Soleil Royal - Heller 1/100 Back to work!

Those vertical timbers are called skid beams I think. Used to protect the hull when raising or lowering boats or guns and also to provide some protection when the ship was tied up alongside a dock.
 
Still working with the guns 12 and 8 pounders…

I was going to use the kit barrels, but as I was never fully satisfied with them, I decided to make new barrels from turned brass. As they are made from 2 plastic halves, they are never totally cylindrical, and the decorative figures, namely the head in the back does not seem very logical for this vessel.

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Although there are references about bronze guns with carved figures, being around 1670:

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I am not sure until this moment if a ship like Soleil Royal would probably have them or not. There are much more references of bronze guns with decorated barrels, but without these figures as above indicated. I opted to represent bronze guns with decorations (which at 1/100 scale I guess are not visible…) but without any figures.

I also took the opportunity to correct the dimensions, mainly the diameter, which was where Heller barrels were to thin, as I can understand.

Here it is the final result for the 12 pounders:

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Please let me know what you think…
 
Wonderful build, Really love it!
"I am not sure until this moment if a ship like Soleil Royal would probably have them or not."
There are guns from the site of the battle where Soleil was destroied and they match quite well the ones of the kits. I am not sure if they were from Soleil I or Soleil II.

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dafi said:
Wonderful build, Really love it!
"I am not sure until this moment if a ship like Soleil Royal would probably have them or not."
There are guns from the site of the battle where Soleilwasdestroied and they mach quite well the ones of the kits. I am not sure if they were from Soleil I or Soleil II.

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Hi Daniel,

Thanks for your nice words.

I have seen those photos before, although I didn’t knew the guns were at the same place where Solei Royal rests..

I am using mainly two references for my build, L’Ambitieux and Le Saint Philippe and both have decorated guns, but without the figures. Another reason is, as I know nothing about 3D printers, my only option to improve the kit guns is to turn some new ones, and obviously I can only turn a plain barrel!

I am now working on the 8 pounders, which are far less accurate than the 12 pounders in the kit. I’ll post some pictures later.
 
Working on the hull, just to take a break from the guns..

Ringbolts and scuppers:

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The ringbolts were made using 0,4 mm cooper wiring and a 1mm drill to make the coils. I also used the very handy photo-etch eyebolts from Daniel Fisher.

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Scuppers are coming next…
 
Good day!
Dear Dfolgado,
Looks great, all that fittings at place - eye bolt and rings, very proportional!
I like your style of paint works ... very balanced and pleased for my eyes :))) !!!
All the best !!!
Kirill
 
Dfolgado said:
Thanks for your comments.
The base for the white coating under water was Vallejo Model Color 837 “Pale Sand”. After this I pre-shade it by airbrush with various greys, greens and brown s. The final step was done with oils, trying to simulate the patina that this white coating should develop very quickly being underwater.

Of course this is simply my interpretation, because I don’t know for sure how it should look like in real life.

I know that this white coating was obtained from a mixture of 8 parts dry pitch, 1 part tallow, and 1 part sulphur. (according to: The seventy-four gun ship Vol.2 by Jean Boudriot).

Because of this composition I believe the white will not be white for very long…

For the decks, the base color was Tamiya XF-78 “wood deck tan” followed by a mixture of Model Color creams, tans and browns, applied board by board, trying to create an used wood deck.
But again, this is only my interpretation of how this vessel could be painted on, there are absolutely no certainty whatsoever!
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Hoy Sir, Wow! Stunning work. I have this model and the hull is ready for paint. I'm so happy to see your magnificent work. I hope mine turns out half as nice as yours. I've been collecting parts, sails including Studding Sails, blocks, flags, guns and most importantly the building and detail rigging book from Hismodels.com. I will keep a lookout for more of your work. Thank you for sharing.
 
James Frost said:
Hoy Sir, Wow! Stunning work. I have this model and the hull is ready for paint. I'm so happy to see your magnificent work. I hope mine turns out half as nice as yours. I've been collecting parts, sails including Studding Sails, blocks, flags, guns and most importantly the building and detail rigging book from Hismodels.com. I will keep a lookout for more of your work. Thank you for sharing.
Click to expand...

Hello James, many thanks for your nice words!

I’m glad my build contribute as a motivation for the starting of your model.

Hismodels have a very nice set of upgrades for this kit, I have some of them also.

Solei Royal is a very special kit, otherwise we wouldn’t be speaking of it 50 years later…

Of course has it’s faults, extensively identified and discussed in many forums, but in the end it is a magnificent kit, that will give you many hours of entertainment and pleasure.

I look forward to see your Soleil Royal works.

Have a nice week!
 
I decided to upgrade the channels, the kit parts were only one plain piece and of course in reality these were made of about 3 pieces or more.

Very bad idea to do it at this stage, very difficult to engrave them attached to the hull, but I was not really happy on looked in just one piece, so I’m struggling engraving them for a couple of days now…

I also realize Marc commenting in his forum that one must be rearranging the deadeyes places, so the chains doesn’t block any of the guns. I did not think about that until now, so I decided to leave the channels without any deadeyes holes, I will drill it only when I know for sure where will be positioned the shrouds.

Here it is the before and after:

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I replaced the holes with a plain plastic strip to drill later.

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I also realize that the channels are probably placed to high for the main mast and fore mast, they should be above the second gun battery and not above the third gun battery. But I must say that I will just leave it as it is. I don’t have enough courage or energy to make another modification at this stage of building. I just hate to know now, that they are very probably misplaced. I wish I didn’t knew about this…
 
Good day,
Dear Dfolgado,
If You have serious, really serious dougts about it, than it could be teared off and placed at correct pozition and repainted... with your artist skills ,I could guess, it will be very minor issue, to recover all these movements...:)))
All The Best!!!
Kirill
 
Please to place some visual evidenses(pictures) which You coscider could be solid arguments, and will confirm Your doubts, mentioned above, regarding channels positions, for this model ?
I'm very interested in it !:)))
All The Best!
Kirill
 
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