heller le glorieux 1/150

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I did her sister ship , a few year's ago the , le superbe , hopefully I can can do it a bit better this time , as they are the same ship ." />

not too bad , but I've had better" />

Aw; C'mon !

 Steve , I know you have dealt with worse . I have faith in you .  T.B.

Ohh,  I am excited to see this build.  I have this kit in the stash.

It's a nice kit. I have only two criticisms of it: the deck planks are too wide and the decks are flat. (They should be cambered - arched up slightly in the middle.) Non-fanatics probably can overlook both of those.

And I can see why scottrc had trouble with the instructions. The rigging instructions, in particular, are totally irrational. You'll need to get a book to help you through the rigging; the instructions are useless. Or maybe you can find some reasonable diagrams on the web.

But the "carved" details are beautiful, and I really like the way the guns on the lower deck are handled. This kit has the potential to produce a beautiful model.

Good luck.

The Heller 1/150 scale LE GLORIEUX kit, is a nice kit if one is willing to pay $85 as posted on e-bay. I would be tempted to purchase this kit if I did not have some kits gathering dust waiting to be built.

Happy modeling   Crackers

 I got this kit and a stack of other Heller kits back in the early 90's when Squadron used to have them marked down to practically nothing in their monthly flyer.  I think I paid $14.99 for my kit.  My have times changed as far as prices on models go.  

As far as rigging instructions on a Heller kit, they make great drop cloths.  The jigs they supplied are better for needle point then trying to make a set of ratlines that would actually fit and look right.

Steve,

I've had this kit in my stash for quite a while. I keep getting it down out of the closet, putting on my bed, and looking at it . So far I haven't had the courage to give it a try so I'm very glad you're going to build it!! I'll certainly follow along on this build - with great pleasure and interest.

As far as the instructions for the rigging go, several years ago I went to the Portland main library (I live in Salem so it's less than an hour to get there from my place) and used their copy machine to make several copies of the rigging in Volume 3 of Jean Boudriot's masterpiece on French 74 gun ships. I have paid more than I thought I ever would to collect a modest library on ships but this book - in its entirerty - is way, way out of my budget range. I'll include a couple of Amazon links here for you but I would suggest calling a library to see if they have it and would allow you to photocopy some pages.

https://www.amazon.com/Seventy-Four-Gun-Ship-Architecture-1988-03-02/dp/B01K3NOOUK/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473875987&sr=1-2&keywords=The+Seventy-Four+Gun+Ship%3A+A+Practical+Treatise+on+the+Art+of+Naval+Architecture+rigging

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/087021618X/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1473875987&sr=1-1

I have both of these kits as well as the Royal Louis.  As John has pointed out, there are some detail issues that are easily surmountable.  One not mentioned by him is that there is no plank detail.  It looks almost as if these ships were carved out of a massive log.

That said, I love these kits. And, Hismodels has wood blocks and decks for them, and sewn cloth sails.

Bill

Bill,

Can you provide a link to "Hismodels"?

I think this is the right link mike http://www.radekshipmodels.cz/en/

thank's for the link's mike , but they are way out of my league too mate , I went to our local library and asked about boudriot's book's , not in queensland , and they are all linked .when I built the superbe I relied on pete coleman's site , he has an excellent build on the french 74

 if any body has any link's at all to the rigging on a french 74 , I would love to get them please , thank's guy's

steve5

started priming and filling in the pre drilled holes for the plates , as they are not quite in the right place ." />

Bill jogged my memory. Yeah, Heller molded "wood grain" detail into the hull halves so it looks like the whole hull was hacked out of a single, impossibly large tree. One approach would be to scrape all the "wood grain" off.

Heller pulled stunts like that all over its sailing ship line. I've always suspected that the designers - fine artisans though they were - didn't really know much about ships.

Steve,

I've made 52 scans of 13 pages that I can send to you. Please PM me with your personal email and I'll start sending them. I'll do it in small batches so they don't get clogged up on the 'net.

P.S. Steve, I just noticed your email is listed in your profile so I'll use that one. It's now 10:48 am on Thursday here and therefore it's 3:48 am on Friday (I'm sending this to the future!!) in Queensland Australia. When you wake up you should have some of the scans I made this morning from the photocopies I made several years ago.

I've got the book, so if you need anything, let me know.

I've got the kit too, one problem (for me) was that the copper plating followed the lower edge of the main wale rather than the water line, but it can be sanded off.

thankyou cerberusjf , 1943mike , has very kindly sent me an incredible amount of information on the rigging , lot's of study to do . I know what you mean about the coppering , don't know if I have the ability to do the scribing , will have a think about it .

There is another way to access the Hismodel site . . . through eBay.  I have been very satisfied with Radek's products.  His cloth sails are the best I have seen, his flag sets are equally good, and his blocks are fantastic.  You cannot go wrong.

Bill

jtilley

how did you go about scribing the separate line's on the side's of the hull , a straght line I can do , but a curve ? I've tried using styrene , but it's a nightmare holding it in place . I would love some guidence prof.

steve5

I have read that the rigging instructions on the Heller kit are not very reliable. I have the Anatomy of a ship series of the English frigate DIANA. Could a modeler use the well illustrated English riggng version seen on this book to rig the Heller model and stiil be accurate ? Inquiring minds want to know.

Happy modeling    Crackers   

crackers

Could a modeler use the well illustrated English riggng version seen on this book to rig the Heller model and stiil be accurate ? Inquiring minds want to know.

The simple answer is "no". There are a gazillion little detail differences between French and British rigging that a knowledgeable eye will pick up. Besides, Boudriot has already said the last and final word on the subject matter so why waste time on anything less?

As for coppering a hull, the simple answer is to sand all the molded "copper plating" down flat and smooth. Round off the turn of the bilge while you are at it, getting rid of the nasty flat area on the bottom of the ship. Then use self-adhesive copper tape to create the copper plating, it is available in a variety of widths so getting one that is very close to scale should be easy. It is extremely thin too, not gold-leaf thin but at least household aluminum foil thin. Overlaps will not stand out, the stuff is easy to work with in all respects. I believe it is actually produced as a tool for making "Tiffany"-style lamps, the kind that have screens made from variously shaped pieces of glass soldered together - they actually stick the copper tape around the edges of the glass panels and then solder the tape surfaces.

I used such tape to copper the bottom of an 80-gun ship model in 1:72 scale, it really is wonderful stuff. As long as the underlying surface is smooth it the tape sticks incredibly well to it.

I haven't built either of the Heller 74 kits. I bought one of them about 40 years ago, but the combination of the one-log hull, the flat decks, the too-wide deck planks, and the copper all the way to the wales sent it to the bottom of my stash. When I moved from Ohio to Virginia, I consigned quite a few kits to a local hobby shop. I guess it sold.

One approach to the hull plank problem would be simply to scrape off the "wood grain" and leave it at that. Plenty of modelers prefer the look of a smooth hull surface.

If I were determined to scribe the edges of the planks, I'd first try doing it with a small pair of dividers. Follow the adjacent wale with one point of the dividers, and scribe with the other.

Another approach would be to lay down several layers of thin striping tape along the line you want to scribe, and use the tape as a guide for your scriber.

There were differences between French and British rigging practice; whether those differences are worth the trouble in a 1/150-scale model is up to the modeler.

The rigging diagrams in the Diana book probably would be about 75 percent for a French 74 of 30 years later. A better source would be the "Anatomy of the Ship" volume about HMS Bellona (a British 74). 

Incidentally, one of the nice features of the Heller 74 kits is that they offer the choice between lateen-rigged mizzen sails or gaff-and-boom-rigged mizzen sail. That's correct for the period. During the American Revolution ships of all navies might be rigged either way.

thank's prof . jtilley ., never thought of that , don't know if my ability is up to it , see how I go .

Steve,

Making the copper plating shouldn't be difficult for you. I did a sloppy job on my War of Independence Schooner but, had I had more of a committment to detail, I might have been able to produce a more accurate representation of the plating. I just got antsy and wanted to get it done. You will be able to do a better job on your Le Glorieux.

Staale,

The smallest copper tape that I have been able to fine is 3mm wide. it steps up mm by mm, so a modeler can find any useful width  he/she desires for the coppering. It is terrific stuff; it certainly beats the old method of painting ships bottoms copper!

If a given builder desires raised rivets, there are pattern makers of different spacing that can simulate rivet heads quite nicely. Just find the one that fits your scale as closely as possible, and run it over the back of the tape.

Bill

http://www.anythinginstainedglass.com/metals/foil.html

And yep, 5/32" is 3mm.

Yes, that is the stuff. Just snip off individual plates and glue them on, easy as pie. On a wooden hull you would want the hull to be painted and varnished beforehand so it has a truly glass-smooth surface for better adhesion, on a plastic hull that is a non-issue so just make sure it is sanded smooth and nice with a fine grade of sanding paper and you are good to go. 

Personally, I'd not worry overmuch about putting in any rivet detail, absolutely not in 1:150 scale anyway. Each plate was nailed onto the hull with a _lot_ of small nails, and the individual nail-head would not be very prominent - they wanted a smooth hull, after all. In 1:48 scale, then maybe.

Such tape is available in soft (heat-treated) and springy (non heat-treated) variants, the soft one is preferable I feel.

One approach would be to start with a sheet of adhesive-backed copper and slice it into individual plates. If you do want to represent the nail heads, here's a trick. Before you slice up the sheet, lay it on top of a sheet of medium-grit sandpaper and burnish it. Presto - thousands of little dots. Not in any particular pattern, but on that scale who cares?

On my little HMS Bounty ( http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/7/t/155394.aspx?page=1 ), I cut the plates out of sheets of .001" copper, and stuck them to the hull with old-fashioned, high odor contact cement. (The adhesive-backed stuff wasn't available then - or if it was I didn't know about it. The model is now about 40 years old, and the plates are still firmly stuck.) When all the plates were on, I sat down in front of the stereo system with the model and a dull needle in a pin vise, and made the dents individually. But I was working on a slightly larger scale (1/110) and a considerably smaller ship.