Le Soleil Royal by Bill97 - FINISHED - Heller - 1/100

[Javelin]

They started using spherical trigonometry or spherical goniometry. It's a very different beasty from planar trigonometry. Distances between two points a sphere's surface are measured in angles. They can later on be converted to distances, depending on which sphere you use. Practically this is still the way we navigate today, except of course that a lot of it is automated. 

Not sure who or to what degree they used it back then. 

 

Gorgeous build by the way! Been following along for a while now. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Javelin

[Ian_Grant]

I loved calculus in high school, especially integration problems. I was so looking forward to helping my kids with them and I was disappointed to find that in high school now they only do differentiation and integration is left for first year university, when of course they were away from home. But I did get to help them with physics problems which have their own charm.

 

Oh yes, captains and navigators had to understand spherical trig to plot their position on the globe and there was a lot of math to do after such things as lunar observations. In later years accuracy totally depended on your chronometer; if its time drifted off so did your longitude accuracy which led to many wrecks (like Admiral Shovel's ships on the Scillies).

 

Somewhere I picked up an old copy of "The Admiralty Handbook of Navigation" but never went hard at trying to understand it. Should dig it out.

[popeye2sea]

Navigating along a particular latitude was not that hard.  All you needed was to keep the sun at the same declination. You could measure the angle with a quadrant, octant, or sextant.  That is one of the reasons we have trade routes.  In the North Atlantic, for example, you would sail south from Europe until you picked up the right latitude to catch the westerly trade winds then turn west and cross the Atlantic till you made landfall in South America or the Caribbean.  To head back East, the return route was to sail North till you pick up the proper latitude to catch the easterly trade winds, turn East and sail till landfall in Europe.

 

Figuring out how far East or West you were along that latitude, in other words calculating longitude, was a more difficult beastie. For that you needed accurate time keeping.

 

Regards,

 

Henry

[Bill97]

Excellent information gentlemen (some of which I understood 😊).  I will pass your comments on to him. Hopefully they are helpful. If he has an additional question or two about the subject I hope you don’t mind me asking. 
And Javelin, thanks for your comment. Very much appreciated. 

[Bill97]

Ok gentlemen I think my bow is finished. Looking at a couple of my photos zoomed in I see I have a bit of loose tiny pieces of gold leaf to remove but other than that I think it is alright. There is one thing I noticed that I am not sure is a serious issue but want to get your opinion. Things comes under the Kentucky proverb “don’t change horses in the middle of a race.”  I top coated the gold leaf on the bow with a different product than I top coated the stern. One is Vallejo Gloss Varnish and the other is Testors Glosscote. I liked working with the Vallejo product better not realizing that the finished product would dry with a slightly different hue. The Testors dries with a little more old gold appearance. The Vallejo dries almost crystal clear. Look at the side view and see if you think it is noticeable enough to try to fix. Especially once all the rigging and sails are in place. If necessary I could dry brush some Testors over the Vallejo on the bow to sort of age it a bit. 

[Bill97]

Henry what do you think of my topcoat issue?  Leave it alone or try to fix it?

[Bill97]

Either call me crazy or pat me on the back for bold move. After looking at your gold leaf Henry, and a couple others, I realized I list a lot of detail in my gold leafing. I suspect I had to thick of undercoat, sizing, and insufficient burnishing. I went bold and decide to strip the figure head. The rest I will try to live with. 

[Ian_Grant]

There are a lot of bold ship modellers, and a lot of crazy ship modellers, but there are few bold, crazy ship modellers.

[Hubac's Historian]

Definitely bold!  

[Ferrus Manus]

Not quite finished yet, mate. You'll pass out when you see the monstrous amount of rigging that goes on the bow. Check out my Spanish Galleon build, it's about twice that much. Truly obscene amounts of hemp. 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Interesting conversation here over the last week, I’ve enjoyed reading it! I was an absolute dunce at school, especially at maths (as we call it this side of the pond). The game changer was learning trig, which was an essential part of my trade (fabricator-welder). 
 

Nice link from Marc to the Le Gros Ventre build, which is indeed gorgeous and one which I’ll now follow too. I know I am meandering towards something bigger with my 3D work and that build log has crystallised my thoughts somewhat. What struck me straight away (apart from the quality of the build) was that he’s doing in wood what I’m doing in plastic. Interesting, especially as I’ve just bought a laser cutter. Looks like I need to start browsing monographs.

 

Regarding masts and yards Bill; I’ve completed version 2 of these for my Cutty Sark (a version 3 is in the pipeline for reasons I’ll cover in my own log), but I consciously chose an ‘off the ship’ approach just because there’s less clutter, less risk of a sleeve catching on something elsewhere on the model.

 

Your SR is looking fabulous, and I think you can easily afford to take risks now.

[Hubac's Historian]

I’m curious to understand better the parallels between Marsalv’s build and your own, Kevin.

[Bill97]

Good morning/afternoon Kevin. So great to hear from you. I regularly pop over to your build watching for new stuff you are doing. 
 

Of course guys I will see if I was ultimately bold or crazy for stripping down my figure head. I think I should be able to get stripped and the area around it cleaned up and repainted. Then I will try gold leafing it again. Still not sure if the small difference in top coat  color from the stern is a big issue. Definitely a hard NO on completing stripping one end or the other. 
 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I think whatever differences there may be between bow and stern are negligible, and I certainly would not know of them without it being brought to my attention.

[Ian_Grant]

20 hours ago, popeye2sea said:

Navigating along a particular latitude was not that hard.  All you needed was to keep the sun at the same declination. You could measure the angle with a quadrant, octant, or sextant.  That is one of the reasons we have trade routes.  In the North Atlantic, for example, you would sail south from Europe until you picked up the right latitude to catch the westerly trade winds then turn west and cross the Atlantic till you made landfall in South America or the Caribbean.  To head back East, the return route was to sail North till you pick up the proper latitude to catch the easterly trade winds, turn East and sail till landfall in Europe.

 

Figuring out how far East or West you were along that latitude, in other words calculating longitude, was a more difficult beastie. For that you needed accurate time keeping.

 

Regards,

 

Henry

When the Royal Navy was ordered in 1803 to intercept the annual Spanish treasure fleet bringing gold from the Americas, the British squadron searched by simply sailing back and forth in line abreast straddling the latitude of Cadiz, knowing that the fleet by Spanish law must arrive there and probably would do exactly as popeye says:  sail along Cadiz's latitude since they would likely be uncertain of their longitude after a long voyage.

 

 Bill, I don't know how far you got in the Hornblower books, but if you enjoyed the first couple, this search is ably described by Forrester in "Hornblower and the Hotspur".

[popeye2sea]

15 hours ago, Bill97 said:

Henry what do you think of my topcoat issue?  Leave it alone or try to fix it?

I had the same issue when I put a topcoat on my upper bulwarks to protect the gold paint.  The finish was considerably more dull than the finish on the quarter galleries and stern.  I debated putting the same finish on the stern or putting a more glossy finish on the sides. In the end, I decided that I liked the contrast with the stern decoration. It makes the stern stand out more.

 

TLDR: I would leave it alone.

 

Regards,

 

Henry

[Bill97]

Ok figurehead stripped, sanded, and putty applied where necessary. Let it set up and prepare for repainting. Then see if I can do a better job with gold leaf. Going to set it aside now and start building the lower mast sections. 
 

Yes Ian I do recall the Hotspur!

[Ian_Grant]

Bill, to carry on with the talk about jigsaw puzzles in Marc's log, your wife could be challenged by this 76" x 55" puzzle:

 

🫢

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/404097350340

[Kevin-the-lubber]

On 6/13/2023 at 10:52 AM, Hubac's Historian said:

I’m curious to understand better the parallels between Marsalv’s build and your own, Kevin.

Marc, it appears that Marsalv is milling the parts i.e. the lower filling parts on Page 1. Although the methods and machinery are different, the engineering processes in milling (CNC especially) and 3D design & printing are not very different. Though to be honest I've still only had the quickest flick through his log as I always seem to have three or four things on the go at the moment.

 

18 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Bill, to carry on with the talk about jigsaw puzzles in Marc's log, your wife could be challenged by this 76" x 55" puzzle:

 

🫢

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/404097350340

At 6 feet x 5 feet you might need to negotiate who gets to build what!

[Bill97]

Figurehead stripped of gold leaf and all the area around the figurehead where the paint was damaged has been cleaned up and repainted. Now to attempt to do a nicer job of the gold leaf. I think I had to much build under the leaf causing the features to be obscured. Just going to do one layer of sizing and one layer of leaf. 

[Bill97]

In the meantime, while the paint dries and I get the desire to do some more gold leafing, I am spending some time reinforcing mast sections and yards that come in two halves. I am turning various size wood dials to fit inside the two halves before gluing them together. This should give some much need strength when rigging force is applied. 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Bill97

[Hubac's Historian]

Definitely, the mast re-enforcements are a must - especially for the topmasts.

[Bill97]

Marc the topmast are molded in one solid piece and not particularly strong. I can only reinforce the lower section and the middle section of the masts since those sections come in two parts and I can add the wood dial between the halves. What did you guys do to reinforce the topmasts?

Edited June 15, 2023 by Bill97

[Ian_Grant]

Bill, just a word before you proceed that the topmasts of the SR kit are widely thought to be too long. To be sent down properly after the fid is removed, their upper ends must clear the mast tops by the time their butt ends hit the deck. Obviously I haven't looked at my parts, but from the overall drawing on the first page of the instructions the fore topmast particularly looks crazy long.

 

Andersen lists proper proportions in his book.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[Ian_Grant]

5 minutes ago, Bill97 said:

Marc the topmast are solid molded pieces. I can only reinforce the lower section   and the middle section of the masts since those sections come in two parts. What did you guys to reinforce the topmasts?

Bill the topmasts are what you are referring to as the middle section. The upper masts are the topgallant masts.

[Hubac's Historian]

Yes, the t’gallants can’t be re-enforced, but they can be replaced with wood or metal.

 

The issue of overlong topmasts on French ships is interesting to me.  On much period portraiture, they are depicted as also seemingly too long.  A few examples:

When in doubt, Anderson is pretty unimpeachable.  There are also fairly reliable mast and spar dimensional tables taken from the Le Havre de Grace survey of SR in 1685; dimensions are in the old French foot, but they are easily convertible to imperial by a factor of 1.066.

 

In case you might be wondering to yourselves - I have not yet applied these dimensions to the stock kit topmasts, just yet.  I plan to use the stock kit topmasts as spares lashed to the deck to either side of the main hatch coaming.

 

What I have done is to raise my lower mast sections by about 3/8” above deck level.  I will more or less preserve the topmast lengths, but I will replace them  with wooden spars, and I will shorten the t’gallant masts, which actually are far too long on the kit.  Those will also be replaced with wood.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[Bill97]

Of course, you are absolutely right Ian. The middle section is the top mast and the top is the topgallant!  I learned so much Ian from you while you walked me through my HMS Victory build using Longridge as my student text book 😊.  I just don’t seem to keep all the nautical terminology stored in my memory long after using it. 
 

Unfortunately before I got these last few text I completed my reinforcement of the lower and topmast for the three mast. Dials put in with ca glue and halves then glued together with my regular plastic cement. They will not come apart. What, if anything, should I do now?  Is the issue of the topmast being to long more a visual issue for the learned nautical person, or is it an issue that will cause me construction problems?  If it just does not look right but causes no problems I am not going to mess with it now. If it is going to cause me construction problems I will need to do something. I need to do some research to see how much to long they are and if i can fix them. With the ends molded in a special way to accommodate the further mast construction I am not sure how you would cut any of that off. Marc I had the same about using wood or metal to rebuild the topgallants. I guess you would just cut cut away the thin plastic mast pieces from the molded block pieces (again nautical terms) and drill and replace with wood or metal?

[Hubac's Historian]

From the topmasts, on up, I will just fabricate everything from scratch.  I’ve already made all of the round tops to replace the kit ones because I found them to be under scale.  The mast caps that connect each higher mast section to the one below are easy enough to make.

 

I’m keeping all of my lower mast sections in plastic because they are certainly string enough with dowels embedded, they are reasonably accurate and can be made more-so with a little modification, and they’re going to be painted, anyway.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[Ian_Grant]

Hi Bill, no it won't cause you any construction problems.

 

You could emulate Marc and raise the lower masts his 3/8" by adding 3/8" of some material at the lower ends to mate with the steps.

Or not bother.

[Bill97]

Ian I like your recommendation. Based on what you said we are only talking about 3/8”?

if it is not going to cause a construction problem I believe I will just live with them as they are. However I do believe I will remake the topgallant sections. I used appropriate diameter metal rods for the topgallant masts on my HMS Victory. I did run into an issue where a hole was needed in the topgallant to rig a particular line. I could not drill into the small metal rod so just had to tie the line around the rod at the appropriate place. A wood topgallant will be no thicker than a standard toothpick but if I am careful I should not break it off. As we all know that is a big IF. 😊

Edited June 15, 2023 by Bill97