Heller La Reale question

I'm fairly certain the handles were in fact made of wood.  Each oar had one long handle, attached to the oar loom by a line of spacers, made like stubby railing stanchions. I think an iron spike was driven through each stanchion, holding the entire assembly together. The stanchions were separated from each other by a distance appropriate for the oarsman to put his hands between them. 

Quite a few years ago a fine modeler named (if I remember correctly) P. Heriz-Smith built a model of a Reale, which is (I think) now in the Science Museum, in London.  He made the oar handles by gluing a series of extremely thin wood strips to the face of a sheet of wood.  He then sliced the whole assembly into narrow strips, thereby producing the "railing" effect that he was looking for.  The result was pretty impressive.

Many years ago I bought one of the Heller kits, and tried to figure out an appropriate solution for the oar handle problem.  I discovered that the spacing between the "stanchions" on the handles was almost exactly the same as the spacing between the "rungs" of the brass "HO ladder stock" sold in the model railroad department of the hobby shop where I worked.  I think it would be possible to make the handles by slicing some of that stuff (assuming it's still available) in half, and gluing the "stanchions" into holes drilled in the oar looms.  The unfortunate feature of those oars is that there's so many of them.  The task of shaving the phony-looking handles off the Heller parts, then drilling every one of them for the new handles, is not to be taken lightly.  After figuring out how to do it, I (as is my wont under such circumstances) got interested in something else.  Some day I may tackle that old Heller kit again; I've got one in the attic, and it's a beautiful kit in many ways.

     It is clear from Landstrom's "The Ship" that the oars had handles, probably of iron.  The space between the iron handles and the oar itself was only sufficient to allow the hands to operate without touching the wood, to avoid damaging hands and knuckles.  At this scale (1/75) the distance would be infinitesimal.  You may wish to try a gadget called "Grabhandler" by Mission Models (www.missionmodels.com); with this tool one can make as many handles, consistently-sized, as one wishes.  You'll need to bore two holes in the oars for the ends of the handles.  The fun part is the production of the five intermediate supports shewn by Landstrom on page 138/9.  There is a product which uses surface tension to glaze the windows in airliner models - "Clearfix"(?), or even medium to thick CA, just touched with a piece of thin wire to bridge the gap between the handle and the oar; try it on scrap plastic - a few dry runs and remember that each gap (Landstrom shews six) was for both hands of each rower!

     To find out how these vessels were rowed and how the oars were stowed when under sail, see text and illustrations on pages 189-200 of Conway's History of the Ship series "The Age of the Galley".  As for painting the oars and given that these "flagships" were highly decorated (it seems that one Reale cost the equivalent of twenty standard galleys), my personal inclination is to paint them semi-gloss dark blue. By the way, a monograph containing two 1/75 plans (including rigging), four photos and an explanation of terms (all in French) may be obtained from Association des Amis du Musee de la Marine, Musee national de la Marine, Palais de Chaillot, 75116 PARIS or www.amis-musee-marine.net. Hope this helps. Flitch

Haven't really taken a good look at the Reale yet Grymm, I'm still working on the Kearsarge. My first impulse would be to make the handles from wire but as you say making 34 (or in my case double that number will not be really fun) If you are only going to use half of the oars you can afford to do some experimentation with drilling and painting.How about making you own decals to portray the openings ?

Julian

Crap!!!!! I completely forgot! Grem, do you still need those Reale instructions? The holidays were a mess this year with a death in the family and I completely forgot. I am so sorry. Do you still need them? Let me know. If so, send me your address again. My classes (last full semester...YAY!) don't start until Monday, so I have some time. Grymm

White and wood sound logical, as does the wood handholds. Thanks. As for the handholds, on the Heller kit, the handholds are represented by a single piece of plastic on one side of the oar. In no way does this look like a handhold of any type. So the question is how to tackle this. I see three options, tedious, semi tedious, and easy. The hard way would be to remove the plastic entirely, replacing it with wire. While I am not placing oars starboard (it makes the ship too wide for where it will be displayed), that still leaves 30 oars to work on. I'm more inclined to the next two. The semi-tedious method is to use my trusty dremel to drill out the plastic and create the handholds. This will leave integrated handles, but getting them even will be an issue. I tried this on a spare. It does work, but it requires a very steady hand. And then there's the easy way, which looks more and more enticing every day. Simply paint in the handholds. While not the most pleasing method, painting in false handholds does work. From where the ship will be displayed, nobody will be putting their face right into the model anyway. Any suggestions? Any other ideas? Grymm

I've never done any research in primary sources about this type of vessel. My suggestion, in the absence of any other information, is to believe Landstrom; those Reale drawings in his book are magnificent.

I do remember the French galley model by August Crabtree in the Mariners' Museum, where I used to work. If I remember correctly, he carved a three-dimensional scroll ornament on each side of each oar blade, and painted the scroll gold on an unfinished wood background. That may have been his own invention; Crabtree was known to do things like that occasionally. But I don't have any specific reason to think so.

Hi Grymm,

Bjorn Landstrom portrays them as white with a brown blade in his book "the ship". In how far that is accurate I don't know. I would hazard a guess that the handles for the oarsmen were natural wood because the constant rubbing of the hands would wear away any paint put on the handles. Maybe our resident guru John can shed some light here.(drum roll: enter John Tilley).

Julian