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

[Bill97]

Thanks Henry. As you see above in the picture from my instructions all my corbels, regardless of size, are numbered 150. I will be following your direction, as well as my other friends, and do the four large in the center and the 8 small flanking the larger. 
 

Yeah Ian I seem to remember you recommending doing the hatch covers like that on my Victory. I believe I did follow your recommendation. 

[Baker]

 

I used 2 metal pins to keep the canon port in place
actually a quite sturdy solution 😉

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Baker

[Bill97]

Another great idea Baker. 

[Bill97]

Baker in your solution what did you do with the two metal pins?  Drill a pair of holes in the hull right at the top of the hatch? Do they show on inside of the cover. I plan to have my hatch covers open. 

[Baker]

Yes, drill a pair of holes at the top of the hatch.

Baker is on holiday with only his clumsy smartphone...if the link is not correct (Post 458).

 

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by Baker

[Bill97]

Marc I know you did but Henry I could not tell from your build. Since you opened the side galleries did you create floors/decking inside for the two levels on each side?

[Bill97]

Baker your model is beautiful. Yes you are correct on the comment number in your build. I want to have my hatch covers fully open to show the fluer-de-lies I am placing on the inside of each cover. I guess I could just bend the wire close to a 90 degree angle, or if a wire flexible enough I could bend the cover up or down to achieve the cover angle I wanted. Did you drill small holes in the top of the hatch cover to accept the wire?  I would not want the wire to show on either side of the cover. Let see, two holes in each hatch cover and two at the top of each hatch multiplied by 56 hatch covers 🤔.  Would that be 224 tiny holes?  Hummm! 

[Baker]

Thank you.

indeed, you are going to have to drill 224 small holes for this method.

you can also use copper wire, which is more flexible.

it is best to do some testing and practice on scrap pieces first.

[Bill97]

Thanks Baker. Wishing to be at Mons street market place this morning. Sunday mornings were always my favorite!

[popeye2sea]

On 5/19/2023 at 2:42 PM, Bill97 said:

Marc I know you did but Henry I could not tell from your build. Since you opened the side galleries did you create floors/decking inside for the two levels on each side?

Yes, I created floors. It was a bit tricky fitting them. There was a lot of test fitting and trimming required to keep the floors from pushing the quarter galleries out away from the hull.

 

Regards,

[Bill97]

Yeah Henry that is what I am tinkering with now. Wish me luck. If I get it right I want to scribe lines and paint to match decking. Also trying to scribe and paint the floors of he three balconies before I add them to the stern. Will see how this goes. 

[Bill97]

Do any of you have a best practice for scratching/removing a straight line of paint to make for a good glue line?  All over the process of adding the side galleries, balconies, corbels, etc. there is going to be the need to scrape away a glue line on previously painted areas. 

[popeye2sea]

Offer up the quarter gallery to the hull. Lightly run your x-acto blade along the edge to be scraped to make a mark. Scrape along the inside of the line to expose the bare plastic.

 

Regards,

 

Henry

[Bill97]

Thanks Henry. I did that with a fine point ink marker already. Will go over it with x-acto. 
I just noticed when looking at this picture that I have the knight heads reversed! 😳 They are looking toward the rear. Ol well. They will be inside the side galleries. 

[Bill97]

All pieces painted and gold leaf applied on the areas where I wanted it for the next step in construction.  Made the four deck floorings and painted them, along with the floors of the three balconies to match the decks. Now to carefully scrape glue lines to get bare plastic. Then see if I can do a good job of getting these side galleries and balconies installed. 

[Bill97]

Thanks for the like Ian. Do you think my gold leaf application looks OK?  I seem to have lost some of the small detail in areas I applied it. Faces of characters, etc. not as sharp and detailed. But I guess that is a compromise if I want the leaf?  

[Ian_Grant]

I don't know Bill; I have zero experience with gold leaf.  I think your model will look wonderful. Thankfully SR has a lot less rigging than Victory in terms of numbers of backstays etc......

[Kevin-the-lubber]

On 5/17/2023 at 6:29 PM, Ian_Grant said:

Bill, you're right port lids are a challenge on plastic Heller kits. The way they're hinged in reality, when open the outer edge of the top of the lid would just be kissing the outer edge of the top of the opening ie nothing overlaps. On my Victory I added small styrene strips along the top edge of the port lids and left them unpainted. When gluing these strips were aligned with the unpainted top surfaces of the openings, giving a solid glued joint with the lids in exactly the position they would be in when open and the unpainted strips hidden in the hull. Hard to describe in words but I hope you see.

I could be talking nonsense here, it won't be the first time, but one thing I've discovered (among many things) over the last couple of years is how possible it is to drill tiny holes in plastic for tiny wire hinges - I'm talking 0.2mm diameter here, or 0.010" in old money. When I started out I thought this would be nigh on impossible but have found the hardest part is to avoid sticking the drillbits into my fingers 🤪. Anyway, I have it in mind to try that approach when I resume work on the Victory (there are of course no gunports on the CS) in the expectation that the wires should be virtually invisible.

[Bill97]

Kevin what I seem to run into very often is breaking off the tiny drill bitt in the hole I am drilling. I have a pen vise I use but the slightest tip to left or right will break my bit. Maybe I have not found/purchased the strongest tiny bits. 😊

[Hubac's Historian]

With those really fine bits, you really need a rotary tool, like the Dremel micro, on the lowest speed setting.  With a pin vise your hand pressure and movement is too variable and you will break them sooner than later.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[Bill97]

Gallery floors made and installed. Paint edge scratched for good adherence to side galleries. Tomorrow May be the day they go up!

[Bill97]

Side galleries in place and waiting for glue to dry. I used a series of push pins to hold the galleries tight against the ship. One small thing I noticed, which has to be a mistake I made somewhere, is the hatch at the bottom of the port side gallery does not line up perfectly with the corresponding hatch opening in the hull. The side gallery is flush with the edge of the stern so I did not want to push it back slightly to line the hatches up. Then the balconies worked not have fit flush to the stern. The starboard side is great so it has to be something I did. Oh well once I put the hatch cover on the bottom of the port side gallery it should not be that noticeable. I could attempt to move the cannon over to center of the gallery hatch but may not be worth the trouble. 

[Bill97]

And the three balconies. Next up will be days and days of touch up of gold and blue paint, and gold leaf. Then I will get to all the statuary. 

[LEGION 12]

4 minutes ago, Bill97 said:

And the three balconies. Next up will be days and days of touch up of gold and blue paint, and gold leaf. Then I will get to all the statuary. 

Wow just wow . 

[Ian_Grant]

Beautiful, just beautiful, Bill!

 

Regarding your stern view though - does it make sense to have doors between the stern portion of the galleries and the side portions? I believe Berain's picture showed no grid here, implying just an opening. Sorry to bring it up at this late stage......feel free to tell me to SFU.....🫢

[Bill97]

Ian I wondered that same thing. I assumed there were doors there regardless. I probably should have looked at more pictures. I started to cut them out and glue them back in in the open position similar to the doors on the beakhead but I was concerned it would weaken that section of the stern plate. I am going to pretend, and tell people, that the doors were there to secure the rear balconies to ship officers only. What do you think? 🤔

 

By the way I don’t believe I will ever feel a need to tell you, my dear friend, to SFU! 😊

Edited May 25, 2023 by Bill97

[Ian_Grant]

31 minutes ago, Bill97 said:

<snip..snip>

 

By the way I don’t believe I will ever feel a need to tell you, my dear friend, to SFU! 😊

Well, I'm happy to hear that Bill!

[Ferrus Manus]

i think the acronym is "STFU", but i'm glad no one feels the need to say it here. 

[Hubac's Historian]

Ferrus, you truly have an awesome name, there.  I can’t help but think of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man.

 

All the gilt work looks tremendous, Bill!

[Bill97]

You know Ian, you now have me contemplating if I should attempt to remove those 4 doors?  I wish I had thought about it before I put the balconies on. Would have been pretty easy. On the other I wonder if I should just leave well enough alone and not risk tearing something up.