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Soleil Royal by Heller - an Extensive Modification and Partial Scratch-Build by Hubac’s Historian

big peng said:
Hello, I'm currently building a 1:450 scale ship model but lack reference materials for its ropes. Do you have any detailed documentation on the ship's rope system?View attachment 585476View attachment 585477View attachment 585476View attachment 585477
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Hello BP - marvelous work in such a small scale!

As for rigging, I will provide two references. The first is the revered go-to resource for those modeling 17th Century ships: Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast by R.C. Anderson:

The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,1600 - 1720: Anderson, R. C.; Anderson, Roger Charles: 9780851772721: Amazon.com: Books

The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,1600 - 1720 [Anderson, R. C.; Anderson, Roger Charles] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,1600 - 1720
www.amazon.com

Given it’s early publication in the 1920’s, it is not THE most user-friendly source for modern sensibilities (a lot of reading and visualization), however, it does provide important variance points among the Continental navies, and it is generally considered an accurate resource.

All that said, considering the very small scale you are working in, you will probably wish to make reasonable edits to what you show of the rig. Here is what one of my favorite examples of this smaller scale SR looks like in a rolling sea:

IMG_0236.jpeg
IMG_0235.jpeg
IMG_0233.jpeg
IMG_0234.jpeg

She looks to be fifty cents tall at the stern and $1.50 between perpendiculars. I’m not even sure how one achieves this without ultra fine silk thread and wire for any slack lines.

Also, thank you Wojtass for the kind words!
 
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Hi Marc

I am deeply saddened to hear what you and your family are going through

I lost my Father to cancer when I was sixteen and emotionally inexperienced to deal with it for a number of years, I still miss him now

However my best advice is to cherish the good memories when he does pass and keep him with you always in your heart

My in-laws both suffered with dementia before passing and it was heart breaking to live though.

My thoughts are with you my friend

Nigel
 
Marc,

YES - YES your work --- so glad that it's here as well, but sadly many 10s of thousands have been potentially lost forever --- WTH

Our hobby is, for-all-intent-and purposes, a small niche compared to let's say HO train logs and sites worldwide.
For most of us it is OUR main hobby for learning and the personal joy of understanding nautical history, and techniques from 100s - several 1000s of years ago, and also building our skills from other great logs many of which (yours for sure) spend inordinate time researching history for accuracy (that was a compliment).

Regards, on this sad tech day indeed.
 
WOW - I’m stunned! My friend Eric, and I were puzzling over what exactly was going on with the MSW site. It is fairly astonishing to say the least. My friend, Dan Pariser, forwarded the following to our club:

1777840549784.png

What a loss to the community, at large - and not merely for my contributions, obviously, but for the amazing work of so many talented people. And one has to wonder: to what end? For what purpose?

I am also glad that I created a log on this site. At some point, when MSW is up and running again. I will restart the log from where the project is now. I will include a photo montage of it’s development, but I do not have any backup of the log, and I will not reconstruct it.

That’s all just incredibly disappointing. SMH at the world today.
 
Hubac’s Historian said:
Hello BP - marvelous work in such a small scale!

As for rigging, I will provide two references. The first is the revered go-to resource for those modeling 17th Century ships: Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast by R.C. Anderson:

The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,1600 - 1720: Anderson, R. C.; Anderson, Roger Charles: 9780851772721: Amazon.com: Books

The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,1600 - 1720 [Anderson, R. C.; Anderson, Roger Charles] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,1600 - 1720
www.amazon.com

Given it’s early publication in the 1920’s, it is not THE most user-friendly source for modern sensibilities (a lot of reading and visualization), however, it does provide important variance points among the Continental navies, and it is generally considered an accurate resource.

All that said, considering the very small scale you are working in, you will probably wish to make reasonable edits to what you show of the rig. Here is what one of my favorite examples of this smaller scale SR looks like in a rolling sea:

View attachment 585512
View attachment 585513
View attachment 585514
View attachment 585515

She looks to be fifty cents tall at the stern and $1.50 between perpendiculars. I’m not even sure how one achieves this without ultra fine silk thread and wire for any slack lines.

Also, thank you Wojtass for the kind words!
Click to expand...
OMG! That is GORGEOUS! Redface
 
Hubac’s Historian said:
WOW - I’m stunned! My friend Eric, and I were puzzling over what exactly was going on with the MSW site. It is fairly astonishing to say the least. My friend, Dan Pariser, forwarded the following to our club:

View attachment 596525

What a loss to the community, at large - and not merely for my contributions, obviously, but for the amazing work of so many talented people. And one has to wonder: to what end? For what purpose?

I am also glad that I created a log on this site. At some point, when MSW is up and running again. I will restart the log from where the project is now. I will include a photo montage of it’s development, but I do not have any backup of the log, and I will not reconstruct it.

That’s all just incredibly disappointing. SMH at the world today.
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It's a great loss. Unfortunetly on MSW in your build log there was a little more details and historical information. I hope they implement exporting build logs in one file as it's little inconvinient to download every page as some of them had up to 70 pages
 
The reality of that MSW page is that much of my early research proved to be erroneous, with regard to primary sources like the Pierre Vary portrait, that I was initially attributing to Etienne Compardel. There were numerous small errors like that, which I endeavored to correct along the way, as I came to a better understanding of the subject.

Eventually, I will be writing an actual book about all of this, but that is a good number of years away from now. If nothing else, this incident demonstrates that there still remains much value in good old-fashioned print media.
 
Hubac’s Historian said:
The reality of that MSW page is that much of my early research proved to be erroneous, with regard to primary sources like the Pierre Vary portrait, that I was initially attributing to Etienne Compardel. There were numerous small errors like that, which I endeavored to correct along the way, as I came to a better understanding of the subject.

Eventually, I will be writing an actual book about all of this, but that is a good number of years away from now. If nothing else, this incident demonstrates that there still remains much value in good old-fashioned print media.
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Is it a book that steps a modeler through the detailed construction of a model with historically accurate features as well as provide background on the history of the ship itself? Discussions of what features you chose for your model and WHY? Now THAT would be a prize to add to a modeler's library!
 
Thanks, Kurt! Actually, this would be my magnum opus: a conjectural reconstruction of Soleil Royal, as launched in 1670, in 1:48, in wood, with accompanying monograph.

All of this playing in plastic has always had this project in-mind. Purists will - no doubt - dismiss the entire effort out of hand. And, I am totally fine with that.

I will never pretend that the project ascends from any sort of infallible historic basis. I do think, however, that I have the artistic skills and sensibility to create a compelling idea of what might have been; all of that, of course, framed within the known dimensional parameters of the ship - which are quite extensive - and respecting the understood architecture of the times.
 
Hubac’s Historian said:
Thanks, Kurt! Actually, this would be my magnum opus: a conjectural reconstruction of Soleil Royal, as launched in 1670, in 1:48, in wood, with accompanying monograph.

All of this playing in plastic has always had this project in-mind. Purists will - no doubt - dismiss the entire effort out of hand. And, I am totally fine with that.

I will never pretend that the project ascends from any sort of infallible historic basis. I do think, however, that I have the artistic skills and sensibility to create a compelling idea of what might have been; all of that, of course, framed within the known dimensional parameters of the ship - which are quite extensive - and respecting the understood architecture of the times.
Click to expand...
Purists can be prudes who like the smell of their own farts, and that gets in the way of many a good model. You select the style of the model. If it is supposed to emulate the materials and form of models from 300 years ago, that's fine. But if it is aimed and making a realistic appearing and as accurate as possible type of model, that is also fine and should not be poo-poo'd by the purists. In your monograph, you can select the model style YOU want. Buyers who agree will buy it.
 
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