Beginning the Soleil Royal

There are two different ways I could do this then.  I am going with bronze for the guns.  But, I could either leave them pristine, for a clean model, or I could weather the ship up a bit, and tarnish the guns.  More than likely, the crooks and crannies of the gun would have a bit more tarnish in them, since those areas were more than likely to tarnish first.

I'll have to take a deeper look as I get the guns finished, but before I mount the barrels on the carriage.

Hi jtilley: I would like to have your knowledge concerning historic sailing ships. I hope I will have aquired some deeper knowledge when I grow older (now I am at age 32).

The good thing among historic sailing ship kits: colors are not that much of a concern than lets say as in the field of  aircraft modeling. But what I like most: there are no decals at least for historic sailing ships.

In my closet there is a kit of a helicopter. However, I have a lot of excuses for not starting with the project since I am afraid of applying decals. There are so many.

Regards,
Katzennahrung
Btw: My chocolate brown from Heller enamels are more black-grey.

Interesting question.  Brass and bronze were indeed common materials in naval (and other) gun founding well into the eighteenth century.  The distinction between "brass" and "bronze" seems to have been a little vague.  In modern English terminology (according to the dictionary I have beside my computer) brass is "a yellowish alloy of copper and zinc, sometimes including small amounts of other metals, but usually 67 percent copper and 33 percent zinc."  Bronze is "any of various alloys of copper and tin in various proportions, sometimes with traces of other metals." 

The first source I generally look at when confronted with basic questions about nautical stuff these days is Conway's History of the Ship.  The relevant volume, The Line of Battle:  The Sailing Warship, 1650-1840, contains a good chapter on "Guns and Gunnery" by Brian Lavery, of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.  He describes (p. 149) "a preference for what in England was usually called brass (but was actually bronze):  it was stronger [than iron], rustfree, less prone to bursting, could be re-cast, and was amenable to the most elaborate decorations thta appealed to the pride of captains and kings.  Its drawback wsa that it was far more expensive than iron (150 pounds versus 18 pounds per ton in 1670).  As battlefleets became larger and individual ships more powerfully armed, there was a rapid decline in the employment of brass vis-a-vis iron:  in France in 1661 the navy had 570 brass guns bo 475 iron and in 1699 1246 to 7136, but by 1768 only 186 of 7774 were bronze; in England in 1698 only 11 out of 323 ships had any brass guns.  Bronze guns continued to be 'high status' weapons, issued to flagships and royal yachts, but by 1782 only the Royal George in Britain carried any.  Oddly, although France abandoned the manufacture of bronze naval guns in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, she revived the art in 1781 for a batch of special light guns for her first 18pdr-armed frigates." 

Mr. Lavery goes on to explain that the decline of bronze guns was also due to changing tactics and technology.  The increasing emphasis on the line of battle, which in turn depended on heavy and near-continuous firing of broadsides, revealed that bronze tended to overheat more quickly than iron.  (Overheated guns swelled, so the shot intended for them wouldn't fit.)  Improved methods of smelting iron also were a factor - especially in Britain. 

For quite a long time it apparently was common for an individual ship to carry a mixture of bronze and iron guns.  The other night I was reading a relatively new biography, Sir Francis Drake:  The Queen's Pirate, by Harry Kelsey.  Professor Kelsey found several contemporary documents describing Drake's Golden Hind as having bronze and iron guns.  (Kelsey also raises the question of whether the ship ever actually was renamed Golden Hind.  He contends that all the surviving documents written by people who were on board her during her around-the-world voyage continued to call her by her original name, Pelican, from one end of the trip to the other.)

What did those guns look like?  It's really hard to say.  The actual color of the barrels probably varied quite a bit, depending on the precise alloy from which they were cast.    When brass and bronze are exposed to the atmosphere and don't get polished rigorously and regularly, they turn green.  (Brass eventually turns black.)  The precise color, again, probably would vary a good deal according to what other metals were in the alloy.  Exposure to saltwater accelerates the process - and makes it harder to keep the metal polished and shiny.  My gut feeling is that the crews of big warships with brass (or bronze) guns probably spent a fair amount of time polishing them, but I rather doubt that the practice was universal.

Off the top of my head I can't recall any references to brass or bronze guns (other than their muzzles) getting painted, but I wouldn't be the least surprised if it happened.  It certainly would make sense.  I have a general sense that iron naval guns frequently got painted black, as a means of keeping them from rusting with a minimum of maintenance.  I think I've also read occasional references to iron guns being painted other colors.  I think I read somewhere that the gun barrels of the U.S.S. Constitution were painted brown during some period of years after the War of 1812.

The practice of painting the muzzle of a gun barrel red, of course, goes back a long time.  Contemporary models from as far back as the seventeenth century, if they're fitted with guns at all, frequently have barrels with red muzzles.  (I recently encountered some photos of a fine, enormous Dutch model from the seventeenth century whose gun muzzles are painted white.  I suppose it's possible that other colors were used for that purpose in different countries.)  In the British navy it seems that, as late as the 1780s, the red paint sometimes (but by no means always) was applied not only to the face of the muzzle but to the entire barrel as far back as the "muzzle astragal," the outermost band cast around the barrel. 

So my bottom-line answer to Katzennahrung's query is:  I don't know.  Brown might be a reasonable color to represent a weathered bronze gun barrel - especially on a small scale.  I do remember that one reference to brown-painted iron guns - and it seems reasonable to assume that the Constitution wasn't unique in that respect.  My inclination has always been to assume that iron guns were black unless there's some specific reason to think otherwise.  But, as in so many other aspects of sailing ship modeling, there's certainly room for interpretation and personal judgment.

Hi: I have always wondered whether canons were indeed bronze. I like it to paint my canons "very dark chocolate  brown". Is this foolish? In reality did they paint the canons?

Regards,
Katzennahrung

When dealing with such minutiae as the colors of gun carriage trucks there's plenty of room for personal taste.  Most of the red carriages on contemporary models that I've seen also have red trucks - but I think I've seen a few with black trucks as well.  I really think that one's up to you.

There's also room for debate and taste when it comes to paint colors.  Sailing ship modelers don't worry about "Federal Standard" or "Methuen" colors.  All we've got to go by, really, are a few samples of paint on old ships (which paint has, by definition, been fading and experiencing other effects of the atmosphere for centuries), contemporary paintings, and contemporary models. 

Most of the old models that I've seen have remarkably bright red inboard works - but I suspect the people who built them were using artists' oil paints, and weren't particularly concerned with matching specific shades.  Recent research on the British navy suggests that the red in question was probably a dull, flat "red ochre," and that its primary function was not (as legend has it) to camouflage bloodstains but to simply serve as a reasonably durable primer to protect the wood and metal parts from the weather.  What the French navy used in the seventeenth century I don't know.

In coming up with answers to questions like this it's worth giving some thought to just what the objective of the exercise is.  Lots of modelers, when working on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century subjects, like to make their models resemble as much as possible the models that were built during that period.  Many of those old models are works of art on a very high level, but in many ways they make deliberate compromises with historical reality.  In addition to the well-known custom of omitting the planks from the model's bottom (and often from various other parts of it), that means bright red inboard works and deck furniture, pure white (or maybe cream) bottoms, no weathering, and probably no rigging on the guns.  (Many of the old English "Board Rooom" models don't have guns at all, as a matter of fact.  If guns are fitted they're usually pretty crude, and rarely have rigging.)  Building a model that's literally realistic is a somewhat different problem.  That approach might entail dull "red ochre" paint and a weathered bottom.  (That's a real can of worms.  I'm not so sure a really accurate reproduction of a seventeenth-century hull that had been in saltwater for some time would be an object I'd want on my mantle.) 

The actual rigging of a typical gun from that period generally consisted of four lines, three of them rigged more-or-less permanently.  The "breeching" was a huge rope that was seized to an eyebolt (or ringbolt) in the bulwark beside the gunport, and ran around the breech to another eyebolt or ringbolt in the bulwark on the other side of the gun.  (There were various ways to handle the passage of the breeching around the gun breech.  If I remember right, the guns on the Soleil Royal have ornamental rings on the breech, above the cascabels.  The eyes, if I remember right, are cast solid, but could be drilled out for the breeching line.)  Then there were three "train tackles," each consisting of two blocks (either two singles or a single and a double, depending on the size of the gun) and a piece of rope.  One train tackle was set up on each side of the gun, with one block hooked to an eyebolt in the bulwark and the other to an eyebolt on the after corner of the gun carriage.  Those tackles were used to run the gun out, and to aim it in the horizontal plane.  The third train tackle ran from an eyebolt in the middle of the truck's rear axle to an eybolt in the deck near the ship's centerline.  That tackle was used to run the gun in.

In the normal routine of the ship the breeching would be set up all the time, and the side tackles most of the time; the aft train tackle probably would be set up only when the gun was being worked.  (It would have been an awful thing to trip over in the routine of working the ship.)  Most of the old contemporary models, if they have guns at all, don't show the gun rigging.  To modern eyes, though, an unrigged gun looks sort of naked - and certainly would be a menace in real life.  Lots of modelers just rig the breeching, and let it go at that.  Others set up the side tackles on the guns that are going to be visible on the finished model.  (Most of them aren't.) 

Actually, rigging train tackles on a few guns is good practice for rigging the ship.  It takes quite a few blocks - the smaller the better.  (On 1/100 scale you're unlikely to make the train tackle blocks too small.  The smallest size Bluejacket offers, 3/32", is about right.)   There are quite a few of them, but you can set up a simple mass-production system.  Shove a couple of straight pins, the appropriate distance apart, into a piece of wood, and rig the tackle between them.  When it's ready to go, slide it off the pins and install it on the model.  Here, as in so many other jobs on a sailing ship model, there's a fairly steep but short learning curve.  The first tackle may take you fifteen minutes or more, but when your fingers get in the groove you'll find the work goes much faster. 

One other tip.  When you get to the actual rigging of the ship, you'll discover that those gun barrels sticking out the sides have an almost magnetic ability to snag lines - and it's all too easy, when you're concentrating on a piece of rigging high up on a mast, to yank such a line so hard that a gun gets dismounted.  There's a matter of judgment to be taken into consideration here.  If a gun, complete with carriage, comes loose from the lower deck, getting it back into position can be quite an exercise.  (The more rigging is in place, the less one enjoys shaking the model back and forth till the gun falls out one of the ports.)  One could take extraordinary measures to fasten the guns down to the deck (e.g., a bolt running through the barrel, through the carriage, through the deck, and into a nut underneath), but that would tempt fate:  a dislodged gun is easier to deal with than a busted barrel.  If (gawd forbid) I were building that particular kit again, I'd be tempted to (1) put the train tackles and breeching on the guns that were going to be visible, and (2) leave the barrels off the ones on the lower decks till all the rigging was done.  I think it would be possible to slide the barrels in through the ports.

In any case, protecting the gun barrels from errant rigging lines is certainly worth thinking about.  Hope all this helps a little.  Good luck.

Congratulations on the start of your build ,er, adventure.

Your colors sound nice to me, I like the all blue with gilding look.  For the guns, I would keep the wheels on the carriage natural or red, your preference.  I also build guns in phases, to break up the monotony.  And yes, I do rig my guns, some I run out, some drawn back, and some in the stand down position.   Thin tread for lanyards and thick cotton thread for the trunion ropes.
Scott