SAINT PHILIPPE 1693 by Heinrich der Seefahrer - Heller - 1:92 - converted from Soleil Royale kit

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Here the interesting pictures from four SP models shown in Rochefort in Oct.'18... and the Author and his book.

 

Have fun... I fall in love to her beauty.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hello friends - the Heller kit has arrived without buildung discription booklet. 🤐And so I'll have to find my way thrpugh the kit by accident & error.

 

The Ancre book isn't disapperaed is was distroyed by accident- a new one was sent to me today. Very kind of Mr. Berti!!! 

 

 

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

There are some good reasons to build SR as a WLmodel...

Tje very first is this iceflat area underside!

 

On the other hand it is an impressive and gorgious sized kit.

The scale for SAINT PHILIPPE is due to  keel length 1:91

 

Edited January 2, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer
Scale added

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

There is a typicsl flat area in the lines plan but not with such a sharp borderline. 

 

Will sanding a bit and adding grooves help to imitate a continious planking?

[Hubac's Historian]

I suppose you could scribe in planking on this flat area, but it really isn’t visible when the model is in a display base.

 

The important thing, I think, would be to raise the load waterline by a solid quarter inch.  If you do not cut away the lower hull to make it a waterline model, then you will have to carefully scrape away the moulded waterline, because it will telegraph through whatever paint you use for your “white stuff.”

 

This one simple alteration really improves the appearance of the model.  Just look at your hull clipped together; without paint clearly demarcating the stock waterline, the hull form looks pretty good, and sufficiently rounded in the hold.

 

If you decide to experiment with Evergreen wales, you could probably raise the lower two wales another 1/8”, at midships, and then correct the exaggerated forward sheer of the wales.  Keep in mind, though, that doing so will require alterations to the head rail arrangememt and the hawsers.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Dear Hubac, thanks for the hint with the two waterline-stripes. I'll keep that in mind.

 

Raising the CWL is an idea I thought about till I opend the box. The number of a „a solid quater inch“ sounds realistic when we look at the lines and the kit's hull. The best seems to raise it up to the lowest gunwale.

 

I'll have to figure out several points in and at the hull during the next days or weeks:

 

As I want to build a baroque like stand for her I'll have to add some inner structure in the hull to rest thewight of the kit on four simple long screws - manteled with a decor element as an enlarged column from the transom or some alegoric figure sculptures.

 

So I need to establish four strongpoints inside the hull to rest the four srews inside.

This will be under the UD in the empty nowhere of the hull.

Edited January 3, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hello yesterday I decided to try to act as a scientist... 

 

I thought, if I get the inner form or the hull I could easily construct bulkheads to build an inner structure. But how to come to such an inner form? By using building foam! 

So I painted the hull with oil closed the lower transom by the kitpart with tape and filled in foam...and I stoped at the line of the gundeck... I promice I did!

 

My idea is to cut the foamblock into slites to get my bulkheads, so I can copy them onto birchplywood and saw them out. This inner structure will hold the hole wight of the kit on its four point stand. So I bought threaded rod and drive-in-nuts (not: werft-mother, stupid Google 😉 ). So the Under-gundeck area is well connected to the hull, because this gluing-area takes all the comming wight of the hole SAINT PHILIPPE - from the masts to the gun barrels to the rigging and bolts and gratings been pulled and pushed into the kit.

And until I can open it I have to wait 24h ... 

Under the transom on the edge of the lower transom part there the tape opend and foam got out and got aou and more... so I dont knor how the wood struchture under the foam on the outside of the kit looks like.

 

May be the solvend ruined the kit... but there will be a fat layer of antifouling paint - there is some hope left. So I may have god good luck in the middle of bad luck. We'll see in some days! 

[GrantGoodale]

Ouch!

[Hubac's Historian]

This is really an interesting experiment.  I dare say, BALLSY!  I think it will work out, though, and ScotchBright type abrasive pads should level any foam residue without any major issues.

[mtaylor]

I have my fingers crossed and am holding my breath for you Heinrich that this works out.   Seems like a sound idea.

[EJ_L]

This looks very interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how it turns out. My experience with using expandable foam at work is that it may not fully expand to fill all the space evenly. Many times there can be holes and gaps. They can always be filled in easily enough though if any appear.

 

Hopefully the oil base you applied will act as a good bond breaker but if not, most foams clean up with some effort and solvent.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Don't passed the exam... the building foam is still wet and I easily broke out a part of the keel...

 

...after waiting three times longer as been told in the spray cans manual!!!

 

Waiting some more days.

 

The positive thing is, that the foam gives a very percise repeat of the surface. And  that these clamps for IKEA curtains realy catch the parts very hard and press them together very tight.

 

Okay so this trial ended in a draw.

 

 

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Nothing new... the foaw was still wet inside - I drilled Long holes inside to let the oxygen come in before starting my journey to the Netherlands so let us see wat will happen on friday. 

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hello

There are some bad and some good news: the hull is a bit bent by the force of the foam but the inner block came out. The gunports a good advisers for placing the cuts. 

The thin layers of foam terrifys me to be unionized with the plastic of the kit. But as the big parts sound and feel like krupuk asia chips the layer got of like a thin film. The could be pulled off when using a needle to come under the film.

 

I have glued the hull's crack and used the Thin Tamiya Concrete. 

 

Here the results. For anybody else who wants to get the inner form of the kit for an interior build: Please unse a step by step method - adding layer of foam on layer of foam. Perpare the hull with Tesafilm inside over the join of the half and than add usual fluid oil with a brush. This makes thinks a lot less stressful and the build easier!

I had had to wait one month till the foam was completly stiff.

 

I pictured the hull twice for the metric guys...

 

 

Edited February 10, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

...and for Marc from NYC:

Edited February 10, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Marc send a testcorpus to me. It will do a great job to exspecialy for the implementation of the bulkheads and the decks.

 

The Upper- and Quaterdeck sideparts will be a great training area for the complex grid decoration.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer
Added picture

[EJ_L]

Good to see that the foam came out without too much trouble. Hopefully that residual foam will scrape off easily.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Thy surplus foam peels off like a thin skin, acting with scalpell and a fine needle it is easily to get under it and push it upwards. The problem is the plenty off little spots to be cleaned. Patience is a good thing for a modelbuilding yardowner to learn....

Edited February 15, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Here the problem with the waterline and the rigging of the bowspritdown UNDER the waterline. Have you any ideas what is to be done not to get a pair wet dews?

[EJ_L]

My gut reaction is that they need to be raised up closer to the head rails. Most ships have them wrapping just under the lower head rail. This keeps them above the water if only by a little bit.

Edited February 20, 2019 by EJ_L

[Hubac's Historian]

This is one of the things about the SP monographie that does not add up for me.  Although I do not have access to it, at the moment, I think that Lemineur references his waterline from an original draft that is of the same class of ship as the SP - the Tonnant class, if I remember [not sure about that].

 

Necessarily, though, his hull is a composite of a number of closely related sources - chiefly among them a slightly smaller class of ship that was, in many respects very similar, and better documented.

 

I’m not sure how one would reconcile this problem, if they were using the plans to scratch-build the SP, in wood.  Fortunately, with the Heller kit, the gammoning does not dip below the water line - not even if you raise the waterline to improve the apparent depth of the hull.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hello Mark @Hubac's Historian

 

you are right it is the Tonnerant (two ships) „Class“!!!

 

In my German forum we dicussed the CWL intensivly and we figured out that even af Chapman shows ships with a "wet" wale. So it isn't a no go but it looks strange to us

 But the hole galion has to be redone if not rebuild do to its complete wrong appearance - it looks like planked, too. 

 

And you have been right in building a „vergin without lower body“ (as we say in Germany). I started with copying the Plane N° 45 by enlarging with 103,43% - and I got it on two sheert of standard paper, cut one slip off - glued it togeather for 84 cents! Including the opposite side .

 

Now I can sand off the ugly edge running around the lower underwaterhull as a strange second waterline. (Black in the picture of the fronthalf of the hull.)

 

So I'll sand off the planking under the lowest wale and add newish planks from polysterolplates 620x4,2x0,5mm. I'll cut them from plates as the Evergreen stripes would be to expensive  and had to be trimmed, too. The important point is that the wales were added after Mondfeld ("The art of shipbuilding in the XVIIth century") onto the formers and so the planking douesn't run under the wales it does run besides them.

 

 

So there is a boring work of sanding away the wrong placed CWL is taken away from me! I can sand anything and than will place the plankes as it would be done on a common hull. SoI the planking will be sanded away to reapear in a less questionable shape. On a hull with less edges and corners. So everything will be better.

 

After thus I'll have to sand the upper hull to equalize the panking as smooth as below- so the appearance is similar and the plankes surfaces stay homogen. 

 

These were the steps before I have to drill with my recently ordered platine drillers (0,1 to 1,0mm) the 0,4 and 0,2mm holes for the 0,5x0,5 and 0,25x0,25mm bolts made from Evergreen stripes. 

 

All this great and wounderfull idea* is tested before and when it work - if it will work - will be redone at the Heller kit! So I'll figure out if it can do what it is planed to do. If not I've got the port side left for some better idea.

 

If you lookon the Heller's kitbox there is this gap between hull and ancorholes surroumnding parts... if the marketing division lets pass this - what else will be wrong!?

 

KEEP CALM

AND

STAY MODELBUILDING,

 

HdS

 

P.S.:

I ordered a second kit to be prepared for a 1666 ROYAL LOUIS trial (perchace the after part of the ship only  due to the opulente decoration).

 

*„Many great and smart ideas are - at the very end some complete billshut only!“ D.Rumsfeld ex.SoD

Edited March 3, 2019 by Heinrich der Seefahrer
Added picture

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Here the pictues for the Ancre's plan drawing of the galion and the 70th imagination done on the Heller draft board. This is something I'll have to change, too.

[Hubac's Historian]

Hello Heinrich,

 

Well, you have many interesting ideas and techniques to test out; your scrap hull should be an excellent testing ground for your experiments.

 

With regard to the hawser insert piece, it always annoyed me that it doesn’t fair smoothly into the rest of the hull - even though the plank lines align, as though the planking strakes are continuous.  And they would be in full-scale.

 

For my model, I took a little extra time to scribe a rebate into the aft edge of the hawser insert, as well as a diminishing to nothing rebate into the top and bottom edges from aft to forward, so that the hawser insert would flow smoothly into the rest of the hull.  This is time well spent, as the visible step that remains from a “stock” assembly only contributes to the plastic-y feel of the finished model; like a hugely exaggerated flash line. 

Edited March 3, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[Hubac's Historian]

An interesting observation about the joint lines of the cutwater; when I get to that part, I might just  fill the stock joint lines with putty; sand the whole surface level; and, finally, scribe in new interlocking joint lines that more appropriately follow the shape of the cutwater.

 

It’s just one of those things about the Heller kit that doesn’t jump out as completely wrong until you really look at it.  Good catch!

 

I still don’t think the gammoning should be submerged, though.  Heinrich, can you please post a link to your German forum?  I’d like to read the discussion, there.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Hubac's Historian

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hello Marc,

I think your Idea to scratch into the puttyplaned galion is a great one. 

There are a plenty of "malfunctions" and "traps" in this kit - the only think that doesn't have a malfunction is every single trap. 

 

I'm still strugglint wuth the measurements of the plan and the hull. I'll have to build a measurement machine or buy a laser measurement tool to  catch the differences.If the do stay as little as it seems to bee I think I will't push the gunpots and all the rest. KI think about of pimping the latter and some othe details.

 

The nails and boölts will be made from evergrenn very fine squareparts and put into holes drilled after this enlarges plan.  

 

Here the link you can jump direkty into the building thread (if ou can't see any pictures, you might register) - the famous Dafi with Victory - and beyond is housing there:

https://www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com/t7157f1461-Sankt-Philippe-auf-Basis-Heller-SR.html

 

 

Thanks a lot for my testing facility - the portside is alrady sprycaned light grey - and I'll show the results to public..

[Hubac's Historian]

Thank you for that link, Heinrich!  The discussion of the gammoning was a little hard to follow because Google Translate does less well with German, than say, French.

 

As far as the Heller kit is concerned, I think that it would be perfectly sufficient to raise the load waterline a solid 1/4”, so that it stands within 5 scale feet of the lowest gun port.  This will improve the proportions of the lower hull, while still remaining safely clear of the gammoning.

 

You can, of course, take your conversion project to whatever extremes you wish, but I think it may ultimately be less frustrating/more satisfying to accept certain constraints of the kit architecture. To, in other words, build a more impressionistic model of the SP, as opposed to a rigorously accurate one.

 

With Cedric’s conversion to La Reyne, for example, it is his intention to correct the sheer of the decks/run of the guns, the layout and number of guns, as well as the forward sheer of the wales.

 

All of this will necessitate some tricky reconstruction, at the main deck level, with a complete scratch build of the upper bulwarks - not to mention, a total reconstruction of the head.  This last bit would be necessary, in any approach, because the structure and arrangement of the head knees and rails on La Reyne of 1672 is totally different from SR or SP in 1689-1693.

 

All of this is not strictly impossible, but it is certainly a very challenging project.  I, for one, am fascinated to see whether he follows through on some or all of that bacause doing so will almost surely introduce a number of ingenious solutions and techniques to bring those changes to fruition.

 

Even if he were not to go to those extremes, however, I do believe it is absolutely possible to build a good impressionistic model of La Reyne with the Heller kit.

 

I was, as a side note, really amazed with the German forum builder who converted the Heller Victory into the Commerce de Marseilles.  I’m not a student of the Trafalgar era, but that looked mighty convincing to my eyes!

 

In the end, the project has to remain fun, in order to sustain your interest and get to the finish line.  I wish the best for you and your model, and I’ll be watching every step of the process.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Thanks Marc. For xor kind word... it try to leep it as a hobby not as a horror! 😄

 

...so I found in a 1€-shop my perfekt baroque Scale-Putto: 

 

„Louisinchen“ [= little Louis]

 

this evening I'll try some Sepia ink from Citardel to de-kitshing it a bit - and giving some more deep and structure.

 

To the hull... I want to try to get this underwater planking perrrrrrfect - glued on or engraved. As your hull is a perspchallangeonal challange to you, mine shall be my inner mountan - calling me to the top.

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

...and I rised the CWL on you kindly given testing-ground:

[Heinrich der Seefahrer]

Hy Marc, the complete rebuild of the Heller hull is not my case... I'll try to get to most of the hull, and for this I want to keep the structure alive and try not to change such basics as the decks sheerr. If I will do tthat please kick me against the knee!!! Brcause than I could start the hole SP project as well on scratch.

Here lifted CWL... and an inch ruler for the imperial fraction!