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

[EricWiberg]

I found this example of a tapered cutwater on another blog of Model Ship World... granted, it is a clipper ship some 150 years AFTER Soleil Royal, but it really shows the taper of the cuwater as it descends downward...

 

[Hubac's Historian]

Post #167 of Yankee D’s Provincien blog:

[EricWiberg]

Marc, that second photo is very helpful and really shows the taper

[EricWiberg]

I carved out some early morning time today, and the goal was to start tapering the cutwater appearance for the knee of the head. First, I wanted to subtly change the shape of the knee of the head so that it is not one long curve from base to the figurehead, so where my finger is pointed, there is a now a slight indent.

 

 

Next, I established the waterline, as my operating assumption is that from the waterline up to to base of the figurehead, there is little to no taper.

 

 

Nexy, I sketched in some very rough guidelines to indicate how all of the pieces of the knee of the head were attached. Not the final lines, of course, but I will scribe in the final lines after the tapering process. I did this because my assumption is that only pieces "A" and "B" were tapered ("A" and  "B" is penciled in on the piece) in other words, just the very leading edge of cutwater.

 

 

Finally, this is a head on view. Believe it or not, the width at the top (i.e. above the waterline) is 6.25mm, and it gradually tapers down to 4.25mm at the base. Too me, there seems to be very little visible taper at this point, even though it is there. Again, my assumption that only "A" and "B" pieces will be tapered might be wrong, but I can't believe that all of the individual pieces that make up the knee of the head would all be tapered in unison, starting at the stem and marching forward to the cutwater, at least below the waterline. It is not razor blade sharp as in the clipper photo that I posted just abve this, but it does seem to be more in line with the Zeven Provincean photo that Marc also posted just above.

 

Edited Sunday at 04:07 PM by EricWiberg

[MBerg]

Just stumbled upon this and read your first post. Great story! I'll follow you along on this, and try to catch up on the previous 10 pages.

[Hubac's Historian]

Generally, shipwrights avoid cutting timbers into long tapering points because those sharp timber ends become much more prone to rotting quickly.  This is why deck planking is “joggled” into the margin plank, for example:

As it relates to the stem, it is also quite beneficial for the structure of the thing to be inter-locking with the use of hooks and scarfs.  I’ve taken the liberty to draw an approximate sketch of your cutwater:

Ideally, you don’t want the gammoning holes to cross between timber joins.

 

As for the tapering of the cutwater, Lemineur shows it as a long gradual taper across the full depth of the cutwater:

However, he also shows the foot of the cutwater as being full width, while the head of the cutwater (behind the head of the Figurehead) is tapered to half-width:

The way to understand this, I think, is that the foot of the cutwater is very shallow in depth, as opposed to the head of the cutwater, which extends some 30’ further, ahead of the stem.

 

From a practical standpoint, you want that taper to be most pronounced at the foot of the cutwater, as it improves water-flow.  This is what you have done.  I do think, though, that the full depth of the cutwater should have a gradual tapering, back to full width where it meets the stem.  What this means is that your cutwater foot will have a much more pronounced looking taper, because you are reducing by anywhere from a 1/3 to a 1/2 width, over a relatively short span:

I hope that makes sense.

[EricWiberg]

Marc's taper explanation above really helped... in simple terms for my mind, it means that even though the curve of the cutwater viewed from the side may be a curve 6" long, the ocean sees the frontal view, and the curve now appears to be a simple straight piece only 4" top to bottom, but the taper must appear even as Marc drew. I also tried to evenly plane down the thickness from leading edge back to the stem... 

 

Next, I monkeyed around for an hour penciling and erasing and finally  came up on a joinery/scarf joint pattern that looks plausible- to me!

 

 

Now... the fun part comes... the actual scribing. The only way - with my resources- that I can do this is to clamp the French Curves that made the lines directly to the knee of the head piece so I have an edge to scribe against. No way I could ever scribe freehand without an edge! As soon as I finish a particular scribe on one side, I will immediately flip the piece over and reclamp and scribe the companion line...

 

Edited 15 hours ago by EricWiberg

[Hubac's Historian]

What I have found is that I can lightly trace over my lines with the tip of a very sharp EXACTO blade.  Three or four passes of incrementally stronger pressure.  The key is to go light on the first couple of passes so that the blade doesn’t wander off the line.  After the fourth pass, you’ll have a deep enough groove to use the heel of the blade to scribe.  Again - light pressure on the first few scribe passes.

[EricWiberg]

Well, the rough scribing of the port side of the knee of the head is done... just some cleaning up amd prettying up is required.

 

I used two techniques to scribe: 1) a Tamiya scriber against French curves, and 2) Marc's technique using a very sharp blade to score the styrene. Both techniques produce excellent results; if I couldn't clamp a French curve to use as an edge, I was very comfortable in using Marc's technique.

 

And I have to say again, this was another example of scratch building on this kit that I was initially a tad bit worried about - "can I actually do this?" - and with patience and the right tools and advice from experienced builders like Marc... it was so much easier than I expected... and fun!

 

 

[Hubac's Historian]

I’m so glad that you gave that technique a shot.  The results are excellent!  Sometimes, it’s just more practical to free-hand the engraving.