Outstanding subject, and you appear to have gone great strides in moving forward too!!  Of course, the tricky bits will involve reproducing all that fancy scrollwork aft and on the headrails too, but I do admire your efforts!  I think if you can get something like this accurately into kit form, you will make MANY modellers very happy indeed (Prof Tilley, watch this space!).  Here's a thought if you decide to go to kit form; have different decoration options for the quarter, stern, headrail and figurehead pieces available as either a separate purchase, or included in the kit itself.  In any case BRAVO, and keep up the effort!!!

Very interesting subject.  Thanks for sharing.

Scott

Thanks for the ++ comments. Yes the decorations are the greatest challenge for I have to learn carving from the beginning, though the Artitec boss says 'I don't have to worry as I'm talented enough'; we'll see!

searat12: regarding having 'different decoration options for the quarter, stern, headrail and figurehead pieces available as either a separate purchase, or included in the kit itself': I don't think so!! I am building the vessel as depicted in the Colbert Album and I don't want create a 'phantasy kit'! If I do that, then I'm doing the same as Heller did, namely creating phantasy ships based on an existing kit (Sirene, L' indomptable etc.) Hellers Sirene is based on their Le Phenix which is derived from, guess what?? The Album de Colbert but its hull lines are wrong and entirely different from my own results. In short, I stick to he vessel as depicted in the Colbert Album.

Papillon.

Papillon wrote:

Thanks for the ++ comments. Yes the decorations are the greatest challenge for I have to learn carving from the beginning, though the Artitec boss says 'I don't have to worry as I'm talented enough'; we'll see! searat12: regarding having 'different decoration options for the quarter, stern, headrail and figurehead pieces available as either a separate purchase, or included in the kit itself': I don't think so!! I am building the vessel as depicted in the Colbert Album and I don't want create a 'phantasy kit'! If I do that, then I'm doing the same as Heller did, namely creating phantasy ships based on an existing kit (Sirene, L' indomptable etc.) Hellers Sirene is based on their Le Phenix which is derived from, guess what?? The Album de Colbert but its hull lines are wrong and entirely different from my own results. In short, I stick to he vessel as depicted in the Colbert Album. Papillon.

Greetings Papillion !

First, I'd like to congratulate you for outstanding work. I'm also closely interested with Album de Colbert and had my chance to look into the reprint through an interlibrary loan. Also I did a bit of research about its contents, and wrote a short description of the 86 gun ship that you reconstructed and that Heller produced as a kit. I make a cut&paste here that may perhaps change your mind

"In 1664, King Louis XIV's great finance and naval minister Colbert ordered a treatise upon ships and shipwrightry, richly illustrated with delightful engravings, both to serve as a manual for shipbuilders in Royal Dockyards and to impress the king about navy. In that treatise, known as "Atlas of Colbert", there is a series of abundantly detailed engravings showing all phases of the building of a 86 gun three decker, along with technical informations. While a ship with the decorations shown in the book was never built, four three deckers to the same hull shape and proportions were built between 1664-1692 (Royal Therese, Le Sceptre, Le Brilliant and Le Saint Philippe). Heller's "Le Phénix" is a model of that three decker class with the decorations as shown in the Colbert Atlas. Again the kit's hull is beautifully detailed and accurate, as are the masts and spars; I only don't like the lower gunports pierced for stubs masquerading as gun muzzles and the fact that this ship did never exist. However, both two problems can be well solved by some effort of craftmanship. The drawings of decorations for both the four actually built ships of that class are avaliable online. "La Sirene" is another deception similar to "La Couronne" and "Le Gladiateur", with awful upperworks to the hull of "Phenix"."

Meanwhile, I think the inconsistency of Heller kit's lines with your own model stems from the fact that; while you prepared your own draught from the plates, Heller used the nice old monographical plan set prepared by L'Association des Amis du Musée de la Marine as the draught for its kit. That plan set is avaliable for public sale from the website of the Association. Indeed, when I compared the scaled down (to 1/150) plan with Heller's kit, I saw that the two exactly matched. I will use this nice sound hull as a basis of my Ottoman pre-1790 three decker

Best luck with your project

Dear kapudan_emir_effendi

What you say is right. But I don't understand that you use the fictional lines of a 17th century ship's hull for a 1790 vessel; it almost sounds absurd to me! Compare the hulls of late 18th century vessels to the hulls of 17th century ship's in Boudriot's books and you'll see it makes no sense.

 

Papillon.

Papillon wrote:

Dear kapudan_emir_effendi What you say is right. But I don't understand that you use the fictional lines of a 17th century ship's hull for a 1790 vessel; it almost sounds absurd to me! Compare the hulls of late 18th century vessels to the hulls of 17th century ship's in Boudriot's books and you'll see it makes no sense.   Papillon.

Greetings Papillion, if you would read my message again you may see that I said pre-1790. Before 1790 Ottoman three deckers were, except rigging, practically same as those in late 17th century, when Ottomans first copied the (predominantly french) western type warships as the backbone of their navy. And the lines of the Colbert Atlas three decker are not fictitious, four vessels were built according to this draught

Very good!  Again, the French of Colbert's time and later (as Kapudan Emir Effendi has mentioned) often would build a class of ship to a common hull and deck design, with the only differences involving the stern, quarter and headrail (the many designs of Sane' were not only used and repeated by the French, but by the British as well via copies based on captured ships!).  The Dutch did likewise, as did the Spanish and the English too (though not so often with three-deckers).  But if you can get just one new ship of quality into production, I and many others will be very grateful indeed!

Yes, but the Sane & other late 18th century theoretical based designs had nothing to do with the vessels of Colbert's time (1664-84), staring from 1680 the French began drawing plans & building ships conform standards for each rate.

Furthermore, the Musee plan of the Phenix is derived from the Colbert album but as I said the hull lines are totally different from my results; I would not recommend that plan for building an 'Ottoman pre 1790 vessel'. Then you better take a plan of that period from the Boudriot books and use that instead.

Papillon.

This would be a fantastic addition to sailing ship modelling! Are you still working on this project!

Bill Morrison

Papillon wrote:

Yes, but the Sane & other late 18th century theoretical based designs had nothing to do with the vessels of Colbert's time (1664-84), staring from 1680 the French began drawing plans & building ships conform standards for each rate. Furthermore, the Musee plan of the Phenix is derived from the Colbert album but as I said the hull lines are totally different from my results; I would not recommend that plan for building an 'Ottoman pre 1790 vessel'. Then you better take a plan of that period from the Boudriot books and use that instead. Papillon.

Perhaps you missed my point, which is, that ships built in Colbert's time were ALSO built to at least semi-standard drafts, and this was particularly the case with the two-deckers, and to a lesser extent, the three-deckers as well.  In fact, the FIRST six ships produced as part of Colbert's fleet vision were actually built in the Netherlands to a quite standard Dutch 74-gun design, and in fact were 'cancelled' orders from the United Provinces that were bought up by the French in 1666 just after the Second Anglo-Dutch War.... The later French-built three-deckers were also fairly standardized, although there was a fair bit of experimentation in terms of numbers of gunports, etc (and of course, decorations were wildly different)....... Colbert wanted to build a fleet, and build it in a hurry, so design standardization became a priority very early on (thus, the Album d' Colbert' is in effect, a standardization treatise)

Any progress on this splendid project?