly could, however, and the visuals are, IMO, a vast improvement.

 

The next steps involved hyper-detailing the truck wheels with pin wedges, made from styrene rod.

This was really tedious because, in keeping with my process, I always come back and scrape away any excess glue.  I feel that the effort is worth it, though, because any glue slop will telegraph through the paint and spoil all of your painstaking effort

 

Finally, I incorporated the through-bolt iron work that holds the carriages together.  I used .030 square styrene rod that I slivered with a razor blade, and then heat-flashed with a wand lighter;  the heat-flash gives the slivers a little surface distortion that makes them resemble forged iron, IMO.

At some point, in the future when I need another small-work project for the daytime, I will do the same for the quarter and f’ocsle deck guns.

 

Meanwhile, in the evenings, I am very busily engineering the mounting base, upon which the model will be constructed; this involves a lot of structural re-enforcing to restore the rigidity that was compromised when I cut away my lower hull.

 

The next photo montage will illustrate these first assembly stages of the model, as well as the initial framing for the scratch-build of the stern post and lower transom.

 

All the best, and thank you for reading!😀

 

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[popeye2sea]

Nice work on the carriages. I particularly like the way you did the carriage bolts.  Much less time consuming and fiddly than the way I did mine.  Wish I had thought of that.

 

IMO the molded notches for the trunnions sit a bit too high and the pegs/pins for the attachment points for the cap squares are too large.  The cap squares are the the parts that hold the gun barrel to the carriage. They fit over the trunnions.  One end hinges on one of the pegs the other is fastened with a through pin.

 

Regards,

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, Henry!  I agree with you on the trunnion notches; correcting this, though, meant adjusting the notches, as well as the under support, at this point, and the quoin elevation.  For me - it wasn’t worth all of that.

 

I am debating how to simulate the cap squares, or even whether I will do so.  I’ma jump over to your build and see what you did.  As always, thanks for weighing in!

[Hubac's Historian]

I was going to wait a little longer to  post, in order to also show interior re-enforcements, but today was something of a milestone.

 

Today, this project ceased to be merely a collection of super detailed and modified parts; today, my collection of parts became the beginnings of a scale model!

 

The foundation of the model is 5/32” sheet styrene.  After scribing a centerline, and clamping the hull halves together, at the stem, I set the transom distance, apart, at 3 7/8” for the lower stern counter.  This is the space allowance, within the exterior planking, that I need to incorporate the missing sixth stern light.

 

The arc for the round-up of the transom was a gentle curve, by eye, and in accordance with what Lemineur shows in his monograph for the St. Philippe.

 

After tacking the hull in place, with blue tape, I used a mechanical pencil to mark both the interior and exterior location of each hull half.  This was necessary, as my objective, in the glue-up, was to set the hull halves down on the plinth and allow them to set, without top weights.  When I tried to use a book or two as a top-weight, during the glue-up procedural trial, the extra weight would inevitably introduce a noticeable degree of hull distortion, while opening gaps at the plinth joint.

 

Once my lines were clearly established, I scribed them all in with a no. 11 knife.  Above, the transom appears radically out of square, but this is merely a trick of perspective.  I squared the transom layout with a Starrett combo square.

 

After scribing in my lines, I sanded the surface of the plinth base with 150 grit paper.  Of all modeling materials, styrene is questionably more ephemeral than most, so I like to ensure both a solid welded bond and a solid mechanical bond, for the later application of epoxy. Sanding assists both ends.

 

A slightly less distorted pic of the squared transom:

A few of the pictures, above, create an exaggeratedly spread impression of the transom, but again, this has more to do with my inept photography.  These two pictures, above, give a better sense for the reality.

 

Next, I wanted to incorporate a series of doubling strips for the bow, waist and stern.  The waist doubling, will also serve as the footing for the main mast, and so, it is scribed with cross-hairs to mark the mast location.

The tapered arc pattern to the left, here, is actually a wider pattern that I will need to carry the round-up, up through the stern.  It is merely taped, here, for convenience’s sake.

 

After sanding these doublings, I glued them down within their scribe lines.

The two holes drilled along the centerline are for the quarter/20 screw and nut that will attach the model to it’s plywood construction base

The comparison, above, illustrates the comparable sense of breadth, achieved with the bow extensions, while allowing for the more rounded Heller Hull form.  The St. Philippe is notably flatter in the waist and bluffer in the bow, nevertheless, both proposals offer a stable platform for heavy armament, IMO.

 

So, with all of that sorted out, I taped-off from the waterline, up, to avoid glue seepage above the waterline.

I applied a generous bead of styrene glue (Testors liquid) to both the hull edge and the plinth edge, in order to ensure a good, welded bond between both surfaces.

 

There was good white/black seepage, along most of the edge, indicating a strong bond.  I will use a coarse card file to pare back the heavy 1/32” of excess plinth, outside the hull.  It will be clear when the card file frees the masking tape from the glue squeeze-out.

 

While the glue-up was in process, I worked this paint spatula, beneath the plinth, in those areas where there was no squeeze-out - indicating an area where there was not a perfect mating surface.  My belief is that doing so made a positive weld across 95% of the joint surface.

The subsequent gusseting will only serve to stiffen the construction.

 

At the end of the day, this really doesn’t amount to much, but for me - this is very gratifying.  I appreciate every one of you who have stuck it out this long.

 

Thank you all very much for taking an interest in this project.

 

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[yancovitch]

sssssssssssssswhat i was waiting for....super duper!

[mtaylor]

Congratulations on the milestone.   To paraphrase:  "We love the smell of glue in the morning because it means we're building."  Ok.. after that last, I'll go quietly.

[Baker]

Beautiful and accurate work
well done !!

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, Mark and Backer!  Last night, I bedded down the other hull half and began fitting and gluing in the gussets.  Even with just the stem glued together, the construction is considerably stiffer than I expected it to be.  Nevertheless, I will completely over-build the thing.

[amateur]

I was surprised buy the fact that you have the styrene visible from the side. It does not quite match the quality of the hull and your fantastic paintwork.

What will your final display look like? 

 

Jan

[Hubac's Historian]

Hi Jan!  Actually, the styrene plinth will not be visible at all; I will recess the base into whatever material it is that I make the sea from.  I’m leaning towards carving the sea into 1” blue board, and then doing a highly realistic gel sea, like some of the best steel navy modelers do.  It will take some experimentation to figure all of that out.

 

Initially, I was going to glue the hull halves around the plinth edge, but the compound curves of the hull inner-surface make doing so a very tricky proposition.  I did not think that I would get a good connection around most of the hull.

 

As it is, just beveling the vertical gussets to fit snug is something of a challenge because they need to be plumb and square to the centerline, so that I can bridge the span between them with flat deck “beams” on the two lower decks.

[EJ_L]

Congratulations on a huge milestone being achieved! She sure looks good standing proud.

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you, EJ.  I appreciate that!