Heller Soleil Royal (WIP)

Well, you really grabbed the bull by the horns when you opened up the quarter galleries. As molded, they're one of the most inaccurate aspects of the kit.

I'll be interested to see what problems you run into in fixing the rest of the stern. If I remember correctly, there were some pretty elaborate "carved" devices between the spurious windows; those carvings belong on the hull itself. When I built mine (almost forty years ago), I didn't notice the problem till I'd almost finished the model. I don't know how difficult it would be to either move the devices to the hull halves or replace them. Then there need to be decks inside the quarter galleries, etc. And I don't remember whether there are windows in the hull over the quarter galleries; probably so.

One interesting point. On my monitor I can't blow up your picture quite enough to be certain, but it looks as though the artist who painted the picture on the Imai box figured out that the quarter galleries were supposed to be open. Interesting.

I hope you've found some good photos of the old, unfinished model in the Musee de Marine. They're your best guide - along with the drawings and paintings that are in other threads of the Forum.

Good luck.

David,

I'm sure you've already done your research on your SR and my posting these two links are probably useless to you now but, you never know.

Best of luck - and, more importantly, lots of wonderfully entertaining, frustrating, conquering, and satisfying states of mind to you while you build her .

Mike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Soleil_Royal_%281670%29
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/68138.aspx?sort=DESC&pi240=1

Good luck. I "took a break" almost exactly two years ago before starting the rigging and it's still sitting there. Because of the elaborate paint scheme people who see it immediately seems drawn to it. Somehow I've become immune to the darn thing but have high hopes for the future.

David,

I would strongly recommend raising the waterline to the lower wale.  I forget the source for this, but I have seen period drawings of 17th and early 18th century French ships-of-the-line showing the same run contained in the kit and the waterline touching upon the lower wale. It will greatly help the sense of proportion in your model. Also, fill in the knee of the head if you can.  You will not regret it!

Bill

Yeah, that hole in the knee of the head is a real howler. It's apparently there because Heller was copying an unfinished model. (That model didn't have a figurehead either. Heller did notice that.)

The missing panel almost certainly should have some carved ornamentation on it. Dave, have you ever messed around with Milliput?

Dave, an overarching comment.

This seems to be a very difficult and inaccurate kit from comments I've read.

I am currently in year four of the Heller Victory, which is wholly satisfactory straight out of the box so long as you get your hands on the Imai instruction set.

So my one piece of advice is to make yourself NOT think ahead. Concentrate on the hull only. Do not concern yourself with the masts and yards yet and for heavens sake don't buy ahead with any AM parts.

Get your guns and decks under control, the cables and such. I'd give myself a three month or so goal of getting up to daylight and then start looking up, metaphorically.

Back to your quarter galleries . . . nice job!

Bill

I'm building one too!  Been at it for about ten years now :-(  Have the sprit mast rigged and starting foremast rigging.

Don,

I'd love to see what you have done.

Bill

Don as would I.

Dave one more mot.

I know this from the shelf of death which currently carries my Victory. BTW that is shown in its current stasis on the Heller Victory website under "Bills Victory".

Get another model up and going.

Something easy like a little sailboat.

Thanks for the support, o excellent peers!

I have been spending some time scouring the interwebs for photos, build logs, etc., trying to build a cache of reference material...I'm hopeful that, despite the common fate, I'll be able to finish it without taking too many 5-year breaks!  haha  

I do realize that a project of this magnitude will require certain amounts of *time-off* to regroup and generally recover from periods of overwhelmity (just made that word up)...but I believe I'm up to the task.

A big part of why I pursue hobbies is to give my overactive mind something to chew on while I'm conducting my day-to-day duties of life...I like to ponder and ruminate, and eventually formulate solutions that agree with my taste.  We'll see if my temperament is conducive to satisfactory completion of the SR.

I have already seen the difference between the kit-suggested waterline, and one that is raised a bit...I like the raised waterline better....otherwise, I feel like the ship looks like it would tip over too easily.

Ah, the knee of the head.

I do have some experience with Milliput, but only a little...mostly I've used it to make repairs for cast-resin statues....but the suggestion does give me some ideas...whatever happens, I do think I'll have to fill that gap with something, but it's still down the road apiece.

I've got the masts assembled, and now I'm assembling all the yard halves....but, some of the smaller yards are so wimpy and flimsy, I'm now considering swapping them out with wood...I'll see how that goes, also...for now, my main concern is part prep.  After the yards, I'll still have to drill some holes in the hull for gunport rigging, and also for chainplate fastening.

Once that's done, I'll separate all the parts by intended basecoat color (I'm using 8 different colors for this kit, all MM acrylic, except for the metallics, which will be Tamiya...I have to forego the Vallejo paint this time...one of the downfalls of it is that it doesn't seem to *hold* the oil paint weathering).

Then I'm going to prime a lot of the parts with Tamiya Fine Grey Primer, since many parts are molded different colors and I want all parts of a desired color to begin a certain color (meaning, some of the yards are from light colored sprues, and some from dark sprues, so I want to even them out before I spray the basecoat so I don't have to worry about any lack-of-hiding)...

Once I lay down all the basecoats with the ol' airbrush, then I can really start digging into things and detailing.

It is by all accounts a difficult (and inaccurate) kit, and I think with a lot of patience, a little creativity, and just a dash of who-gives-a-crap, I'll end up with something pretty to display at the house!

Yes, Don....please share your pics with us!  I will never be able to say that I've seen enough reference material for this model!  Feel free to post some here, or make a separate thread, if you want...

Anyway, thanks again...I'll let you guys know when I have something worth reporting!

Dave

Dave,

The quarter galleries are looking good so far!  Did you use metal tubing or rods in the masts by chance?  I would love to see more of your kit as as you progress on "the ship that shall not be named."

Steve

The masts are actually pretty sturdy, I didn't fill them in with anything...the yards, on the other hands, especially the topgallant and sprit yards....very flimsy.  They will undoubtedly sag under any tension.  I'll have to score a supply of dowels and start experimenting with making wooden yards.  And in that case, I might as well just do all the yards out of wood...we'll see how that goes.

Thanks for watching!

D

I built mine many years ago, so my recollections of the experience are unreliable. And I've hears that the quality of Heller's plastic has gone down since then. For what it's worth, though, I don't remember having to replace any of the spars.

My memory might be playing tricks on me but I seem to remember once reading that the mast and yard proportions were incorrect in this kit. Also, you must pay attention to attaching the yards to the masts since the kit does not provide any method for doing so.

Bill

warshipguy

My memory might be playing tricks on me but I seem to remember once reading that the mast and yard proportions were incorrect in this kit. Also, you must pay attention to attaching the yards to the masts since the kit does not provide any method for doing so.

Bill

Somewheres a bit back in this thread there's a link to a thread started in maybe 2008 about this model, that really went on too long and ended in a stand off between those (like me although I wasn't involved) who believe that a model should at least have a fair modicum of accuracy, and a sort of "Chicken of the Sea" much looser attitude.

The mast and spar topic was well covered, as was just about everything else except Marie Antoinette's knickers.

The point was that the top masts were taller than the lower masts, which would make stepping/ unstepping them with the ships own gear rather... dificult, or at least accompanied by quite a bit of "Zut, alors!" and no doubt ending in "m erde!".

EDIT: and with a small apology to the PTB; whodathunk the nannybot spoke French???

The link is "Soleil Royal . . . The Ultimate Building Guide".  I wasn't sure about the exact nature of the conversation concerning masts and spars, but I knew I read it somewhere. I was a part of that discussion, and I believe that the model does have some merit and many flaws that can be corrected if identified.

I wish you had been part of the discussion then, and I am glad that you are a part of this new one.  I appreciate your insight!

Bill

David, I've finished one and the other is sitting waiting to rig. I can tell you this ship wears you out, for example you could spend a long time on cannons, DONT, only the upper deck actually show. If you plan on closing the hatches don't even bother building them but if you leave them open don't waste a lot of time for a perfect assembly because only barrel ends show. I built my first and gave it away but I do have quite a few photos of my current one if you need any reference.  

Heres a pic from about a year ago, I've since done some additional work but its certainly at my leisure. As I said if you need anything maybe I can help. 

Terry

David now that I'm starting to think a little bit about her, One thing I would do over again would be to build a jig to hold the hull while you're working on her, test fit the decks because this is where I had most of my problems, warpage. I did add some styrene for additional glue points. That helped a lot. Oh and I really thought that the gold paint from the old Testors square bottles really painted on well, and cheap too. Terry

Glad to see that this thread has sparked some interest!

John, you mentioned about the Spars from your kit being okay...I guess I can see if mine are usable, it's possible I dismissed them off-handedly...though you made another mention of how it's possible that Heller's plastic had gone downhill in recent times....you remember that mine is an Imai boxing...would it be wrong to assume that the plastic would fall into the level of quality usually found in typical Imai kits? Although the molds are from Heller?  For the most part, everything seems good, except for the smallest of the yards...I'll see how I feel about them once I've taken a closer look.  There's at least one that is warped on the sprue.

One of my concerns about starting this thread was the potential for people focusing on the *problems* with this kit...I feel I may already have to address the issue:

I know there are numerous discrepancies.  I am fairly eager to approach a number of them for my own reasons.  Topmasts being too long?  I don't care enough to acknowledge it.  Same with the spar dimensions. What I do care about is feeling like I'm less of a modeler (Read: Chicken of the Sea) because of the things I choose to do or not do during a build.

Let's please avoid any *Standoffs* on this thread, regarding what the correct way to build a kit is, shall we?  It is a public forum, but I really think it's best for those who respect each other to ALSO respect each others personal taste and style.

I have consulted the Ultimate Building Guide for the Heller Soleil Royal on this forum...I found it very informative! I also noticed a certain amount of meandering tangentry (another made-up word), as well as the above-mentioned "Standoff of Positions."

Terry, your pics of the SR look very cool!  I clicked on it and got to view your Photobucket album of it...I hope you don't mind, I bookmarked it for future reference.  :)

Are you using the kit supplied deadeyes?  If so, have you had any trouble (with this or your previous build) with the shrouds slipping off the edges of the deadeyes, since they have no real groove around them?

Also, thanks for the advice about the guns...there are a bunch!  I remember with the Black Swan I took a lot of time making all the guns look great , and most of them ended up hidden in the lower deck!  I have considered to leave the gunports closed on the SR, or at least on one side...I figure if the sails are furled (or off the yards entirely) then the gunports wouldn't be open, right?  But again, we'll see how I feel when I get rolling on that stuff...

I agree that the Testors oil-based gold looks sweet, but my trouble is that I need to use acrylic-based paint for my basecoats, because my weathering/wash technique is pretty aggressive and is oil-based, so it will ruin any oil-based finish I apply it to...which is a bit of a drag, since acrylic metallics are generally not so great.

Lastly, I was planning to keep the cradle that comes with the kit to display it on....does that seem like a bad idea?  I have been using pedestals through the keels of my recent models, but I want to make sure this one is super-stable and I thought a cradle would help keep things upright...

I'm glad to know that you're building this kit, Terry, and that you already have one under your belt....I hope you won't mind if I ask you for pointers during construction?  I can tell this build will have me scratching my head many times!

Dave

P.S.- Sorry for all these long-winded replies....I seem to have a lot of things to say!  

Listen, no offense meant with the CotS comment. It's an insidish joke as they were the sponsors of the cafe in the pirate ship at Disneyland. That fine vessel was an imaginative creation of that studios creative geniuses. Thats all I meant, those guys were far more successful "imagineers" than I could ever hope to be. In fact my application was rejected.

Your taking it as a comment on "lesser" modelers is unfortunate, for which I accept blame for the perceived inference.

Leaving that particular issue of point of view aside though, I just read the thread you started back a while ago on "Whats with the BIG Heller..." or something to that effect.

It's a good one, and there is a logistics issue here that many referred to.

Just be sure this thing doesn't ruin your interest in ship models. In truth, I said EXACTLY the same thing there about the Victory, so this is not specific kit related. Many folks have started these beasts and set them aside in frustration. After putting together the guns from 900 parts, I was just about through with the thing. And now that I'm faced with rigging at least the several dozen visible ones, I've stopped working on it, probably for good. What happened? I don't know.

Some tasks are just too much.

If you can beat that, I salute you.

Gentlemen,

I took no offense. In fact, I actually have enjoyed this model. I believe that it has been unfairly maligned, and I honestly see more positives than negatives. For example, I have compared the silhouette of the Soleil Royal to drawings of other late-16th-early 17th century French ships of the line and consider that once the waterline is raised to the lower wale, it seems accurate enough.  The shapes and proportions of the guns is equally so.  On the down-side, while it is true that Heller provided no means of attaching the yards to the masts, neither did they do so with the Victory. Yet, the Victory has been hailed as perhaps the best plastic model of its kind.  The Victory kit can be criticized for having omitted the bolt heads on the lower hull to hold on the copper plates, yet I have found no reviews maligning Heller for that detail omission.  All kits have some issues that we accept as being part of the hobby, and part of the fun is in correcting the discrepancies. This is true of the Le Soleil Royal.

When building this model, I see it as a challenge to overcome its most egregious problems.  To solve t he missing deck furniture issue, I have added scratch-built galley pipes shaped for the period, and have also scratch-built a chicken coop. It was fun!  I sincerely hope that David enjoys this kit as much as I.

Bill

Thanks, Bill...I also hope to enjoy it!

GM, it's more than a little possible that I may be sensitive to perceived denigration (thanks Jtilley for the word of the week!)...I've never been to the Pirate Ship at Disneyland, though it does seem like it would be fun!...So the inside joke was lost on me.  

Once again, I want to be clear that my main purpose for this thread is to document the journey as I build this kit, in the hopes that anyone building it in the future may find it as a source of info, and hopefully, it will be seen as a little bit of light in the sometimes dark tunnel of a long-term project commitment.  To that end, keeping things positive is important.  Perhaps this can add to the small number of SR build logs that actually reach completion!  :)

As an aside, I'd like to make a comment regarding the lack of any means to fasten the yards to the masts, for this and other kits.

In my limited experience building model ships (I think the number is 8 or 9 by now?), I've only had one kit that included any such means...I believe the Zvezda Thomas had a molded parrel for the main yard.  Other than that, all the kits I've worked with have had only a locator pin on the yard, and a locator hole on the mast...though there have been rigging lines for halyards, jeers, etc....  Is it common for model ship kits to include parrels?

Dave,

Parrels in plastic kits........ I have only seen them in the Thomas/Kogge/Crusader kits.  The Airfix Wasa has molded parrels but that is about it, although I can safely say that I have not seen every sailing ship kit.

However, ModelExpo used to have them but I haven't seen them online for about a year or more.  I have been buying parrels from Ages of Sail in California. The 10mm ones are three beads wide, the 6mm are two. Here is a link:

www.agesofsail.com/.../4384-10-mast-parrels-with-spacers-10mm.html

www.agesofsail.com/.../4384-06-mast-parrels-with-spacers-6mm.html

I would recommend ordering them well in advance as I have had to wait a month or two for them at times.

You can also make your own but I remember reading in one post on another forum that the modeler's wife called putting together parrels was his "Tourette Project"........

Steve

Frankly I don't understand the complaint about parcels.

The much beloved Revell kits had big ugly C shaped clips that snapped in between a pair of rings molded on the masts. OK for rotating and positioning the yards but horrible in every other way.

Look at my all time favorite sailing ship kit the CWM by Revell.

Stick a yard to a mast frankly is easier if the kit manufacturer doesn't get it wrong to start.

A hidden pin.

Then dress it up with a non- load bearing parcel which could be anything from a painted little piece of some happy find at the hardware store to a scratch built little gem. Hey you only need a dozen.

GM, I think the Device on which you type your posts may be doing you dirt: changing "parrels" to "parcels." That seems to be par for the course for some of these gadgets. They think they're smarter than we are. My phone (which in most cases is smarter than I am) thinks I mean "it's" when I type "its." (At the moment I'm typing on my desktop Mac; otherwise I probably wouldn't have been allowed to type the last sentence.)

Whether to worry about installing authentic-looking parrels or not is, of course, up to the individual modeler. Making them isn't particularly difficult; the ribs can be made from either wood or styrene, and the rollers from glass beads. (The aftermarket companies sell such beads for that very purpose, and places like Michael's have them as well.)

I do think a kit on 1/100 scale that sells for a couple of hundred dollars ought to provide some means of attaching yards to masts. As GM said, neither the Heller SR nor the Heller Victory does.

I don't know of any plastic kit that provides separate pieces for yard parrels. (I can't speak for the Zvezda kits: I haven't seen them in the flesh. Airfix did, as noted above, mold passable representations of them in with the masts on several of its kits.) It certainly would be possible - even easy - to render them in injection-molded plastic, but I don't think any company has done it.

Incidentally - I did comment on that aspect of the Heller Victory in the reviews I wrote for two British magazines, Model Shipwright and Scale Models, back in 1978 when the kit was new. The criticisms of that kit that I raised at that time included (1) the lack of yard parrels, (2) the un-detailed ship's boats, (3) the misnumbered "deck beams," (4) the useless blocks and deadeyes, (5) the pointy belaying pins, (6) the lack of nail heads in the copper sheathing, (7) the awkward transition of the counter under the transom, (9) the lack of margin planks on the decks, and (9) the lack of camber in the poop skylight. I also defended Heller's decision to omit the entry ports, and I raised the issue of the forecastle and poop bulwarks. My overall evaluation of the kit was extremely favorable. I said it was the best rendition of the Victory in kit form - plastic, wood, or otherwise; I even noted that in some respects (e.g., the stern lanterns) it was more realistic than Longridge's famous model in the Science Museum. A couple of months later Heller quoted my review in one of its magazine ads, so the company must not have been too offended by what I'd said.

Personally, I think there's a huge qualitative difference between the Heller Victory and SR kits. But I've sounded off on the latter enough elsewhere. There's no need for any more arguments about this kit. I suggest we restrict this thread to Dave's project, which I predict will produce one of the handsomest models anybody has ever built from that kit. I certainly admire Dave's courage in tackling the problem of the quarter galleries, and I'll be interested to see what he does with the knee of the head. (On mine, back in about 1977, I just filled the gap with a piece of styrene; Dave can do better.) As to the spar proportions - I'm pretty sure those of the kit are wrong, but whether to do anything about them is up to the individual modeler.

I am not trying to be negative, but I wasn't complaining about parrels GM just passing on information. I have actually built parrels from beading finds at Michaels for the Nina which I'll add when I get to that point.  I am adding them because that is just the way my AMS affects me with sailing ships.  Heck, if it needed jears I would probably try and come up with a way to add them, like I have been with the Revell CWM.

Anyway Dave, my mind is slipping more than usual, the Catalan Ship comes with parrel beads for the yard........ Dang, I am getting old.

Steve

could some one please explain about parrels spacers ., and how to use them.as I nearly up to the stage of putting on my yards., any help will be greatly appreciated

Dave, I can get what info I have or whatever pics you'll need, but know that I build for fun and not for competition or for that matter, perfect planking. Theres certainly a place for that and I guess it depends what i'm building and for what. With some of my builds I do quite a bit of research while others right OOB.

I did find some very tight tolerances with Heller, so I pretty much started to open up all the holes and slats, some of the times a little to late.

I've left open my Photobucket for others to see if they need anything. Feel free, as I said I do it for fun.

Terry