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

[Hubac's Historian]

This all looks great Eric.  I like your aft increase in wale sheer.  I’m debating whether it makes sense to have a corresponding increase in the middle band of wales, as the sheer would have run parallel.  The upper main wales - at the juncture of the upper bulwarks are pretty fixed, although one could add to to top edge of the upper most wale and feather it back.  It mY not really be worth all of that extra effort, though.

[EricWiberg]

Arggg, Marc... I continue to debate about changing the middle wale sheer! I finally was able to settle on a pleasing curve (to my eye) for the bottom wales. Note the ruler below.. the gap between middle and bottom wales is a very consistent 15mm. The longest bottom wale that I carved is 130mm in length, and it gradually curves upward to 3mm closer to the middle wales at the very aft of the ship - but I cut away those ends as they were hidden by the QG! (so the gap decreased from 15mm to 12mm over 130mm in length).

 

 

I told myself that moving the middle wales was just too much, so I went ahead and got the QG gun ports and decorations ready (the decorations are not glued on and need some finishing)... and told myself "no one will notice or care"... but I do!

 

 

The QG hides the bulk of the wales anyway, BUT... the picture below shows the visual effect of raising the middle wale by 1mm where it intersects the QG... it is a scrap piece so it doesn't have a pleasing curve. What I am leaning towards is to make "new" middle wales that are actually short in length and stop when they hit the leading edge of the QG... and raise them by 1mm where they hit the QG. Having that upward curve in the middle wales I am hoping would fool the eye that the upward sweep continues through the QG and they would seem to parallel the bottom wales.... but I wouldn't have to rework the middle wales that are mostly hidden in the QG. The QG will hide that transition. And then I am not sure that I would do anything with the upper wales. There - I think I have convinced myself to go that route and it won't require major surgery!

 

[Hubac's Historian]

That all sounds reasonable to me, Eric.

[EricWiberg]

Well... that went pretty well.... need to do a little bit of trimming and use some Tamiya putty, but the middle wales sweep up 2mm more now where they meet the QG leading edge.

 

It took 45 minutes to grind and scrape away the middle wales aft of the nearest scarf joints.

 

 

 

Then it was a simple matter to attach the new middle wales and sweep them up a bit. I will NOT do a darn thing with the upper wales. The QG hides most of where the "missing" upward sweep would be, and I am thinking the height of the bulwarks above them will also camouflage the "missing" 3mm of upward sweep the the lower and middle wales now have at the very aft end of the ship... and that the upper wales will not have.

 

[Hubac's Historian]

This looks awesome, Eric!

[Hubac's Historian]

Hi Eric - as I’m now finally ready to start assembling my chains, I was looking back on your rivet supplier.  The website still seems active.  Can you confirm the SKU number that you ordered - was it SKU: GLP154?

 

I see your customer review attached to this product number.  Whatever diameter rivet head you ordered is EXACTLY what I need.

[EricWiberg]

Marc, regarding the rivet heads... GLP154 is 0.042" round head diameter... GLP153 is 0.032" round head diameter. 

[EricWiberg]

OK, I have taken a slight change of course in the last few weeks. I am committed to building an SR 1671 version, and I was frustrated that I couldn't achieve more upward sweep with the wales, especially at the stern. I have been communicating with GuyM, and he has been extremely helpful in suggesting what SR 1671likely looked like. His premise is that the Royal Duc and SR 1671 are likely very similar in appearance, as they were built in the same port by the same master carpenter less than a year apart.

 

So I went all in. To achieve what I wanted to do, all of the wales had to be ground off and scraped away, and the plank lines scribed as needed.

 

Next, add new wales, trying to mimic the Royal Duc lines. The standard wales molded into the Heller model are all 4mm wide, 4mm apart, and 1mm thick (in 1/100 scale, 4mm translates to 15.7"). GuyM has suggested that it seems the bottom wales were likely thicker and wider than the middle wales, the middles wales less so than the top wales, etc. So trying to emulate the placement of the Royal Duc wales as best I could on the Heller hull, the bottom wales are now 4.2 mm wide x 1.5mm thick. The middle wales are 4.0mm wide x 1.0mm thick, and the top wales will be 3.2mm wide x 0.75mm thick.

 

The bottom and middle wales are held in place by small drops of glue so I can make some final tweaks. I actually cut the wales from Evergreen strip using the appropriate scarf joints and added them one by one in individual wale planks about 150mm long. The top wales won't need nice scarf joints as they will be covered with the "liston d'or" mouldings per GuyM. I am fabricating the top moldings now but won't add them yet as they will sweep up across the rear bulwark. Again, I tried to mimic the Royal Duc lines as exactly as I could... where the wales really curve up at the stern, I tried to match the curve of the top three moldings on the Heller rear bulwark. So this is what I have,

 

Soo.. as GuyM has observed, I have "opened a can of worms"! Yup, that means I will have to kit bash the rear bulwarks, and reshape the mouldings and the rail lines to duplicate the more severe sweep seen in this Royal Duc drawing. Heck, probably even means some shaping of the QG's. Heck, we haven't even gotten into making the top gun ports square without a curved arch and also having a gun port lid!

 

So I opened a can of worms... but I think by implenting these changes, I will get closer to what an SR 1671 likely appeared as.

[Hubac's Historian]

You have certainly set forth a challenge for yourself Eric.  There are a lot of worms in that can, but you can achieve a nice result with sufficient planning and forethought.  The most difficult aspect of this will be modifying the aft bulwark to achieve the continuity you are after.

[Ian_Grant]

Wow Eric, you are really going to the wall on this model!  I'm taking notes for when (if?) I get around to mine.

[EricWiberg]

Time will tell, Ian! I have a question... the photo below is of the rear bulwark. I superimposed red lines on the various mouldings, and these lines are all identical to the sweep of the wales. So. I am thinking that my rails and mouldings need to follow this curve, and I can see a clear path forward on that What I am NOT sure is... does the pitch of the poop deck/quater deck have to change as well. I am thinking they do not have to change, which makes the job much easier. But I want to do what is accurate.

[Ian_Grant]

Oh Eric, I have no idea what is accurate. Best see what Marc thinks. 🙂

[Hubac's Historian]

The wale sheer and deck sheer are not directly linked, but neither are they wholly independent of each other.

 

For practical purposes of safely and effectively operating the guns, the deck sheer necessarily remains relatively flat.  There is always a need to shed excess water through scuppers at the waist, so deck sheer is not perfectly flat.

 

The wale sheer necessarily rises aft, with the superstructure of the stern, as a means of counteracting the downward strain on the ship’s hull of all that excess structure.  The pair of lower main wales generally follows the line of greatest breadth, which coincides with the doubling of the first and second futtocks - through which the wales are bolted, lending great horizontal support to the framing.  You can see this on Marc Yeu’s model as he drew in the framing to guide his tree-nailing:

Likewise, the middle band of wales corresponds with the doubling of the second futtocks with the top timbers.  Now, Marc’s model represents the refit SR of 1689, so the wale sheer and overall top-hamper of the ship would have been reduced from the ship’s original extremes.  For reference, the Monarque of 1668:

Here is a reliable drawing of the Dauphin Royal that shows this extreme sheer pretty clearly:

 

In the bow and waist, the wale sheer more closely follows the deck sheer, however in the 1670s the aft wale sheer rises so sharply that the wales are frequently cut through completely by the aft-most ports, which kind of negates the upward-intended support of these re-enforcing members.

 

For additional reference, here is a broadside view of La Reyne from 1672:

Edited 18 hours ago by Hubac's Historian

[Hubac's Historian]

Coincidentally, this just popped up in one of a series of videos on Kroum Batchvarov’s YouTube channel:

This would be a mid-17th C. Dutch Pinas, or merchant ship.  Generally, the framing of even Dutch warships was significantly lighter than the French, but all the more-so on a merchant ship.

 

You can see well, though, how the lower main wales follow the doubling of first and second futtocks, as well as the extreme rise in the sheer.  French warship design was heavily influenced by the Dutch, and in fact - many of the early First Marine ships were contractually built in Dutch yards for the French, so it is a useful reference.

 

Here is the full video:

 

, 

Edited 17 hours ago by Hubac's Historian

[Ian_Grant]

Interesting that the Dauphin Royal has her main wale completely underwater amidships. Final nail in the coffin of Heller's way-too-low etched waterline on SR.

[Hubac's Historian]

Stern view for the DR:

I don’t know whether the scale ruler is legible in this format, but the port sills are drawn just about five scale feet above the waterline, which is about right.

 

No doubt, though, Heller’s underwater hull is way too shallow, and one really should raise the waterline.

[Ian_Grant]

Mar, in your #103 DR's wale is under water; in this stern view it's well above. Colour me confused.......🤔