Soleil Royal by EricWiberg - Heller - 1/100 - PLASTIC - started 45 years ago

[EricWiberg]

OK, I have to admit I am puzzled by calculating the distance between gun ports.

 

From the several build logs that I have read... lets assume there are 10 gun ports that are 10mm wide, and the "ship length" is 210mm in length. 210mm - (10 x 10mm) = 110mm. Because there are 10 gun ports. there are 11 spaces, so 210mm / 11 = 10mm.... so I have ten gun ports that are 10mm wide and spaced 10mm apart.

 

But should we not use the length on the outside of the hull, as opposed to the "ship length"? In the photo below, I used the lower gun deck as the "ship length" in this example, as it is very easy to see. The lower gun deck is 543mm in length... so with 16 gun ports that are 8.7mm wide... 543 - (16*8.7mm) = 403.8mm... (403.8mm) / 17 = 23.7mm between gun ports.

 

BUT... if I put a tape measure on the outside of the hull at the Lower Gun Deck level, I get 571mm in length as the hull curve is longer than the deck.... so 571 - (16*8.7mm) = 431.8mm... (431.8) / 17 = 25.4mm between gun ports.

 

This is a substantial difference and really adds up with 16 gun ports... what am I missing here?

 

In practice, I will mark the positions of gun ports #2 and #16, and calculate the spacing between them (the #1 gun port, or chase port, can't be used as a starting point as it is positioned 1.5x the normal spacing ahead of gun port #2). Even using the distance from #2 to #16, the measuring tape wrapped  around the hull is longer than the deck length by over 3/4" of an inch. It doesn't sound like much, but the spacing gaps will become very noticeable to the eye.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I think you measure along the outside of the hull.  As you say, establish the position of port #’s 2 and 16, and then calculate even spacing for the guns in-between.  A straight linear measurement of the deck length is not particularly useful, here.

 

Here is a poor drawing illustrating the calculation.  Port numbering not so important, here.  You get the idea:

[Hubac's Historian]

At scale, if you end up in the vicinity of 6.5 - 7’ between ports, then that’s where you want to be.

[Chapman]

Because of the reduction in the number of gun ports by one, I made a paper template for the lowest row of guns on my Phenix model. This allowed me to check if the spacing of the reorganization was correct before I started working directly on the model.

Maybe that would help you too.

 

Edit: Helpful drawings for the arrangement of the gun ports of the different classes can be found in Les Vaisseaux du Roi.

Edited 17 hours ago by Chapman

[EricWiberg]

I did make a paper template for ports #2 through #16. Even though on this scale, Hubac apparently chose gunports 8.7mm wide, I stretched the width to 9mm. Marc LaGuardia commented that spacing should be between 6'6" and 7'... at this scale 7' is 21.3mm spacing.

 

So what you see are 9mm wide gun ports spaced 21mm apart... and it looks like I have some room to fill. The last LD kit gunport is 25mm from the stern (end of Lower Gun deck)... I nudged it forward to the 40mm mark. That places the #2 gun port almost at the kit #2 gun port.

 

I really don't want to increase the spacing between gun ports any more, so if the #2 gun port is inaccurate and needs to be moved forward, I would have to oncrease the gun port width from 9mm to 10mm.. that buys me 15mm and would land my #2 gun port right on the kit #2 gun port. Also, I could move the #16 gun port forward another 10mm, but again... is that woefully inaccurate?

 

Just a thought... I have seen comments thatt Hubac preferred gun ports 32" wide X 30" tall (in French inches)... so on this scale, 8.7mmm X 8.0MM. Yet I also can find a much greater volume of comments that a 36# gun required a gun port 39" wide, or 12mm wide on this scale. If that idea is correct, I could eaily make the gun ports 10mm wide, even 11mm wide, and maintain a spacing of only 20mm or so (6'7" wide) 

 

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by EricWiberg

[Hubac's Historian]

Try increasing the spacing between ports 2 - 15 to 22 MM, this will be just under .875 imperial, or 7 scale feet at 1:96.  Your current spacing looks a little crowded, and the space between the bow chase port and the next gun aft is too large.

 

You are trying to impose 1671 dimensional parameters on a kit based off of 1693 dimensional parameters.  It doesn’t have to “be” exactly right.  It just has to look right.

Edited 14 hours ago by Hubac's Historian

[EricWiberg]

Marc, I will increase the spacing to 22mm.... I added a late addition to my post above in Bold letters.... is it appropriate to widen the gun ports further than 9mm, when some sources say 12mm is appropriate for a 36# cannon? 

[EricWiberg]

Well, 22mm spacing makes a huge difference. I also increased the gun port width from 9mm to 10mm, but since the #16 gun port is now only 10mm from the stern, I will go back to 9mm spacing. This places my #2 gun port directly on the first kit gun port, and my #16 on the last kit gun port!

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Voila!  And, I also agree that going back to 9MM ports will be appropriate.

[EricWiberg]

Many thanks, Marc! I am ready to start work on cutting out the lower deck gun ports.

 

I settled on gun ports 9mm wide x 8.4mm tall spaced 22mm apart with sill height of 6.5mm... or in inches, 35.4" x 33.1" spaced 7'2" apart with a sill height of 25'7". 

 

I keep seeing that Hubac preferred Lower Deck and Middle Deck gun ports of 32" wide x 30" tall with a sill height of 24" (all in in French inches). I converted those to Imperial Units, and, as Marc has noted several times that I am trying to use 1671 proportions on a Heller kit hull that is based on the 1693 hull, I further multiplied the units by 1.033 (as the 1693 version was 3.3% longer than the 1671 version). I printed out my Lower Deck gun ports and laid them in the inside of the hull.... they visually agreed extremely well with my calculations.

 

You would really have to zoom in on the photo, but every red gun port has a "cross" pattern; so I will start with a small drill bit at every gun port and work my way up. I think it will be possible to just patiently keep going up in a progression of drill bit sizes. Perhaps I can even get up to a bit 6-mm or 7mm in diameter, which means I would have a lot less wasting away of plastic at every gun port.

 

 

Finally, I made a jig that rides on the inner hull lower deck supports and has holes drilled in so I can scribe lines for the top and bottom of every gun port.  That is a an old drill bit in the photo that scribed a line you can barely see, but I would like something sharper - pehaps a sharp sewing needle?

 

The beauty of the jig for me is that as it rides on the deck support rail, it therefore follows the sweep of the deck. So, as they were historically made, the top and bottom of the gun ports were not parallel to the waterline, they were always parallel to the deck. Now, I am not doing this to be historically accurate, but rather I don't have to mess with creating lines that are perfectly parallel to the water line at every gun port. As Marc noted, I will have slight parallelograms instead of perfect squares; historically accurate, yes, but mainly, it will be so much easier for me to just make one scribing pass with the jig! The sides of the gun ports will be perfectly vertical, and I can run those lines off of the old kit gun ports that I filled in.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Before you start cutting, might you want to be sure of the stagger pattern for your middle deck guns, and where that will all map out for the upper main deck guns?

[EricWiberg]

Marc, I did that for the middle deck.. more paper templates,  but... I should also do it for the upper deck ports!

 

[EricWiberg]

The Lower Gun Deck and Middle Gun Deck templates are right about where they should be. The Upper Gun Deck template is a victim of the upper bulwarks being held in by duct tape, so there is a several millimeter gap under most of the front bulwark... but it is pretty close. 

 

What is interesting to me - and I don't know that it can be seen - is the difference in gun port sill levels. My Lower Gun Deck sills are 6.5mm, or 0.7mm higher than the kit. However, my Middlw gun Deck sills are 2.1mm lower than the kit, and my Upper Gun Deck sills are 1.6mm lower than the kit.

 

The Lower Gun Deck sill height is what Laurent Hubac apparently used, but I used the rule of 3.5X shot diameter = sill height for the Middle/Upper Gun Decks. This wasn't the main reason governing my sill heights, but I have wondered if my changes might also disguise - a bit? -  the overly large kit headroom between the decks. 

 

Regardless, I am going to let this it overnight and take a fresh look at the ship in the morning to see if I feel any differently about what am I am proposing to do.

 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I’m going to let this sit as well.  Gotta really focus, and I’m not quite where I want to be.