La Reale de France by Ferrus Manus - Heller - 1/75 - the Sun King's finest ship

[Ferrus Manus]

I know I have a few languishing build logs on this forum. Trust me, I will get to them. A few weeks ago, my father told me I should make at least one of these for a profit and sell it online, as he believes my talent is sufficient to make it a reasonably achievable venture. Well, this is it. He and I both agreed that a model of La Reale (with my added painting skills and rigging) would be a magnificent model and demand a high dollar amount. As such, I ordered the model on eBay, which should arrive by this Thursday. In the meantime, I have been looking rather unsuccessfully for rigging diagrams or even the kit plans, as I expect the Heller rigging diagram to be wrong in many significant ways. 

 

This is a painting of the 1694 Reale, which shows practically nothing in the way of rigging. However, it gives me a general idea of what my paint job should look like, at least on the outside. I plan to paint the ship's railings, as well as most of the interior, red. I have bought copious amounts of both dark blue and gold in the meantime. The build is to be as out-of-box as possible. 

Something like this: 

 

This build should take me about six months. 

 

Edited July 24 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Should be an interesting build. I'll pull up a chair.

 

Steven

[GrandpaPhil]

This model was one of my absolute favorite builds!

 

You will enjoy it!

 

From my building experience (granted from 2007-2008 time frame), I would recommend swapping the masts and yards out with wood.

 

AAMM has the plans for La Reale:

 

https://boutique.aamm.fr/plan-reale-de-france
 

They are most excellent and ran me about $50 shipped.

I bought them to build another La Reale, one of these days.

 

I am looking forward to seeing this build!

[Ferrus Manus]

I know the two of you have encouraged me multiple times to replace plastic masts and yards with wooden ones. Well, I did it on the last project, the caravel Elisabetta: 

I think it turned out satisfactorily. 

[Ferrus Manus]

@Isaiah @kirill4 @72Nova @Baker 

 

Welcome to the circus. At some point I might have to start charging admittance. 

[Baker]

Nice Elisabetta 👍

[Ferrus Manus]

Wow Baker, that was fast! Thank you for the comments on my last project.

[Baker]

1 hour ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Wow Baker, that was fast! Thank you for the comments on my last project.

I did a little MSW during breakfast 😉.

I will send you some photos via pm

[Ferrus Manus]

Thank you! However, I own the Landstrom book, which is something I addressed in the PM. That being said, I should probably make that clear to the rest of the viewers of this log. What I don't have access to (yet) are comprehensive rigging plans that show where (and on what) everything belays. The model and instructions should be here by tomorrow. I can use Google Translate to decipher the instructions, which are sure to be in French. 

[GrandpaPhil]

I remember the instructions in the Heller kit being quite excellent.  They are (or were) in French though.  Be careful, the French word pont means both deck and bridge.  Google translate will translate it as bridge.  That caused me some confusion back then.

[G. Delacroix]

Hello,

 

There is a very detailed monograph about galleys at Ancre Publications.

And a version translated into English.

Here : https://ancre.fr/en/monograph/106-la-fleur-de-lis-galere-1690.html

 

GD

[Ferrus Manus]

The galley arrived, mostly intact. That's right, mostly. Four of the seat rests are broken off and one of the assemblies is broken in half, some of the thole pins are broken off, and the railings are completely unusable due to warping. The broken-off elements were not in the box. 

I could just cut all the foot boards (or whatever those are) off and be done there. I will ask 72nova what he did with the railings. 

The rest of the box: 

Edited July 25 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

The only other damage is to one of the swivel guns in one of the bags. I assume the piece itself still exists. I will chop off all the thole pins, drill holes, and insert brass rod. That seems reasonable. 

The construction of the galley has been, so far, a galley. 

Neither the beakhead nor the stern have any kind of locator pins whatsoever, The decks have some sort of guide points on their underside, but no corresponding element on the hull. 

 

In French, comparing something to a galley is a hyperbolic figure of speech indicating the arduous, difficult, or a pain in the neck. 

 

[Ferrus Manus]

Is it possible I could email Heller for a new sprue? I have heard horror stories about Heller's lack of answering emails. Will they do this for a model that was bought second-hand? 

[Ian_Grant]

44 minutes ago, Ferrus Manus said:

 

Neither the beakhead nor the stern have any kind of locator pins whatsoever, The decks have some sort of guide points on their underside, but no corresponding element on the hull.

 

A typical Heller feature (or lack of?).

 

 

Edited July 25 by Ian_Grant

[Ian_Grant]

1 hour ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Is it possible I could email Heller for a new sprue? I have heard horror stories about Heller's lack of answering emails. Will they do this for a model that was bought second-hand? 

I had no luck with emailing Heller either, but their replacement parts can be obtained from "glow2be.de"  who will have no way of knowing ypu got it second-hand.

 

https://www.glow2b.de/#

 

Click on "service" ; "spare parts form" ; and select pdf.

 

Print it, fill it in with kit and part numbers, and FAX it to glow2be; I had no luck at all trying the email address but got an immediate response after FAX'ing them.

 

Hope you have access to a FAX machine. Over here in Canada, all the medical system still uses FAX machines unbelievable as that may seem.

My wife is a vet who pretty much has to use them too, so I borrowed hers.

 

Good luck!

Edited July 25 by Ian_Grant

[Ferrus Manus]

Now it's time to start the real fun- painting. 

[Ferrus Manus]

This is an image of another Reale. I doubt the broken off bits on mine will make that much difference to the whole. 

However, crappy reconstructions of them will. I can remake the railings with wooden strips. 

[Baker]

2 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Is it possible I could email Heller for a new sprue? I have heard horror stories about Heller's lack of answering emails. Will they do this for a model that was bought second-hand? 

 

https://www.heller.fr/en/service

 

In English 👍.

 

 

[Baker]

1 hour ago, Ian_Grant said:

A typical Heller feature (or lack of?).

 

 

Indeed. ☹️

 

[Ferrus Manus]

This is the hull below the waterline. I wanted it to look like the Landstrom painting. 

[72Nova]

Hi Ferrus,

My railings looked much like yours and I used them, setting the posts is obviously the most crucial phase, just spend some time making sure they're plumb while,(most importantly) checking the line of sight along the edge to make sure they line up straight, then your railings will straighten out as you glue them to the posts, I glued a few at a time while working my way from one end to the other. Looking forward to seeing her take shape.

 

Michael D.

[Ferrus Manus]

This is the hull so far: 

The water content in the dark blue shade I used took off some of the paint in the raised areas, which will be repainted gold anyway. I will likely add another coat or two of shade, as the hull is not dark enough. I fixed the waterline as much as reasonably achievable. 

[Ferrus Manus]

When the shade coats are done drying, I will coat the entirety of the hull in a gloss varnish to protect it. After the fleur-de-lys and scrollwork is done, I will apply another coat of varnish. When the ship was under sail, the slaves on the lee side of the ship would sometimes be swamped waist-deep in water. Thus, owing to the low freeboard of the hull, covering the entire thing in gloss would not be outside the realm of reason. 

Edited July 25 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

This is what I spent the last two and a half hours of my life doing: 

In contrast to Michael D's experience, the fleur-de-lys were bearable. The scrollwork, however, made me want to turn the Reale into an airplane. 

[Louie da fly]

Nice work, mate. Just keep a stiff upper lip and keep on with the good work. Despite all the problems you've encountered, she's looking very good.

 

I hope you have success with working out the rigging details. If not, who's going to be able to tell you what you did was wrong?

 

Steven

[72Nova]

Michael,

Your skill set is vastly improving with each build👍 The challenge with this build is staying the course, there's just so much to do on each phase i.e.: painting, the numerous seats, supports for the outer decks, oars and their detailing etc, it gets monotonous at times like constantly tying ratlines. 

 

Michael D. 

[Ferrus Manus]

Just now, 72Nova said:

Your skill set is vastly improving with each build👍

That means a lot to me, Michael. Thank you. 

 

When I had finished painting the gold work on the starboard side, I noticed something strange- the blue paint on the upper edge of the port side of the hull was being worn down, everywhere except at the bow and stern. I reasoned this was because that's where I was holding the hull when I was painting the stbd gold works. So, in preparation for the port side decorations, I decided to run a protective line of painter's tape along the stbd midships section: 

[72Nova]

You're  welcome,  I had the same issue, I rolled up couple of micro fiber towels to lean the hull up against, this actually gave me a better working angle.

 

Michael D.

[Ferrus Manus]

I'm not exactly happy with the paint job on these two bulkheads, but it will have to do. 

Someday, I'll become a better painter. Anyways, on to the next thing- decking.