Heller Soleil Royal (WIP)

Steve5, yes the deadeye strops are good.  I believe they're photo-etched or laser cut brass, they come on a sprue (or fret) and are sized just right for the walnut deadeyes I got from MS (though they need to be bent open to fit on the deadeye and then re-bent to tighten again, but it's easy once you've done a few)....now if the rest would just come!  I actually had to send another email to Ages of Sail....after thinking about it, I felt they had done poorly by me, and I was compelled to send Roger a complaint email.  Nothing mean or derogatory, just letting him know that I woudl have appreciated a heads-up about the back order, and how it is disappointing that it's taken so long, and I still don't have my parts.  I suggested that they try to implement a better tracking system so people can see if their order will be fulfilled before online checkout, and decide for themselves if they want to wait.

Docidle, don't feel bad about recommending them...they had exactly what I wanted, and for a decent price.  It's not your fault they ran out, and I assume they don't back order people for this long very often (but who knows?  Not sure I'll order from them again, unless I have to!)...anyway, it's all good, bud.  Also, yes I saw that Syren has the next sizes down for the deadeyes...but I got mine at MS for super cheap, and they aren't so big that it bugs me.  Syren is awesome quality, decent shipping speed, and all my communication with them has been pleasant.  But that kind of quality comes at a premium price, I suppose!  Like John said, they are a pleasure to deal with.  My deadeyes came from MS, but all my rigging line and other blocks are from Syren...

Anyway, eventually I should get my remaining deadeye strops, and when I do, I'll take some photos to show how I've been preparing and installing them to the deadeyes and channels.

Dave

At last, my deadeye strops arrived!  It's no wonder Ages of Sail has trouble keeping their inventory managed, they sent me way too many parts...I received 2 packages from them yesterday, one was a full replacement of my original order, and one was 5 10-packs of the 7mm deadeye strops (they only owed me 4 packs of 5mm...but now I have plenty of spares, I guess...under normal circumstances I would offer to send them back their stuff, but after all the waiting and disappointment, I'm keeping it)...

Anyway, I'm glad to be back on track and able to proceed.  I took a bunch of photos of the prep and install of the lower deadeye/chainplate assembly in the way that I'm doing it.  It's a similar take on how the Heller instructions indicate, except I'm using wooden deadeyes stropped with brass, and I'm using brass eyebolts into the hull, instead of the plastic kit eyebolts (which I'm afraid would fail under even slight shroud tension later).  The thing is, I'm using black rigging line as faux chain plate material.  I'm sure there are those who prefer using different material for chainplates, but this works for me.

Here goes:

First, the strops are cut from the sprue with little side cutters

Then I put them all into a little acrylic dish/bathtub

Fill the dish with Blacken-It to cover the parts, and let them soak for a bit....I went for about 5 minutes with these, stirring frequently to make sure all surfaces get treated.  Then remove the parts and let dry on a paper towel..

Here are the deadeyes, walnut 7mm from Model Expo

This is where it starts to get fun.  Take one of the strops, and stretch it width-ways (?) so you can get one of the inner angles to fit into the groove of the deadeye (note:  You really do have to bend the p**s out of them to get them into the groove!  But they go back to correct shape pretty easily)...

Using pliers, I squeezed the lower *becket* area of the strop to pull everything back into shape.

Using the pliers again, I add a slight bend to the strop bottom, so that it helps lead the chainplate in a natural direction toward the hull without making the deadeye angle away from it.

Now for installing:  I wanted to be able to use rigging line for it, and I also wanted to make sure the knot was kept pretty much hidden after it was assembled...here's my solution:  I took about 4.5 inches of line, and ran one end through the lower (from the outside and through to the hull) deadeye *becket* (below the channel), the made an overhand (?) knot toward the end of it (behind the *becket*).

Taking the other end of the line, I ran it under and through the eyebolt in the hull below the deadeye.

Next I took that end and ran it through the overhand knot of the first piece of line I ran through the *becket*...basically making this a slipknot, with the knot BEHIND the eyebolt and the *becket* (a-HA!)

Then I cinched up the knot with tweezers, and pulled the line tight-ish with the knot behind the chainplate area, about halfway between the *becket* and the eyebolt.

I didn't make it too tight, because I don't want to put unnecessary strain on the channels, and once the shrouds go on, everything should end up tight and lined up without having to reef on the channels too much.  Snipped off the ends of the knot (not too close, though, or the knot can slip)

Then I added some CA to the knot generously, using a toothpick (I usually "decant" my CA onto a small bit of glossy paperboard and apply it using a toothpick, don't know how anyone can us the stuff straight out of the bottle?)

Then, quickly before the CA has a chance to start setting up, I use the tweezers to pull down on the outer line of the "chainplate" and that will pull the knot up until it snugs up behind the lower strop *becket*, just below the channel, where it's out of sight, and cemented in place.

And Voila!  There it is, in place.

Looks excellent, Dave. I'm glad to hear that those things work.

If I may, I'll offer two very small suggestions. One - after you dip the strops in the blackener, and after they're dry, give them a quick spritz of Dullcoat. Otherwise the black may start flaking off in a few days. No the biggest of problems, but one easily avoided.

Two - consider bending the eyebolts on the hull upward, so they form a straight line with the chain plates. To my eye, at least, that would be a significant improvement. But not worth doing if there's a risk of busting the eyebolts.

Oh - and if you give the threads forming the chain plates a coat of black acrylic paint mixed with white glue, the strands of threads will just about disappear. Again, no big deal, but easily done. (Don't worry if the mix of paint and glue looks grey when it's wet. The glue will go transparent as it dries, and the black paint will be all that shows.)

Those are very minor points. As I've said so many times before, this is going to be a terrific model.

Great tutorial David, for not a is written on installing strops, chainplates, and deadeyes on plastic models.  And the part about needing to touch up the gold leaf is priceless, because when I take pictures of my work, I too seem to see everything I missed that my eyes cannot.  Kinda get the same feeling of late with looking in the mirror and telling myself what a fit young dude I still seem to be, then I take a selfie and see a middle aged fat dude.  

Yep a great tutorial for people like me who tend to ruin kits, assuming I ever get the other half of the hull and actually start mine(all boxed back up as I have no faith in Heller) you should do a dummies guide to rigging, what you have done there is an idiots guid, and thanks for taking the time.

very informative dave , thank's for the tutorial , love seeing any of your lesson's .

Thanks, you guys...I'm glad you like the *tutorial* approach...I realize the way I do things may not be the same way everyone would choose to do them, but I think it helps the model builders at large by showing step-by-step some of the techniques I chose.  Hopefully others will learn from what I do, and either A)use the same methods, or B) get ideas from my methods to develop something else; or C) decide that my methods are whack, and go their own way!  lol  :)

Yeah, funny thing about seeing the flaws in close-up pictures...When I first starting doing the goldwork on the bulwarks, I had bought a couple of acrylic gold paint markers....I thought they were great, but they turned out to be pretty crummy, actually.  The color wasn't even, wasn't bright, and easily rubbed off when I applied the oil overcoating....so I had to go back over much of it with Tamiya Gold Leaf paint and a brush, which I found much more controlled, and gave a much better effect.  Evidently, I need to go over some other areas that missed with the Tamiya paint!

John, thanks for the advice.  One thing I need to mention is that the Blacken-It does indeed flake off, especially when the Brass strops are so grotesquely bent out of shape while installing them to the deadeyes...lots of the *blackening* flakes off.  Maybe a good thing would be to install them onto the deadeyes, and then dip the preassembled parts into the Blacken-It.  I didn't try that, but I don't know if the product would have any adverse effect on the walnut deadeyes.  Either way, I may try to touch them up with some flat black paint if it bugs me enough.

Also, bending the eyebolts up is a good idea...I didn't think of it before, and now that I have a number of my lower deadeyes installed, it's unlikely that I'll go back and change them now....but nevertheless, good advice, and something to remember for next time (!) or for someone else building a ship with similar eyebolts in the hull.

I'm hoping to get some more progress made this week, but it's a busy time...just finishing up the holidays, and now we're heading out to Maui for vacation in a few days!  Woo-Hoo!

Dave

Just flew in from Maui last night (and boy are my arms tired!)...jk

Back from vacation and looking ahead to more progress on the SR....

Quick Poll Question:

In what sequence do you prefer to assemble masts?

For the most part, all of the kits I've built call for the masts to be stepped and assembled in sections, mast, top mast, topgallant, etc....but I've seen and read some instances where people choose to basically comlplete the mast assembly OFF the model, installing blocks, upper shrounds, even yards and sails before stepping the masts.  Leaving the lower shrouds dangling from the masttop until last.  This is presumably to help with access during assembly.

Any thoughts?  I'm just trying to think of how I should approach the next few steps....

Thanks!

Dave

I'm no expert but I always assemble the masts, yards, blocks and upper shrouds prior to stepping the masts. 

Well, the best I can offer is to describe the sequence I used the last time I built a three-masted, full-rigged ship model. That was my little scratchbuilt frigate Hancock, quite a long time ago.

My biggest enemy when it comes to ship modeling is monotony, and monotony comes from repetition. So I tried to space out various activities to produce as much variety as I could.

I started by building the bowsprit - off the model. I like to clamp the spar I'm working on in a vise and finish as much of it as possible on the bench, away from the model (for several good reasons). I built the cap, the bees, and all the fittings that I figured would have been on the real mast before it was stepped. Then I stepped it, and set up the standing rigging (including gammoning, bowsprit shrouds, and bobstays).

Then I tackled the main mast. My theory was that, being bigger, it would be the easiest in terms of technique (I was inventing techniques as I went along), and that it would make the fore and mizzen masts seem easier by comparison. I made the main top (quite an exercise; it ended up having fifty or sixty pieces in it), and mounted it on the mast - along with all the other gadgets that I figured would be in place on the real thing before it was stepped. Then the main lower standing rigging (stay, preventer stay, shrouds, and those infernal nichrome wire ratlines - much easier to rig when there isn't much other rigging to get them tangled in).

Next the fore lower mast and its standing rigging (which took about half as long as the main mast). Then the mizzen mast (which now seemed ludicrously simple) and its standing rigging.

What I did next probably differs from the sequence most modelers use. I made the main yard, complete with all its details (including studding sail booms and irons). I clamped a piece of dowel the same size as the main mast in the vise, and rigged the main yard to it with the truss. Then, using the descriptions in my references, I secured all the necessary blocks and other fittings to the yard, mounted the footropes (from brass wire, so I could make them droop) and made the main course. I rigged as much of the running rigging as I could, and furled up the sail, before transfering the yard from the dowel to the model. Then I added the braces, jeers, and other running rigging. Such lines as the clew garnets, buntlines, sheets, and tacks were already there; they just had to be belayed.

Then the fore lower yard and its sail and rigging, then the mizzen, with the crossjack and lateen yards. (Until the mid-nineteenth century the crossjack yard didn't have a sail on it.)

One advantage of this plan is that it forces you to rig the various lines much as the real ones were. If you get into a situation where you can't set up a piece of rigging on the lower mast before the topmast is in place, you've done something wrong.

Then the topmasts (in the same order - main, fore, mizzen), their standing rigging, and their yards and sails, the topgallant masts and their yards and sails, etc.

This sequence let me switch back and forth: making a spar one evening, making the sail the next, rigging it the next, then making another spar, etc. I was particularly grateful not to have to prepare all the rigging blocks and deadeyes and once. I used britannia ones from Bluejacket; the sequence for blocks was: clean up and drill out (including a few extras), thread on a piece of wire, spray with Floquil primer (no longer among us, alas), brush paint (brown), let dry, remove the wire, rig. Doing that a couple of dozen times is bad enough; doing all of them at once would have done me in. I think the total number of blocks and deadeyes in the model approached a thousand, but I never had to confront more than a couple of dozen at a time.

One interesting rigging feature that some modelers ignore: the staysails. I rigged each of them as soon in the sequence as I could - the topmast staysails as soon as the standing rigging of the topmasts was done, etc. I found that an interesting part of the job, and not especially difficult.

Last came such things as flag halyards, boat tackles, and other miscellaneous gear - and that freakish little flagstaff at the stern with the tiny lateen sail on it. (That one was a real brain buster, and I still have no idea whether I got it right or not.)

Tht's not the only way to do it, of course, but it worked for me (i.e., I actually finished the model without getting chased down by the boys with the butterfly nets). For the benefit of those who haven't looked at my three-year-old thread about that model, here are a couple of pictures of the results: http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/r650/jtilley1/38900015_edited-2_zpsc2ed8d33.jpg

http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/r650/jtilley1/38890030_zps5e61656c.jpg

On my current project, a fishing schooner of about 1912, I'm thinking seriously about making all the spars (there are only about ten of them) and their fittings all in advance, and then setting them up and rigging them. For this particular type of model, that seems like it might go faster and be more fun. Also, the fittings are going to involve quite a bit of soldering. I only want to set up for soldering once, if possible.

Hope that helps a little.

My experience with wood spars is that the ones I've included get stained, that takes a while, and suggests that all of the parts get finished, then assembled on the boat. John points out the soldering issue- I only wish I were so organized.

Plastic models I tend to paint with the airbrush. Those work better for me all glued together, puttied, cleaned up etc. then painted as an assembly. It's hard to glue painted plastic parts together.

I just found drawings that seem to confirm a suspicion I have had ever since seeing the bow section painting by Berain about that troublesome hole in the knee of the head.  The text is a French text about the French sailing navies in the 17th and 18th centuries.  These drawings contain sources from the Musee de la Marine in Paris.

They appear to show that the hole should be there BUT was filled with carvings  that took the weight.  I would post the pics but have never learned how to do so.  I would be willing to send copies to anyone who is interested.  It is an interesting possible solution to that hole in the Heller model.

Bill Morrison

See my PM Bill regarding photo posting

I'm definitely interested. 

Is this about what you're talking about, Bill?

I have a little trouble swallowing the holes under the big knee that connects the knee of the head to the stem, but that could be explained by the transition between the original drawing and the engraving. (The engraving probably was tinted by somebody other than the original artist.)

This is fairly typical of the bow construction of a seventeenth-century warship - French or English. The English were in the habit of running the fore tacks through holes in the knee of the head, and adding carved ornaments around the holes.

Completed some touch-up work to the mast parts this week, hoping to get some weathering done to them pretty soon, then I'll have some more progress to report....

Side note:  Looks like we have 3 separate SR WIPs going now on the forum!!  That's very cool, and it has to be some kind of record!  Glad to see people giving her a try, and I'm looking forward to Kpnuts and Steve5 make some progress!  Kpnuts is using the gold leaf for his, and it looks amazing!

Dave

Yep its a shame steve5 can't seem to post pics (I'm totally useless with that sort of stuff so can't help)(if it was a hardware problem I could probably sort it, I built my own pc)

Not a big progress report, but I did spend a couple of hours in the garage today, oiling up the mast and masttop parts...I actaully have very few parts left in the box that I'll be using.

Anyway, here's a couple of pics showing the numerous parts for the masts (they'll probably need at least to week to cure in this cold weather)

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Beautiful work as always bud. 

On the sequence of stepping masts, I have seen it done numerous ways, so I think you are going to have to find what works best for you.

Personally, I try to figure out what I need to secure to the various fife rails and belaying pins and rigging those first. I figure I can rigg them backwards and save myself some headaches. Also, try and get all the blocks that need to be added to the tops, etc... rigged. Then build and rigg all the lower masts.  Working up from inside out. Rigging as much of the yards as possible before attaching them. Heck, you know the drill.

However, John and Bill's methods are just as valid. In fact they are probably better. I really like John's method of mixing things up to save your sanity. Unfortunately, I am already as mad as a hatter, so save yourself, it is already too late for me.

Steve

just saw the nowhere man , not bad my man not bad .,

Thanks, Steve!  I'm a big Beatles fan

I haven't recorded any songs in a while...I should probably put a couple more videos up on youtube...

Quick progress update...

Got the bowsprit and spritsail topmast installed, and attached the shrouds and deadeyes.

I'll probably get the shrouds rattled down tomorrow (if I remember how!)...

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Outstanding work, Dave. I just bought a pair, well two pairs, of cuticle nippers. The first ones were the cheapest at CVS and lasted a couple hours, the next are still going strong.

do they cut neater than small nail scissors g morrison

Looks great, Dave. Except for those ugly sink marks on the sides of the spritsail topmast cap, which are Heller's fault - not yours. Also, it appears that the cap is tapered on both sides when viewed from forward - to make it easier to free from the mold. It should be flat on both the top and the bottom. If you think these molding flaws are worth fixing, it could still be done with a file.

If you're leaving off the "sail gear," you can safely omit the clewlines; they're really in that category. A model with halyards, lifts, and braces for running rigging will look entirely reasonable - as long as the sails aren't there.

Hang in there.

Superb work dave.

Thanks for the input, fellas!

Never heard of Cuticle Nippers, George (aka George C Scott, aka Gmorrison!)....I'm sure my wife must have some around the house...hmmm....lol

A quick google search shows that they look similar to a fine-pointed scissor/sidecutter...might just have to pick up a pair.  I've been using a Fiskars MicroTip little scissor and it works pretty well, but I'm all for experimenting with an upgrade.  Thanks for the tip.

John, it's a shame that this kit has so many sinkholes, ejector-pin marks, etc...I won't be going to great pains to remedy them, but it's worth mentioning that, for those who can't look past these flaws, they are here in abundance and will require a great deal of attention to fix.

Good point about the rigging.  Most of the kits I've built (with the exception of the Black Swan and maybe the Chebec) have had simplified running rigging...halyards, lifts, braces.  But with the Golden Hind, it was suggested that I include clewlines and blocks on the yards since I was displaying furled sails.  I did it, and I liked the effect, and it helped with the bundling of the sails to the yard.  My Soleil Royal will also have furled sails (I have been saving up shoebox tissue paper to experiment with), so I'm going the same route with the clewlines. No buntlines, bowlines, sheets, or any other sail gear.  I think it should turn out okay.

Anyway, thanks again for the suggestions!  :)

Dave

Ejector pin recesses are easy to fix.  First melt some candle wax, Parafin will work..then use a small metal applicator and fill in the depression..when dry carve flush with a knife or suitable tool.  Paint and there you go....gone.

Unless you're planning on letting your model get hot..I mean real hot...you have nothing to fear.

Rob(I've been doing this for 30 years and have seen no issues)

That's a really good tip, Rob!  Sounds pretty simple, too!
Thanks :)

Dave

It is my friend. You can fill gaps...and the easy part it carves out nicely and can even be carved if need be..then painted over.  So long as the repair is not structural..it is very reliable.  The notion that it will melt..means your model will be melting from the heat as well...if it gets that hot in the first place......

Good luck.

Rob