Soleil Royal 1693 by John Ott - Heller - 1:100 - PLASTIC

[kirill4]

Good day,

John,

Some of my thoughts of rigging question, it is doubtful that the 17th-century ships were equipped with pin rails ... rather, it can be seen that single pins installed on the rails were used, such as Heller showed in the kit, but mostly the running gear was wound up or on the tops of the timbers or directly on the railings or bits... I judge by the photo of the Admiralty models of the ships presented in the books Brian Lavery " The Ship of the Line- History in Ship models" and "17th and 18th Century  Ship models from the Kriegstein collection" ,none of these models are equiped with pinrails... ? They are original models ,not new built imitations...

 

[John Ott]

If you're not into naval history right now, scroll down. There's some model-building stuff in the second half of this post. If you are, here's the bloody tale of the Battle of Velez-Malaga.

 

A lot of Soleil modelers are familiar with the adventures of the earlier versions of the ship during the Nine Years War, involving the exploits of Admiral de Tourville, the battles of Beachy Head, Barfleur and La Hogue, and the Soleil’s encounter with a fire ship resulting in it being reduced to charcoal briquettes. Despite this last incident, the War was one of the high points in the history of the French navy. The Battle of Velez-Malaga on Aug. 24, 1704 during the War of Spanish Succession was another high point, this time featuring the Soleil Royal II, and this time the ship survived.

 

The prelude to Malaga was boring in the sense that it was a typical Baroque raison de la guerre prompted by dynastic politics. The Spanish crown was being inherited by Louis XIV’s grandson; the English and Dutch were having none of it because two Bourbon kingdoms were one too many; diplomacy failed; war ensued, etc.

 

The exciting part started in the third year of the war (1704) when the English and Dutch sent their fleets to the Spanish coast. After mucking around a bit trying to capture places of importance, the allied admirals, Sir George Rooke and Gerard Callenburgh, decided to attack someplace easy. Gibraltar was garrisoned by just 100 Spaniards.  The English and Dutch took the place on August 4.

 

In pursuit of the perfidious English and their lackey Dutch allies, the French channel fleet left the port of Brest on May 14, 1704 with the Soleil Royal II at the head of 26 ships-of-the-line, four frigates and six fire ships.

 

 

The Soleil Royal II had been laid down in Brest by Étienne Hubac, son of the builder of the Soleil Royal I, in June, 1692. Originally to be named Foudroyant, the ship got renamed after the Soleil Royal I was destroyed in the Battle of La Hogue on May 24, 1692. Faced with the Sun King’s displeasure at having one of his namesake ships incinerated, it was decided to build a new Soleil as expeditiously as possible. Hubac’s main rival, the upstart Neapolitan shipbuilder Blaise Pangalo, was chosen to do the job. Pangalo had worked with Admiral de Tourville to design new ships along modern (for the 1690s) lines. The keel was laid in Brest in January, 1693. He made just one mistake. His ship—designed to be better under sail than Hubac’s—was only 166 French feet long.

By this time, Hubac’s Foudroyant was nearly done. Smarting from the twin losses—his father’s masterpiece Soleil reduced to ash and then being passed over to build her replacement—Hubac pulled rank, bypassed the king’s bureaucrats, and wrote a letter to Louis XIV personally.

 

Hubac argued that his ship should be the one to replace the Soleil Royal I. His father had built the original ship. He himself had rebuilt the Soleil Royal I from the keel up in 1689-90 after the hull rotted from disuse. He still possessed all of les garabits (moulds and templates) for the ship’s sculpture and decorations, designed by the king’s favorite decorative artist, Jean Bérain. Plus—and this was the kicker—his ship was four feet longer than Blaise Pangalo’s. 

 

Pangalo woke up one morning to a letter from the royal court. His ship was now renamed Foudroyant. Hubac’s was to be the new Soleil Royal.

 

As soon as it was completed, Admiral de Tourville took the new flagship, armed with 108 guns, out on May 26, 1693. Near Lagos Bay, Portugal, on June 27, the 71-ship French fleet intercepted a large 200-ship English-Dutch convoy heading for the Mediterranean. The convoy and its protecting warships, commanded by George Rooke, were turned back, Rooke losing 40 ships captured and 50 sunk. The “Destruction of the Smyrna Convoy” was a significant victory for the French and considered sweet revenge for the loss of the ships at La Hogue (Rooke had been in command of the attacking force then), but it was mostly a one-sided battle. It was the last time the Soleil was used for eleven years.

 

 

Like all the other royal flagships, the new Soleil was too big and took too many men to operate economically. It was reserved for big fleet actions and remained decommissioned in Brest harbor until needed.

 

The next time the ship was taken out, for the 1704 expedition to Spain, the Soleil Royal had its armament adjusted. Six guns were removed from its quarterdeck and poop, probably for the simple expediency of lightening the ship to make it handle better.  

 

By this time, the prospects for the French fleet had changed. The French still had—on paper—a navy of the first rank. Louis had spent 21 million livres that year to maintain and enlarge his fleet, but French leadership was problematic. De Tourville was dead from tuberculosis. There was no fleet commander of equal stature to replace him. 

 

In a typical Baroque fit of royal nepotism, Louis had appointed his 26-year-old bastard son Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse, to command the Spanish expedition. His mother had been Louis’s mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, and he had been a grand admiral of France since the age of five. The position was just one of the small cabinet of sinecures he was gifted with before the age of nineteen, which included marshal of France, commander of the royal armies, and governor of Brittany. What the young man had in the way of seamanship and knowledge of naval tactics could have been stuffed into his egret-plumed hat with plenty of room for his peruke-carpeted head as well.

 

He was, wrote courtier Louis de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon, “a very short man, with as gracious a welcome as a natural, but icy, cold could permit . . . very applied besides . . .  to know his navy . . .  and hearing of it very well.” At least he was a good listener. It’s doubtful his father or anyone in the royal court gave him any decision-making powers. His mother, by the way, had been exiled from Versailles and Louis’s bed for consorting with poisoners.

 

The French navy not being made up entirely of amateurs and fools, the Count of Toulouse was given a “mentor.” Marshal of France and Vice-Admiral Victor-Marie d'Estrées was a no-nonsense professional soldier who campaigned on land and sea indiscriminately with success. He had served under Duquesne and de Tourville, commanding the Mediterranean squadron but, delayed by weather, arriving too late to aid de Tourville at Barfleur. He made up for it by winning other engagements afloat and ashore, including leading a portion of de Tourville’s fleet at Lagos. He had commanded the Mediterranean fleet during the capture of Barcelona in 1697. Already in the present war, he had successfully used the fleet to bring Spanish king Philip V (Louis’s grandson) to Naples to claim the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He was made a Spanish Grandee for that. His family was high-ranking. His aging father Jean d'Estrées was still Vice-Admiral in charge of the channel fleet, but he was too old to go to sea. d'Estrées himself was rich and powerful, and most important, he was skilled at leading large formations of ships and men. Whenever Toulouse’s orders were handed down, they came in d'Estrées' handwriting.

 

After prudently avoiding the English and Dutch squadrons cruising off the coast of Portugal, Toulouse’s squadrons passed the Straits of Gibraltar and arrived in Toulon on June 11, where they joined the French Mediterranean fleet. The Levant squadron was delayed in its preparations, and it was only on July 22 that the French were able to raise anchor.

 

On August 12, the combined French fleet arrived in Barcelona, where news reached them of the capture of Gibraltar eight days previous. The decision was made to recapture the Rock as quickly as possible and the fleet immediately set sail. They were pausing in the Málaga roadstead to get water on August 21 when d'Estrées and Toulouse were informed of the enemy's approach. 

 

After the capture of Gibraltar, the English and Dutch fleet had gone to the Moroccan coast to get supplies. There, Admiral Rooke learned of the movement of the French fleet and led his ships back across the Straits without delay. On August 23, the English-Dutch fleet arrived off Málaga, within sight of the French ships at anchor. Rooke positioned his ships in line for battle, several leagues offshore. In the early hours of the next day, d'Estrées brought out his squadrons.

 

The fleets were massive. The English-Dutch fleet consisted of 51 ships-of-the-line and 17 other vessels, including a few bomb galleots, for a total armament of 3,614 guns and 22,453 men. Admiral Rooke was in the center aboard the 90-gun Royal Catherine. He was seconded by Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell in the vanguard aboard the 96-gun Barfleur. Admiral Gerard Callenburgh commanded the 12-ship Dutch squadron in the rear-guard from the deck of the 64-gun Graf von Albemarle. A few English ships were with him under Rear Admiral George Byng. 

 

 

Callenburgh had been a Vice-Admiral and De Ruyter’s second in command during the Anglo-Dutch wars. Byng was a future Admiral of the Fleet and First Lord of the Admiralty.  Cloudesley Shovell would be infamous three years after the battle for losing his own life and nearly 2,000 others by running his four-ship squadron onto the rocks of the Scilly Isles one dark and stormy night, in so doing giving literal meaning to the term “dead reckoning.”

 

 

Louis XIV's imposing naval army was nearly equal in strength, comprised 50 ships-of-the-line, eight frigates, and nine fire ships, supported by 24 galleys, twelve of which were Spanish, and two Dutch flutes. 3,522 guns and 24,275 men total, commanded by France’s most senior officers. The 10-ship vanguard, flying a white and blue flag, was under the command of Vice-Admiral Philippe de Villette-Mursay on the 90-gun Fier. The 24-ship center, under the white flag, was commanded by the Count of Toulouse, “assisted” by Marshal Victor-Marie d'Estrées aboard the 104-gun Foudroyant. Finally, the 16-ship blue-flag rear-guard was under the direction of the Marquis de Langeron on the 102-gun Soleil Royal. 

 

 

There are some minor discrepancies in various sources about the order of the ships in the lines and the numbers of guns. The OB below is from Winfield & Roberts' French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626–1786:

 

 

One thing I wondered about this battle formation is why the Soleil Royal, the finest, largest, and most prestigious flagship in the fleet, was relegated to the rear squadron. Why wasn’t it the flagship of the entire fleet? I think the answer has to do with the nature of command in the French fleet and the presence of too many seasoned and successful (egotistical) flag officers seeing a rare opportunity for glory. Plus the intricacies of the aristocratic practice of precedence.

 

The highest-ranking noble in the French fleet was possibly Joseph Andrault, Marquis de Langeron, Chevalier de Saint-Louis, Lieutenant-General of the Naval Armies, King’s Lieutenant for Lower Brittany, Baron de La Ferté, Baron de Cougny, etc., who had fought at Solebay, Schooneveld, Texel, Alicudi, Agosta, and Palermo. He was inspector-general of the navy and had commanded squadrons under de Tourville at Cape Béveziers and Barfleur. At the start of the War of Spanish Succession he had commanded the Mediterranean fleet at Toulon. His family was old, noble, powerful, and had supplied France with many marshals and generals. He should have been a candidate to become the Count of Toulouse’s “mentor”—in other words, the commander of the fleet—but maybe Louis XIV or his ministers decided the man didn’t have the right temperament to be a royal babysitter. He was passed over in favor of d'Estrées.

 

As a marquis, de Langeron would have had precedence over Louis’s bastard by-blow son Toulouse, who was only a count. Likewise, he out-ranked d'Estrées, who was also from an old, noble family that supplied France with general officers, but had a shorter (although no less successful) resume. It would have been difficult for de Langeron to surrender rank to a man of lesser stature without some sort of compensation.   

 

One can admire the compromises that d'Estrées and his council of senior commanders arranged: De Langeron was granted the rear squadron, but perhaps to placate the man’s ego, de Langeron was allowed the king’s flagship, Soleil Royal, as his platform for martial apotheosis. Vice-Admiral and Marquis Philippe de Villette-Mursay, 77 years old and one of de Tourville’s top commanders, was given the vanguard and one of the most recent three-deckers built, Fier, as flagship.  Another marquis, Louis d’Infreville, was to lead the line in the 92-gun Saint Philippe. Other admirals and naval lieutenant-generals were given ships and squadron commands according to their rank. d'Estrées (with Toulouse in tow) would command from the center, aboard Blaise Pangalo’s Foudroyant, which, you will remember, was supposed to have been the replacement for the first Soleil Royal.

 

 

The lines of battle stretched nearly five miles, each ship separated from the one ahead by at least half a cable. On the French side, galleys and frigates sailed three cables away on the far side of the line, ready to dive in and tow incapacitated ships away from the action. The British frigates were in a similar position and poised to do the same for their invalid vessels. Topsails full, mainsails and foresails reefed, the ships struggled to hold their position in line as the fleets closed with each other.

 

 

19th-century French naval historian Léon Guérin picks up the narrative in vol. 4 of Historie Maritime de France:

 

“The combined fleets of England and Holland came to windward on that of France. The Comte de Toulouse and Vice Admiral Victor d'Estrées . . . first tried to gain the advantage of the wind . . .  failing that, Villette-Mursay made to overtake and cut off the English vanguard. Shovell foresaw this intention at the same time as Admiral Rooke and both maneuvered to counter it. It was ten o'clock in the morning. The battle signal was given on both sides.

 

“Immediately, the two lines were concealed by thick clouds of smoke, in the middle of which the gun flashes and cannonballs alone opened a blazing passage. The Foudroyant and the Royal Catherine clashed in the most terrible manner . . . The Comte de Toulouse bravely did his duty, and did so with great composure (so says Guérin.) His secretary, du Trousset de Valancourt, was shot in the leg; several of his pages fell to the decks, Toulouse himself was slightly wounded; the intendant of the army, Phelippeaux d'Herbault, rolled dead at his feet.” 

 

 

Rooke put other ships between his damaged Royal Catherine  and the Foudroyant, but he did no better engaging the 86-gun Vainqueur, though he killed the squadron commander, Louis, the Bailiff of Lorraine. He was joined in the fight by Lord Archibald Hamilton in the 70-gun Eagle, who kept up the firestorm until disabled. Next in line behind the Foudroyant, Lieutenant-general Ferdinand De Relingue, a Swedish nobleman, fell mortally wounded aboard the 102-gun Terrible, loudly professing his syncophantic loyalty to the royal bastard youth supposedly in charge. The French center held and kept the English at bay. Lord Archibald Hamilton along with four other English captains would be court-martialed for having their disabled ships towed from the line. 

 

In the vanguard, English Admiral Shovell laid his 96-gun Barfleur in range of Jean-Baptiste Ducasse’s 84-gun Intrepide and savaged it, but Ducasse, covered in blood and black powder (according to Guérin), dismasted the Englishman and drove him off. Villette-Mursay, at the same time, drove off four other English assailants before the 70-gun Kent, commanded by Rear-Admiral Thomas Dilkes, showed up and lobbed a bomb onto the quarterdeck of Villette-Mursay’s Fier. The bomb penetrated to the third gundeck, blowing up the stern and igniting the five thousand musket cartridges in the gallery. The old French admiral was knocked off his feet by the explosion and several officers standing near him perished. Fier was put out of action to attend to its . . . fires. The 90-gun Magnifique, terribly damaged, was also forced to call in the galleys to be towed away. Despite this, the English were in too sorry a shape to take advantage. Shovell ordered a withdrawal.

 

 

The rear squadron under De Langeron in the Soleil-Royal II fought well and was equally successful.  A perfect storm of shot from the 102-gun French flagship forced Callenburgh to abandon his own flagship, the 64-gun Graf von Albemarle, which (according to Guérin) soon exploded and sank. Only nine or ten of her crew, out of seven or eight hundred, escaped the disaster. The 54-gun Dutch Nijmegen lost her captain, as did three english ships. Captain Desnots de Champmeslin of the 60-gun Serieux attempted three times to board the 60-gun Monk. A raging fire aboard the Monk forced his men to withdraw; but, as evidence of his near-victory, he sent Toulouse the English colors he had seized. The English-Dutch rear squadron was routed.

 

 

 

For ten hours the fleets grappled. The battle of the vans ended at five o'clock with Shovell’s retreat. The fight in the center finished two hours later. De Langeron and the rearguard kept firing on the Dutch until it was too dark to see. The day had seen 1,585 French, 2,325 English and 700 Dutchmen killed. One in ten of the entire fleet. This is the dictionary definition of “decimated.” Uncounted more where wounded. Someone estimated that 100,000 cannonballs had been exchanged. That’s probably conservative.

 

Many commentators say that not a single ship was lost from either side. That doesn’t correspond to the writings of French historians like Léon Guérin (who was probably biased), who claimed that several British ships were abandoned and sunk after the battle was over. And “not lost” doesn’t properly describe all the ships like Fier, essentially reduced to burnt driftwood limping under replacement masts. Ship after ship had been towed helpless from the line of battle. Admiral Shovell later wrote that there had not been a single Allied ship which had not been obliged to replace at least one of its masts, and many had been obliged to replace them all. 

 

That night, d'Estrées assembled his general officers on board the Foudroyant to deliberate on what course to take in the morning. The veteran officers figured the English-Dutch must be hors de combat and they were right: Rooke’s ships had left Gibraltar with only twenty-five balls for each gun. Consequently, Rooke was doomed from lack of ammunition without even considering the condition of his ships. He had already given orders to twenty-five of his captains to abandon their ships after setting them on fire. He was preparing to desert the Straits and leave the small English garrison at Gibraltar to its inevitable fate. 

 

The French commanders knew it was time to finish off the British. The dying General de Relingue aboard the Terrible sent his last message, urging Toulouse to resume the fight at daybreak. 

 

Toulouse, Grand Admiral of France, listened, but he was having none of it. The accidental, only-by-royal-decree-legitimized aristocrat, a young man of no particular ability, achievement, martial prowess, or desire for earned glory, had been shaken to his gutless core. He had spent the entire day cringing, choking on smoke, grasping the quarterdeck railing tight enough to leave marks, witnessing carnage and destruction, splinters impaling, bullets striking, blood spattering, seeing his minions fall dead at his feet, and hearing the ear-piercing guns, big and small, along with the endless mutter of airborne iron balls bringing death and dismemberment to screaming men. All he wanted was to go home.

 

The French fleet was in bad shape and low on ammunition itself. We can imagine the exhausted aristocrat-commanders in the council looking from face to face, deciding amongst themselves—what the hell. Let the Spanish take Gibraltar by land. We’ve done enough.

 

The French fleet withdrew to Toulon, leaving the Straits to the amazed English, who couldn’t believe their Britannic luck. Their last view of the retreating French fleet on Aug. 25 was illuminated by the bright sun over Gibraltar. It would be the last time, for a very, very long time, they would see such a large assemblage of ships by the Royal Navy of France.

 

"It was one of the toughest battles I've ever seen.”

—Admiral Sir George Rooke

 

Enough history. Let’s build some model ships.

 

I have an issue with the bulwarks.

 

Here’s the problem. The interior bulwarks of the Soleil Royal’s forecastle, waist, and quarterdeck look like… well, like the interior bulwarks of any model ship—in other words, an afterthought. I searched and searched the internet to see if I could find some visual reference for period bulwarks, with scant success. Finally, I simply decided that “more wood is good,” and looked for opportunities to add strakes, planks, and rails, fatten the gunports, etc. The rails got thicker by adding more custom-cut strips of styrene and 2mm half-round strips.

 

The waist rails got bulked up by adding 2mm angle strips to the top and inside—makes them look like good solid wood now. 

 

 

The ends of the rails looked too stark and simple for Baroque times, when there was no such thing as an abrupt transition. Some mild styrene scrollwork fixed that. I planned to add more scrollwork later.

 

 

At this point, I wanted to add some “bulwark rouge” paint to see how everything came together. I used two slightly different shades of dark mineral red—one was a generic craft acrylic “deep burgundy,” left over from painting HO railroad boxcars, and the other was Vallejo 70.946 dark red. Using the two shades together sort of randomly gave the bulwarks a nice, realistic, uneven quality.

 

 

 

The bulwarks at the waist needed planking. I don’t know the thickness of the sheet styrene I used, since I got it out of my longtime supply, but it was almost paper-thin. Fine for my purposes.

 

 

The kit’s gangway knees were positioned right up against the edges of the gunports. After gluing them and noticing that this didn’t look practical because of the gun mountings, I broke them off, sanded and puttied the scars, and moved their placement slightly away from the ports. Last things for this step were to add the kevels for the rigging and eyes for the gun tackle.

 

 

Time to do the exterior. Primer paint came first. After the primer was dry, I masked off everything but the rails—

 

 

—which got painted Vallejo 70.948 golden yellow.

 

 

The timberheads below the railing got hit with bulwark red and the gunport frames were “gilded” with Vallejo 20.996 gold. They probably weren’t gilded in real life—but maybe they were another kind of faux gold—made with spruce resin and brass or copper shavings. At any rate, I liked how they looked in contrast to the other yellow-painted elements. 

 

Before doing anything more with the forecastle and quarterdeck pieces, I checked them for fit on the lower deck halves. I had planned for all the decoration to be finished before the parts were glued, so that meant everything had to be prepared to fit perfectly. 

 

 

There turned out to be some warping and the forecastle pieces weren’t perfectly symmetrical. I bent the plastic with hand pressure and carved away small amounts until the pieces sat on the lower hull perfectly in position by themselves. A little gap-filler was needed on the port side, which I added with strip styrene.

 

I had given a lot of thought to the décor. Heller had made their own version of the repeating king’s-monogram-with-crown device from Bérain’s drawing and moved them down to the upper gundeck. They looked oh-kay and I decided to keep them, but I hadn’t liked the rest of the kit-supplied decoration on the quarter deck—tiny fleurs, shells, roses, and bellflowers in a loose arrangement. They had been sanded off.  I went looking for a decoration motif to replace them. 

 

 

There was less historical reference than I would have liked. There was Vary’s painting, of course. Couldn’t find much else that was in color. I did like Vary’s poop-pattern, which was a simplified version of Bérain’s. If I used it, I would have to drop it to the quarterdeck level.

 

 

From the evidence of surviving period drawings, fleur-de-lis patterns were popular for quarterdecks and poops. These would probably have been gold on blue. Royal colors.

 

 

Repeating textile patterns under the sheer rail were popular too. These were a hallmark of royal designer Jean Bérain. There was a lambrequin pattern on one of the stern balcony rails in his drawing of the Soleil Royal. Tanneron and Heller copied it, more or less, in a simplified version. Useful. Easy to copy in Adobe Illustrator. I ended up using it under my sheer rail and also on the upper channel wale.

 

 

In the end, I chose to take inspiration from the Bérain-Vary artwork and make my own version of the pattern for the quarterdeck. It was from the wrong Soleil Royal (the second version instead of the third), but I rationalized it by thinking that maybe Hubac the Younger re-used the pattern from the 1689 vessel. I liked the combination of fleur-de-lis, open-faced fleurs, and shells, and planned to make them relief carvings.

 

 

I made a series of drawings in Adobe Illustrator. The pattern went through several variations before hitting on the final—

 

 

If you’re really sharp-eyed, you’ll notice I swapped the fleur-di-lis and the scallop shells in the pattern. Too many fleur-de-lis were getting cropped out because of gunports getting in the way. Now there are fewer shells and more fleur-deedle-dee-dees—a much more potent royal symbol.

 

As I mentioned last post, I liked this pattern because it separated the decks into discreet bands of decoration. We have Compardel’s color painting of the Konung Karl to thank for that little eyeworm.

 

Hand-paint everything? Nope. Too ambitious. I like making decals. A repeating pattern like this is a perfect subject for decaling. This was the main reason I left most of the upper decks in primer grey. When decaling, you want a light background. Most waterslide decals are semi-translucent, and a dark surface underneath will dull the decal’s colors.

 

I could have made decals at home using blank decal stock from Micro-Mark.com and a color laser printer, but my old laser printer had given up the ghost and hadn’t yet been replaced. I searched online for a professional custom hobby decal-maker.

 

To be economical about it, I needed to fit everything on two sheets—port and starboard. They had to be fairly large sheets, because the kit’s pieces were large. Bedlam Creations (www.bedlamcreations.com) makes custom color waterslide decals on a thermal resin ALPS printer at sizes up to 8” x 13”—larger than many other custom decal makers were willing to do.

 

First I had to make the custom decal art, and it had to fit the model right the first time, because custom decals are expensive. This was facilitated by having done a little planning beforehand. During those first few months after getting the model, I had made scans of many of the model pieces on my flatbed scanner. 

 

 

These were guaranteed to be 100% right-sized since they had lain more or less flat on the glass. I used Photoshop to remove the background—

And used the images as templates in Adobe Illustrator.

 

I had scanned the forecastle and quarterdeck at a high resolution (600 dpi), so I could extract the king’s-monogram device and colorize it in Photoshop—

 

 

The rest of the job was just repeating and positioning the device on the template.

The same went for the other small devices—fleurs, shells, lambrequins, etc.

Finally, I removed the background template and assembled all the Illustrator elements onto two 8” x 13” sheets, port and starboard mirror images. There was plenty of space left over for extras to be used as patches for dumb mistakes. I usually make plenty of dumb mistakes in the process of decaling. 

A local printshop gave me some proofs on plain paper, which I could cut out and place on the plastic pieces to check the fit. 

 

 

Yeah, they fit. This gave me a good opportunity to binder-clip everything together and see how the ship was going to look.

 

 

The artwork was emailed to the decal maker as PDFs. I got a quote by email, sent the approval and the payment, and the transaction was done. After a week or three, I got a package in the mail with a set of beautiful waterslide decals.

 

 

The decals were applied using old time-tested methods—wet the surface with Microscale Micro-Set, apply the decal, let dry, then brush on decal solvent—Microscale Micro-Sol— multiple times, letting the decal dry in between, until the decal settled over all the irregularities on the surface. Bubbles were pricked with a #11 x-acto blade and more Micro-Sol was applied.

 

 

Since I had to fit the decals around all the gunports, I cut them into small, easy-to-handle pieces. Touchup paints were Vallejo 70.943 grey blue (light blue) and Vallejo 9.25 blue (dark).

 

 

After everything was dry, Microscale Micro-Flat clear finish was brushed on, followed by more acrylic matt medium over the entire piece.

 

Finished? Not hardly. In the weeks while waiting for the decals to come, I was busy making resin castings of the little devices that would be the relief carvings. Marc La Guardia (Hubac’s Historian) is totally to blame for inspiring me to do this. I haven’t tried resin casting in a generation, and I was totally ignorant about current procedure until I read about it in his Soleil Royal log. I hated the idea of carving the little master pieces out of raw styrene—it’s not normally something in my wheelhouse, but I coaxed myself with the promise—“you only have to make one of each.” 

 

 

I used a generic mold putty (ready in 20 minutes) and 5-minute epoxy. Every hour for the next few days I pried some fresh castings out of the mold and mixed up some new epoxy for the next batch. I took the best castings and made new molds. Eventually, I was making a dozen copies of each device with every batch. The cardboard I glued the masters on got greasy from the mold putty and had to be replaced every so often. The molds themselves wore out after a few uses. If I didn’t mix enough hardener with the epoxy resin, the castings came out rubbery. In spite of a lot of spoilage, it wasn’t long before I had all I needed.

 

 

A little paint; a little glue—finished quarterdeck. I glued the brass circular gunport frames on at the same time. The shells and the fleur-de-lis were painted gold. I decided to make the open-faced fleurs white for variety.

 

 

I was beginning to think I had the start of a good-looking ship.

 

 

 

It was about time I glued the thing together. But first, I needed to decide what to do about the guns. Then the ship needed some front-end and back-end work.

 

Next time. Keep the powder dry 'till then.

 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by John Ott

[Hubac's Historian]

That is dissertation- level historical writing, John.  You manage to resurrect these long-dead individuals as men of a particular background with their own motivations.  It all makes for excellent reading, while also contextualizing the magnitude of SR2 and her importance to the fleet.

 

I have long wondered what your particular process was for decorating the upper works.   Now that I understand it - my hat’s off to you for engineering such a brilliant execution of these details.  The resin-casting of ornaments really was a laborious undertaking, but I have never personally regretted the effort, and I am guessing that you feel much the same.  You could have passed with just the decal representations of the frieze ornaments, but casting them in 3D brings the whole thing to life.

 

I am living my best SR Renaissance with so many excellent models of her, in progress! 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[Theodosius]

Your log is as good as your SR! Thank's for a lot for sharing this with us!

[John Ott]

Thanks for the comments, guys. Marc—yeah, I think naval history is pretty dry (ouch!) if you don't consider the personalities aboard the ships deciding what to do. Naval engagements are in many ways like battles between orchestra conductors. I'm sure professional historians would happily rip me a new one for over-dramatization, but I don't care. I like telling stories. Everyone can read the sources and come up with their own.

Kirill—thanks much for the information. I'd love to see the books and models you referenced. I went back and forth on the issue of pin rails but finally decided that the model would be more attractive if I used them. Given the other appearance issues with the model, it seemed like a small compromise. Since my aim is to show the Soleil Royal as it more or less looked in the early 1700s, I rationalized it by thinking the ship must have been upgraded and re-rigged when it was recommissioned after sitting idle for eleven years.

J.C. Lemineur also seemed to like pin rails. I was influenced by his drawings a lot.

[Hubac's Historian]

I don’t think one can go too far wrong with pinrails from about 1690, forward, on French ships.

[kirill4]

 

A few days ago, when I looked through the books that I mentioned in my post, I caught thinking myself why these pins were not shown on the models of ships of the 17th century ... After all, it is so convenient for fastening the running ends of running rigging ... But the fact remains ... All kinds of ways to lay the running ends - kevels, staghorns, pillars, laying up on themselves, seldom on pins.fitted trough railings, etc.,  but not just a most convenient option with pin rails ... Different situation on models of the 18th century - which could be found in  2 volumes J.Budriot "museum models of historical ships", pinrails already shown ,not as regular as on the ships close to the middle and so on of  18th, but shown... But why not in the 17th century, at least not shown on the models of this period,this remains a mystery to me ... all said above - just my personsl thouts abt subject, nothing more...:)))

[kirill4]

Just now, Hubac's Historian said:

I don’t think one can go too far wrong with pinrails from about 1690, forward, on French ships.

Good day Marc,

I agree, there couldn't be too wrong with it... just strange , why they couldnt be seen ... were they just ommited as some kind of simplification, same as gun cartriges never shown on admiralty models in full construction shape as on modern models, or were not shown because they were not in common use it that period...?

A few famous big scale models of of 17- begining of18 th ,as examples, where we could see in details how running riging were secured with belaying pins ( railings only)without pinrails yet - dutch William Rex model and french Louis Quinz...or even more modern Royal Louis - there used small cleats on shrouds, kevels,top timbers... but couldn't see pinrails as well... strange 

Edited September 30, 2023 by kirill4

[Hubac's Historian]

I agree with you Kirill, on the strangeness of it.  I would posit the following: as long as the fairleads for the fall are sensible and not crossing other lines, and the structure of the rig matches it’s intended purpose, then the particular belay type is of less importance.

[Hubac's Historian]

Above all else, the rig has to make logical, working sense.

[kirill4]

In this respect, I like very much clipper ships belaying arrangements - all clear logical and nice looking! :)))

[Hubac's Historian]

John, do you have the complete illustrations for the upper and bottom of these three quarter drawings?

Do you also happen to have the bow and stern views.  I’ve never seen these two before.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[popeye2sea]

John,

Your ability to bring the story to life is outstanding as is your ability to bring the frieze work to life.  I am in awe of your decal work. The ship looks amazing.

 

All of these other SR build logs have got me really wanting to get back to my build.  

 

Regards,

Henry

 

P.S.  Dead reckoning is actually Ded. Reckoning and is a shortened spelling of deduced reckoning which is continuing the plotting of a course line forward based on the information obtained from your last good position fix. The ded reckoning plot line is marked at set time intervals to estimate what your deduced position will be.  When you actually get to that time point and take a position fix you can then calculate based on the difference between that fix and the deduced point what your set and drift are.  In other words how much you are being blown off course by wind and current. Then you can correct your course accordingly.

So endeth the lesson on navigation.

 

Regards,

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

Ded reckoning:  A means of finding rocks and shoals.

 

[John Ott]

Hello Marc—here is le Fleuron, 60-gun 3rd-rate, 1689.

 

It was wearing blue in 1704. 

 

And here's le Furieux, 70-gun 2nd-rate, 1684.

Sorry—I didn't write down where I got these.

 

I also attached a PDF that I made of all the sterns and galleries I could find. (Apologies—it's kind of large.) Used it for quick reference. Many of the images are ehhhh because they were low-resolution swiped off the internet.

 

 

First & Second Marine Drawings by Date.pdf

[John Ott]

Henry and Johnny—thanks for giving the correct spelling and usage of "ded reckoning." I kinda knew that, but my unfortunate propensity for joking around got the better of me. I'm not the one to go to for serieux discussion.

 

[popeye2sea]

I knew you were going for the "non-serieux" line.  I just thought that not too many people know what ded. reckoning really is.

 

Henry

[Hubac's Historian]

John, there are some real gems in that folder.  Thank you for sharing.  I am particularly fascinated by Le Furieux.  Like the Terrible of 1693, she has a number of grotesques decorating the quarters, and the structure of the upper quarters is very unusual.

[John Ott]

Hi Marc—the Furieux drawings are interesting because they have the same problems as Bérain's Soleil drawings—the stern and quarter drawings don't match up. I can understand why Bérain drew the stern asymmetrical, since they were proposal drawings, after all ("which do you prefer, monsieur?"), but someone in the office of ship decoration is going to look at those figures under the wing transom and say some bad words. Maybe Bérain was rushed, maybe he was overloaded with work from Versailles, or most likely he was just unfamiliar with the geometry of a ship. Is there any indication he even visited Brest or spoke to the shipbuilders, or did anything other than exchange letters and drawings?

I honestly think the drawings were meant to be advisory only, and nobody expected the ship-decorators to follow them precisely.

Still, Le Furieux would make a great modeling project for some brave soul. Lemineur has a drawing of the same class (66 guns, not 88 like I accidentally typed) in his Sun King's Vessels book.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Good catch on the counter discrepancies, there.

 

Yeah, I have often thought La Royal Therese would be a wonderful subject for a model because we have such good VdV drawings of her bow and stern.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Hubac's Historian

[John Ott]

I'm with you there. I always thought Van de Velde was a more reliable authority because he obviously knew ships well and made his drawings after they were reality, while Bérain's and Puget's drawings were more... aspirational.

[Hubac's Historian]

I consider Puget on a par with the VdV’s because a number of the drawings attributed to him were also after the ships were constructed: The Monarque drawings, DR 1680, and RL 1692.

 

As it relates to the VdV’s, I have to admit that it bugs me a little when people (not you, of course) discount their efforts as the whim and fancy of an artist.  If you look at any number of ship sketches, you will see the faint erasures of the Elder’s process.  He was very concerned with getting the aspect of the vessel and its artillery locations correct.  They are among the few living witnesses with the 3D ability to interpret the proportions of these vessels correctly.  I, personally, have no doubt of the photographic integrity of their drawings.

[John Ott]

The side of my desk is stacked with books used to support my Soleil Royal project. There will be the matter of finding shelf space for them eventually, since all my bookcases are overloaded, but I'll worry about that sometime in the future, after the build is done.

 

 

Having good sources to consult for how-things-worked and how-things-looked is part of the fun of model-building for me. Others can do just fine with following the kit directions and come up with a nice model, but for me, that misses out on a lot of the enjoyment. Art needs context. Unfortunately, when it comes to the Soleil Royal, you can't just drive down to Brookhurst Hobbies or The Last Grenadier (or whatever your hobby shop is) and buy a Squadron book written especially for model-builders. Baroque ships are somewhere off the map of popular model-building. You have to find out about sources from other model-builders who have been down the same road before you. So, in that spirit, here are my main text acquisitions that have helped (and will still help me) in my Soleil Royal build. If you have others of your own, PLEASE add them in the comments.

 

 

French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626-1786 by Rif Winfield and Stephen Roberts.  Just really handy, basic stuff. Contains capsule specs, dates, and historical summaries of every French ship from the Baroque. Also includes short summaries of all the wars and battles, ship technology, and gunnery.

 

Find a copy on Amazon— Kindle 4.99, hardcover 60.54, used from 49.98. (I checked just before writing this.)

 

 

The Three-Decker of the Chevalier De Tourville by Jean Boudroit. This is the best book I've got on referencing and detailing three-decker French Baroque warships. There's a much better review than mine on Ships of Scale:

 

https://shipsofscale.com/sosforums/threads/the-three-decker-of-the-chevalier-de-tourville-le-trois-ponts-du-chevalier-de-tourville-l%E2%80%99ambitieux-1680-by-jean-boudriot.4253/

 

The book is broken into two parts. The front part, "A compendium on the French Naval Architecture of the  XVII Century," is a detailed exegesis on the attempts of Louis XIV's bureaucracy to standardize shipbuilding, including all the letters and documents outlining what the sizes and structures of the ships should be. (This was largely ignored by the shipbuilders, but that's another matter.) It contains a ship-by-ship review of ALL the surviving plans, drawings, and documents in the Paris Marine Museum. The second part is Boudroit's generic reconstruction of a three-decker warship ("L'Ambitieux"), complete with plans, drawings, and specifications for EVERYTHING, including deck furniture, rigging, and belaying points. 

I know there's been pushback from modelers on some of Jean Boudroit's conclusions. Your mileage may vary. Boudroit also wrote several monographs that I haven't seen on the ships of this period. Based on what I've seen here, if I were rich, I'd get them all. 

You can get an English-language translation of this book from the publisher, ANCRE. 50 euros plus shipping:

https://ancre.fr/en/monograph/68-monographie-de-l-ambitieux-vaisseau-3-ponts-1680.html#/langue-anglais

 

 

The Construction and Fitting of the English Man of War 1650–1850 by Peter Goodwin. This one is a good explanatory text on the frame-by-frame structure of a Baroque ship-of-the-line—keel, beams, knees, timbers, planking, bulkheads, fittings—that sort of thing. The "English" part shouldn't scare anyone off. Shipbuilding technology wasn't all that different across the Channel in the nation of shopkeepers. Plenty of drawings and diagrams. Really good for figuring out the details of the hull, what sizes they were, where things go, and how they worked.

Amazon—hardcover 45.41, used 23.53.

 

The Sailor's Lexicon by Adm. W.H. Smyth. I'm a train modeler. I needed this. Badly. It's a good way to keep terminology at least halfway straight when deciphering the logs of other ship modelers, who will always know much more about ships than you do.

 

Amazon—hardcover 12.15, used from 10.00.

 

The Sun King's Vessels (aka Ships of the Sun King) by Jean-Claude Lemineur. A scholarly study of the development of three-decker French warships in Louis XIV's time and the development of standards for the various ranks of warships. Kind of similar to Boudroit's book. Lots of basic information on the layout and structure of the ships—distance between gunports, overall ship length—stuff like that. Good sections on ship decoration and ordinance. Lots of good hull drawings and ship diagrams. There's not much specific to the Soleil Royal simply because not much information has survived, but this provides a good context. 

 

Lemineur also wrote a detailed monograph and ship plans for the three-decker Saint Philippe that I haven't seen, though many modelers swear by it. 

 

Amazon has The Sun King's Vessels in English. It's a poor translation that reads like somebody ran the original text through Google Translate, and a lousy layout done by someone who didn't understand typesetting, but all the pictures and diagrams are there and you can make sense of the text with a little work. Hardcover 129.00.

 

Ship Decoration 1630–1780 by Andrew Peters. A book on ship decoration by a guy who decorates ships—at least, reproductions of historical ships. This is more of an art book, but a must-have for anyone who admires and wants to understand the decoration schemes of English, French, Dutch, and other northern European Baroque ships. Want to know why Jean Bérain was different from Charles Le Brun or Pierre Puget? It's all discussed from an artistic and art-historical standpoint. I love this book.

 

Amazon—Kindle 4.99, hardcover 42.09, used from 30.28.

 

 

The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600–1720, by R.C. Anderson. This is your first stop for rigging Baroque ships. Anderson's text is well-organized, very readable, and has lots and lots of illustrations. The text is divided up into standing rigging and running rigging sections. He points out where French practice differs from English practice, and gives approximate dates for innovations. It's written by a ship modeler for other ship modelers. Before getting into the weeds with detailed rigging diagrams, read Anderson first. 

 

Amazon—Kindle 9.99, softcover 16.94, used from 3.84. So cheap, I can't imagine anyone doing without this book.

 

 

Eighteenth-century Rigs & Rigging by Karl Marquardt. After you finish Anderson, you'll think this is Anderson on steroids. Every line and every block is broken down mast by mast, yardarm by yardarm, and sail by sail. Not only for big three-masted ships, but every class of ships, galleys, or boats from the era, no matter which nation. Marquardt also includes tables of rope and block sizes taken from period documents, plus complete belaying diagrams. In spite of the title, Marquardt also includes a healthy amount of information specific to the 17th century. He includes French terminology for every piece of rigging. (A bowsprit shroud collar is a collier de hauban de beaupré.) There are many, many more diagrams than found in Anderson. It's easy to get totally lost in Marquardt, which is why I recommend reading Anderson first. Still, this book is indispensable to me.

Amazon—hardcover 90.35, used from 89.95.

 

 

French Naval Sculpture Under the Ancien Régime (1650–1789) by Ronald Portanier. This is a free PDF available from the website below. It's the author's doctoral thesis on the decoration of french warships and goes into great detail on each aspect of the French process of ship decoration, including how the sculptures were made and how they were finished before installation. It's another art book, in essence, but a treasure trove of information on the bureaucrats, artists, and sculptors responsible for the ships, with lots of illustrations.

It's free. Get it. https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/984742/1/Portanier_PhD_S2019.pdf

 

So what else have I missed? Please let me know your indispensable references in the replies.

 

In the meantime, here's what I did with my kit's unextraordinary ordinance. I needed a couple of decks' worth of guns before I could start gluing the hull together.

 

 

Other people have remarked on the issues with the kit’s guns. Trunnions, carriages, cascabels, calibres, lack of rigging, and just plain general sizes and proportions could use improvement. Fixing and detailing 100 guns is a deep rabbit-hole. 

 

To start from scratch, the 1704 version of the ship (the one I’m modeling) needed 28 36-pounders (lower gundeck), 30 18-pounders (middle), 28 12-pounders (upper), and 16 6-pounders (quarterdeck and forecastle). Of these, 26 6- and 12-pounders were going to be on open decks exposed for all to see, needing to be rigged and have all the details right. That’s a lotta guns.

 

The kit provided what it called 24 24-pounders, 38 18-pounders, 30 12-pounders, and 16 8-pounders. Hmmm.

 

It wasn’t hard to go into the books and find the prototype sizes and proportions for the right guns. For instance, a bronze 36-pounder was 10 feet long and had a calibre of 6.88”. An iron barrel of the same calibre was closer to 9-1/2 feet. In the time period I was modeling, bronze guns predominated, but iron guns had been introduced and were becoming more common.

 

 

The kit’s 24-pounders looked too skinny and had too small a calibre to look right. They weren’t fat enough to drill out to the nearly 7” that a real 36-pounder had. They would have to be replaced. A search through all the naval model suppliers on the internet didn’t come up with many options for 1/100 scale. Since most of the guns were just going to be barrels sticking out of gunports, I decided some liberties could be taken with the barrel sizes. The calibre would be more of a consideration than the length.

 

I penciled up a table—

 

 

I found some right-sized (fat) guns to represent the 36-pounders on eBay and bought 30 of them. They were only 7.5 scale feet long, but nobody would see anything except their muzzles sticking out from the lower gundeck. More importantly, they had a nice 6”–7” bore. I found out later that they were probably modeled after guns from a century or more after the time of the Soleil, but ehhh. I wasn’t going to take the ship apart to replace them. I decided they were iron 36-pounders instead of bronze, so they were painted black. (The real iron guns were.) If you don’t want things noticed, paint them black.

 

The kit’s 24-pounders became the middle gundeck’s 18-pounders, muzzles drilled out with a #55 bit to get close to a 5” bore. I kept the kit’s 12-pounders, just drilled them with a #56 bit to make 4.5” bores. The kit’s 8-pounders became the 6-pounders, drilled out with a #65 to a scale 3.5”. Four of the kit’s 18-pounders became “iron” 18-pounders instead of bronze—slightly smaller, painted black, and drilled out to the 5” bore. That made up for the shortage of 18-pounders. The rest of the kit’s 18-pounders were surplus.

 

Most of the guns were supposed to be new bronze, but the hobby shop was out of anything closely resembling bronze paint. I mixed my own, using Mission Model’s dark rust and Vallejo 71.072 gunmetal. It came out a rich, shiny, metallic dark brown—just like recently-cast bronze. I didn’t want even a hint of green patina. Most of the guns in the rapidly-growing French fleet of the 1690s were newly-cast, and I imagine gunner’s mates would risk a flogging if their weapons weren’t cleaned, vinegared, and shined. This was the king’s ship, after all.

 

 

I was going to prepare two classes of guns. The ones hidden in the lower decks were going to be rudimentary, just the barrel sitting on a wheel-less carriage. No rigging or detailing. The 26 visible on the open decks were going to get all their “Hellerisms” corrected—trunnions in the right place, carriages with proper seats for the trunnions, eyebolts for the gun rigging, and holes drilled in the sides of the carriages for the breech ropes.

 

The new lower deck gun barrels from eBay needed something to sit on. I fashioned some simple styrene boxes. Because they and the middle deck guns were going to be mostly hidden, their carriages didn’t have to sit on four tiny wheels with four tiny glue points to come loose. I wanted a bigger and stronger mounting surface that was just a little flexible so that if a gun was accidentally bumped, it might still stay in place. Here's the template I made for the boxes. It got spray-glued to a sheet of 1 mm styrene and used to drill and cut. This ain't to scale, in case anyone is wondering—it's just to show the principle.

 

 

When it came time to glue the hull together, I attached some corrugated cardboard strips to the decks and glued the flat bottoms of the wheel-less carriages to them.

 

 

The dressy, visible guns got new trunnions (Evergreen styrene 1.2 mm rod) and breech ropes. The carriages had the raised trunnion blocks carved away, new slots for the trunnions filed in, and holes drilled into the carriage sides for the rigging eyes and breech ropes. The breech rope stock (kite string) was white—ugly and not looking like rope—so about five feet of it got stretched and stained with the same cork brown color I used for the hull and decks. It helped. 

 

 

A little jig made from foam-core board and push-pins insured the breech ropes were all the same length. 

 

 

 

I didn't bother with too many gun carriage details. I figured things like bolts, etc. weren't going to be noticeable anyway. Some black paint made it look like the trunnions had top brackets. Eyebolts for gun tackle were added to the carriage sides.

 

 

So far so easy. In the meantime, I was trying to figure out how I was going to do the gun rigging. There were plenty of good diagrams on the internet. The main problem foreseen was dealing with all those tiny blocks. First task—where to get them?

 

 

I ordered from a few different suppliers. Most were way too large, but Syren blocks were beautiful and small enough for the 12-pounders. Still too large for the 6-pounders, though.

 

 

I finally got some 2mm blocks from HISmodels, which I used on the 6-pounders. If I had to start over, I would have used them from the beginning. 

 

 

I figured that it was easier to work on the gun rigging with all the pieces on the workbench, so the bulwarks got their guns tied to them before getting glued to the ship. All those blocks and lines… I think each gun needed sixteen knots. This is probably one reason why I build only one sailing ship per decade.

 

 

 

It usually came out all right in the end.

 

 

I’ve seen all the drawings and diagrams that show the gun tackle ropes in neat inspection-ready coils, but I wonder what the gun crews really did with their lines. I didn’t glue the coils down all that securely just in case I see something that changes my mind.

 

I was getting closer to gluing the ship's hull together. I needed to work on the bow and stern first. That'll be in the next post. 

 

But now that it's October, I'm finally going on my summer vacation. I'll finally (hopefully) get to make some progress on rigging my ship. (Below are experiments that may or may not work.) See you in two weeks. 

 

 

 

 

[popeye2sea]

"I’ve seen all the drawings and diagrams that show the gun tackle ropes in neat inspection-ready coils, but I wonder what the gun crews really did with their lines. I didn’t glue the coils down all that securely just in case I see something that changes my mind."

 

 

When in action, coils like you have, or Flemish coils ( the ones that look like spirals) are a big no-no.  When the gun fires the side tackles act as a sort of recoil brake.  If the lines are coiled they will kink and jam when the rope starts to run out.  One way to avoid this is to flake (or fake) down the rope.  You can look this up in the Ashley Book of Knots or other knotting reference.  There are videos on you tube that show it, but do not use the modern rope climber method of flaking which, to my sailors eye, just looks like an unusable puddle of rope on the deck. Use the proper nautical method still used today to make up ropes to run freely.

 

Regards,

 

Henry

[John Ott]

It does looks to me to be more practical and space-saving. Thanks, Henry.

[kgstakes]

Holy cow you do some nice work !!!   I was looking at the way you were doing the sides and thought what a neat idea of covering the sides with the "wallpaper" but then I realized you not only did that but you casted all the details to put on the model!!!  amazing and you are my friend an artist and skilled ship modeler.

 

Then I followed a little bit farther and your building up the cannons with their ropes !!!  Have to ask, do you fly fish too?  Tying all those Knots and such to make it look correct, I'd would have to double up on my magnifiers !!!

 

Great job overall well done.

[kirill4]

Good day John,

Nice  job! 

I liked tgat bronze color which You mixed - looks quite real! 

Some observations,

*on the photo, breech ropes looks too loose in their structure... like an ordinary, unprocessed threads , or it is ?

Do You make your own ropes or purchase them or just using ordinary thread?... the last one doesn't look nice on the model.

If there is oportunities to replace them for scale ropes it would be nice, or if not, there is some trick how to make ordinary sewing thread looks more tight, more suitable for the model rigging without using rope- making machine...

*gun's recoil blocks looks too large/ on the photo ... may be 1.5 mm would be better?

As I know,  these days any size of blocks could be printed on demands ... 

* upper part of gardel block knight looks wrong in shape/has too sharp edges, there could be difficulties in main yard rigging later on...

All the best!

Kirill

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by kirill4

[John Ott]

Thanks, Kirill, for your observations. You are right, I tend to use "found" materials (like the common string I used for breech ropes) on models simply because I'm not very experienced at building large ship models and I'm having to learn as I go where to get correct-to-scale materials. Or learn if they even exist. Yes, I know the gun rigging blocks are large, but I didn't find 2mm blocks until after these guns were already rigged. My six-pounders with the smaller blocks look better. I think I'd have to dismantle the ship if I wanted to re-rig the guns and replace the larger blocks. The project is probably too far along to do that.

At some point, I have to live with my mistakes. "Learning experiences." 

Considering that the model is going to live in a plexiglas case and be viewed mostly from a few feet away, I don't mind that the detailing doesn't match contest-model standards. That was never the intention. 

 

But it is nice to learn what's possible, so I can do a better job next time. Thanks again!

 

John

 

 

[kirill4]

Good day John,

Yes, it were just my remarks after vewing posted photo.. and mostly because I did same " mistakes" when I was busy with my model, after all I have 1/3 part of rigging made from unprocessed sewing threads, 1/3 were corrected when I purchased very simple but workable rope making maschine and the rest of ropes I made in simulation mode :))) like this:

cable from sewing thread
how to use athread strait from a spool, without making cable - in the photo there is a thread before and after "processing"
it turns out, of course, not what can be done with a cable making device, but differently better than it was on the spool, unprocessed ...
* cut off about a meter
* I clamp one end in a vise
* I pull it slightly, just so that it does not sag and holding the other end I begin to twist it in my hands along the lay ... I twist it as tightly as possible ... at least until the density of the strand looks like a normal rope
* then I pull it slowly/tightly until the "reserve" is selected, so to speak by lengthening ... it is felt, the thread first stretches and then begins to resist, and if you pull further, you can break it ...
* in this maximally elongated state, I hold it for several seconds and paint it right away continue keeping it tight- I stretch along a cloth moistened with paint
* I slowly release it and hang it up to dry ... as it dries, you can repeat the procedure again for fidelity ...
well, something like this 

 

[kirill4]

Regarding printed bloks of any sizes and shapes, less than 2 mm and still perfect in shape,I would say,they are same or   , even better in this respect than wooden cnc blocks from "His Models" or other cnc wooden blocks supplier - I mean" spares" for plastic models, not fo r wooden ships models ...

present days I saw many our collegues offer this service... I saw "dafi" making wide range of such staff including rigging details and gun barrels and so on, on SOS I saw a few offers of printed items for scale models as well... in Russia they also available, but due to nowadays  iron curtained,it is not an option anymore :(... but I think You much better know than me about  all aspects of resin duplicatings and  printings and where to find them ...I mentioned it  just in case, and based on my small experience ... what would be better, but again, this is just my private opinion...