Heller Soleil Royal…..the ultimate building guide.

Prof. Tilley is right about the colour scheme of the Wasa. At the museum there are copies of some of the carvings on display, painted in the colors the researchers discovered. They  look like this:

It does take some time to get used to this new look, however, back then in 1628 the ship would have been quite impressive nonetheless.

Painting a model of Wasa – especially the Airfix 1/144 one – is of course extremely difficult considering the small scale. Even the models in the Wasa museum are not painted this way (although the former blue has been changed into red).

If you ever find yourselves in the neighborhood of Stockholm, be sure not to miss this star attraction of the Swedish capital. It’s the oldest preserved man of war in the world and, with 95% of her timbers being original, forms the best example of early seventeenth century shipbuilding anywhere. Even people with no special interest in ships whatsoever are in awe because of her sheer size and beauty.

Now, back on topic, painting Soleil Royal in natural colors also isn’t easy even though her scale is somewhat bigger. I probably wouldn’t try it, although it is rather tempting.

The only carvings I would paint in natural colors instead of gold are the Royal Coat of Arms on the sterns of English ships.

 

Many thanks to bryan01 for posting a couple of most interesting pictures.

The picture of the Soleil Royal's stern is especially interesting in comparison with the one in the Louvre, which I've cited before in other threads:  http://arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/fo/visite?srv=mipe&idImgPrinc=1&idFicheOeuvre=9612&provenance=mfc&searchInit=

It looks like these two colored engravings share a common ancestry.  The Louvre version is identified as being by Jean Berain I.  The one Bryan posted is identified with a different artist, and several features are different.  The text block at the top doesn't appear on the Louvre version, and the Louvre version has a scale bar near the bottom that isn't on Bryan's.  Otherwise, it looks like one is a copy of the other - but with considerably different color schemes.

Both apparently are monochrome engravings, with the colors applied by hand in the form of watercolor.  It looks like the artist who did the tinting on the Louvre version didn't get finished.  The colors on that work obviously have faded, but it looks like some of the background paint was blue and some was red.  It seems to show considerably more gold than Bryan's (bearing in mind the difficulty of representing gold with watercolor), but there's room for doubt about the figures on the upper part of the port side.  They certainly seem to be blue.

Another interesting discrepancy:  in the Louvre drawing it's pretty clear that there are open balconies on the two lower levels of the quarter galleries.  (Note the absence of window muntons in the outermost, window-shaped openings on each side of the ship.)  In Bryan's version those spaces are painted solid, rather dark blue. Is that because the artist didn't quite understand what he was looking at - or because the openings had been boarded up?  Do these two pictures rrepresent the ship at different points in her career - or are both of them artists' renditions of a ship that hadn't been built yet?  (Bryan's apparently dates from the nineteenth century, but it may have been based on some earlier source.  The Louvre site doesn't give any dates - or any other information - regarding M. Berain.  I'd assumed the Louvre drawing dated from the seventeenth century - but maybe not.)

A close look at the Louvre drawing also suggests that there were projecting open balconies in the middle of the upper and middle levels of the transom.  Notice how the artist has indicated shadows underneath them.

It's also clear that, somewhere back in the convoluted history of this topic, there's a link of some sort connecting these two drawings, the Musee de la Marine model, and the Heller kit.  The proportions of the stern in the drawings are a long way from those of the Heller version, but the carvings are unmistakably similar.  As I understand it, the Heller kit is based on a "bakelite model" by a gentleman who, in turn, based his work on the Musee de la Marine model.  Whether that model is a misinterpretation of these two drawings, or the model is based on some other contemporary source, I have no idea.

I've just about become convinced that the story of this ship is beyond sorting out.  In the unlikely event that I ever did want to build another model of her, I wouldn't want to try it without spending some time in Paris looking at the contemporary documentation - whatever it may be.  (And since the possibility of my having the money in this lifetime to make an extended research trip to Paris for the purpose of building a ship model is just about zero, we can just about rule out the possibility of my building such a model.)  I have the impression that nobody is really sure what she looked like.  Perhaps some French scholar of naval history will publish a detailed discussion of the available primary sources some day.  Until then, I'll build models of other ships.  I like to work with subjects that call for some interpretation and filling in of gaps in the historical records, but this one just goes too far for me.

A visit to the Wasa Museum is slightly less unrealistic.  My wife and I have a list of trips we'd like to make after we retire, in a few years; one of them is a summer Baltic cruise, with stops at the Wasa Museum, the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, and the Russian National Maritime Museum in St. Petersburg.  It probably won't happen, but dreaming is harmless.  Some months back I happened to catch a TV broadcast of a concert by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic, performed at the Wasa Museum.  The site - and sound - of that great orchestra playing Wagner's overture to "The Flying Dutchman," with the great ship looming in the background, was pretty awe-inspiring.

Thank you prof. Tilley for providing us with this link. For the sake of this discussion I will show it again in this post:

For Jean Berain I or Jean Berain the elder (1640-1711) see this article on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_B%C3%A9rain_the_Elder

Now back to the colors used for the decoration of the ship.

One of the characteristics of the Louis XIV style was the use polychrome marble in interior design. Several sorts of marble with contrasting colors were laid in geometric patterns and were thus used to decorate the walls in royal palaces, especially the palace at Versailles. Many details of these interiors, like columns, fire places and friezes were highlighted by (gilded) lead or bronze ornaments.

The same principle, by the use of marquetry, was used for the decoration of furniture. The master of this technique was André Charles Boulle. A quote from the article says: ‘…he had workrooms…near those of André Charles Boulle, for whom he made many designs for furniture’.

The most important quote from the article is however:

‘After the death of Charles Le Brun (1690) Bérain was commissioned to compose and supervise the whole of the exterior decoration of the king's ships’.

So, this Jean Berain was probably the designer of Soleil Royal. Not of the ship itself of course, only its exterior decoration. Looking at the stern picture of Soleil Royal, the stylistic elements of Louis XIV interior and furniture design are very much visible. I think it is therefore very likely that the colors used on the ship followed the same trend.

 

To prof. Tilley: make the summer Baltic cruise, you will not regret it. The city of Stockholm is most enchanting and has – apart from Wasa – a lot to offer. Highlight of the cruise however will undoubtedly be St. Petersburg. It is, in my opinion, after Paris the most beautiful city of the Western world.

Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great on the banks of the mighty river Neva near the Baltic Sea, and divided by many canals (modeled after those in Amsterdam) she is a real ‘nautical’ city. Apart from the Russian National Maritime Museum, the Hermitage, Fortress of Peter and Paul, St. Isaacs Cathedral, Kirov Theatre, Admiralty and cruiser Aurora are all worth visiting. The whole city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, thanks to the tercentenary celebrations of 2003, got a thorough cleanup making this city even more beautiful then it already was.

 

Very interesting indeed, Bryan.  (I should have thought of Wikipedia.) 

It looks like the Boussac print is a modified copy of the Berain one - with different colors added.  That Berain was responsible for the decoration of the actual ship certainly seems like a reasonable inference. 

The Louvre web page identifies the Berain drawing as being the "recto" (right) half of what I gather to be a two-page spread taken out of a folio of some sort.  (The impression of the printer's plate around the edges certainly seems to confirm that.)  I wonder if it is in fact part of a series showing the decorations throughout the ship's exterior.  If so, are the other plates in the series to be found in some French archive or gallery? 

We're left with the question of just what the Berain drawing is.  (It looks like the Louvre hasn't done much research on it.)  Is it a design drawing, prepared prior to the construction of the ship?  If so, did the shipwrights and carvers actually follow it, or not?  (It's not safe to assume they did.  Such designs frequently got changed in the process of actual execution.)  The drawing is significantly different from the Musee de la Marine model, which apparently dates from the nineteenth century.  Why?  Did the modeler simply screw things up?  (That doesn't seem likely.  He quite obviously was an extremely skilled artisan.)  Was he working from some source other than the Berain drawing(s) - some source that reliably represented the ship as built, rather than Berain's preliminary design?  Or did he work from some source that was seriously defective, and should we believe the Berain drawing instead?  I have no idea.  Maybe the answers are lost to history - or maybe they're waiting to be uncovered in some French archive.  Or maybe some French maritime historian has already sorted all this out, and thinks we're idiots for not knowing the answers.

In any case, I think I'll stick with ships I know how to research. 

The Baltic cruise idea is indeed an idylic one.  When my wife was in college she got to make a trip to St. Petersburg (or Leningrad, as it was then known).  She got a good, cheap price for a tour that included Leningrad, Moscow, and various other places in the (then) Soviet Union.  The reason for the low price was that the trip took place in the middle of winter.  She asserts that she'll never do that again - but a summer cruise in the Baltic does tempt her.

Regarding whether the SR stern followed the contempary French architectural style, there is that little, thorny problem of the SR sternn shown in Bussac illustration being totally irreconcilable with Paris National library illustration.       The Bussac stern is the one used in the Paris Martime museum model upon which Heller apparently based its kit.     The Paris National Library drawing, however, is much more in keeping with the contemporary architectural style.     What is more, the lines of the National Library drawing, or what of it there is, is much more in keeping with a ship build in the last decade of 17th century, while the Paris Maritime museum model looked more like a ship of 1660 - 1670s.

So it seems to me that the Bussarc drawing, the Paris Martime museum model, and the heller model depicted an earlier Soleil Royal.     While the really famous Soleil Royal of 1690s was in fact a ship that didn't look very much like it.  

   

The Boussac drawing does not match the Musee de la Marine model - or the Heller kit.  The height-to-breadth ratios are different, as is the number of windows in the transom.  Some of the height-to-breadth ratio discrepancy could be explained by the fact that the drawing (presumably) is a "true view," with the transom projected onto a vertical plane; since the transom was in fact slanted at a considerable angle, a photo of the model taken with the camera slightly below the waterline, and slightly tilted, would tend to make the transom look taller for its breadth.  But that isn't enough to explain all the difference in proportions - and certainly doesn't explain the discrepancy in the number of windows.

But the decorations certainly seem to have a common heritage.  The reclining figures on the taffrail, and the central figure of Louis in his chariot, are too similar for coincidence.

It's certainly possible that the Musee de la Marine model, on the one hand, and the Boussac and Berain drawings, on the other, represent different ships.  (Two ships of the same name might well have had carvings of Louis in his chariot on their transoms.)  The article by Mr. Romaniak, a link to which Bryan kindly posted on the first page of this thread, implies another plausible explanation:  that the ship underwent a major rebuild in which the stern was heavily modified. 

That sort of thing certainly wasn't unknown, during the seventeenth century and later.  (The Sovereign of the Seas came out of a "great rebuild" looking like a different ship, and H.M.S. Victory's transom was dramatically altered at least once during her long active career.)  Perhaps what we're looking at are "before and after" views of a stern that got rebuilt - perhaps with some of the original carvings surviving the process, and others not. 

That, however, is complete speculation on my part.  I really wish a qualified French naval historian (somebody of the stature of Jean Boudriot) would do a thorough search of the extant primary sources and publish a detailed study of this ship - and whatever other vessels carried the same name.  A set of modern drawings of her, to the standard of M. Boudriot's reconstruction of the Bonhomme Richard, would, quite apart from its contribution to scholarship, be a thing of great beauty. 

As someone just getting back into building sailing ship models. one question, when will this thread get back on the topic "Heller Soleil Royal..... the ultimate building guide." Beginners need help as there are very few styrene sailing models left and, it looks like, few or none to come. 

Can those experts who have built  the SR and are knowledgeable of the many errors currently listed, please help the ignorant like myself.  This is "one hell of a box of plastic".  It can be improved, everything can.

I don't know jtilley, but based on the determination and expertise in all his writings I have been fortunate enough to read, he is probably out at a hobby shop right now buying another Heller SR  kit and getting ready to build it in superb fashion and surprise us all!!  Whaddya think?? 

Bill

Well, this thread has finally produced a question I can answer definitively.  Saddletramp - I can tell you with virtual certainty that jtilley is NEVER going to buy, much less build, another Heller Soleil Royal.   If I ever tackle another Heller kit, it'll be the galley Reale (which I have in the attic, as a matter of fact), or maybe - just conceivably, after I retire seven or eight years down the road - the Victory.  Both those kits are scale models.  But the Soleil Royal - never again.  Once is enough. 

There are, indeed, too few really good plastic scale model sailing ship kits out there, but there probably are enough to keep me busy for the rest of my time on the Orb.  I also have a scratchbuilt project in progress, and ideas for several more down the road.

I'll say it again:  we all build models for our own reasons, and anybody who wants to take on this kit has my best wishes.  But it's not for me.

jtilley wrote:

But the decorations certainly seem to have a common heritage.  The reclining figures on the taffrail, and the central figure of Louis in his chariot, are too similar for coincidence. It's certainly possible that the Musee de la Marine model, on the one hand, and the Boussac and Berain drawings, on the other, represent different ships.  (Two ships of the same name might well have had carvings of Louis in his chariot on their transoms.)  The article by Mr. Romaniak, a link to which Bryan kindly posted on the first page of this thread, implies another plausible explanation:  that the ship underwent a major rebuild in which the stern was heavily modified.  That sort of thing certainly wasn't unknown, during the seventeenth century and later.  (The Sovereign of the Seas came out of a "great rebuild" looking like a different ship, and H.M.S. Victory's transom was dramatically altered at least once during her long active career.)  Perhaps what we're looking at are "before and after" views of a stern that got rebuilt - perhaps with some of the original carvings surviving the process, and others not.

Even lesser warships of Louis XIV navy had highly individualized decorative motifs.   So it seem unlikely that 2 pretigious 3 deckers would simultanously try to make do with the same motif.   The only scenario I can readily accept for 2 3 deckers ships sharing a same motif is if the first ships was built and then lost, and before the style in vogue has changed greatly, a second ship of the same name had been built to replace the first ship.   The style in vogue and the hull constructional technique weas changing fairly quickly at the end of 17th century.   Warship design and decoration probably changed more between 1660 and 1700 than between 1700 and 1800, so the service life of the first ship would have to be short.

I think Boussac drawing and the Maritime museum model mostly likely represent the same original piece of work.  Whether that original work was actually the real ship Soleil Royal of 1691 is hard to say.   It could be another inventive drawig now lost.    The discrepencies between the 2 works is probably mainly attributable to lack of rigorous accuracy on the part of one or the other of the representation.    It is also possible that the one representations is in fact based on the other, but with some licenses taken. 

This still does not explain the dramatically different Paris National Library drawing of Soleil Royal with  flatter sheer, low stern and rounded, enclosed quarter galleries.    I personally think that drawing shows a more probable configuration for a ship of 1690s than the open gallery design in Boussac drawing or Maritime Museum model.

Well, I've gotten to a point on the Royale that I'm going to snap a couple of pics, of which I'm sure more debate will be generated.  Please excuse the numerous paint errors that I need to touch up.  After staring at the hundreds of small details, my eyes start to hurt and my hand strays a bit.  But, I have finished 95% of the hull work and the guilding for one side of the gallery.  I loved the natural color pics, but had already started the gold, so I stuck with that.  All in all it has come out beautiful in my eyes and my son (who is working on a Cutty Sark in a bottle while I work on the SR) is just amazed at how the ship looks.

Talking about the gallerys.  It is quite ironic, and more than a bit funny that the galleries are enclosed.  The reasons that Heller did this will forever remain unclear, but the funny part is that the cover art on the box, which shows the ship from aft, clearly has open galleries.  So this is sort of an admittance by Heller themselves that the stern was wrong.  Perhaps it was a cost issue, or maybe just an oversight, but, all in all, the ship is still quite beautiful.

JTilley, even though you'll never build the ship again, I wonder what you could do with a kit like the Royale.  And let me know when you start the Reale.  I'm chomping at the bit to start on mine.  I'll probably take a break from the Royale while I wait for the Spritsail Topmast book (an obvious xmas gift).  I was going to tackle a Revell 1:96 Constitution, but then my wife dropped the Heller Reale in my lap.  An extraordinary kit, though the sails will obviously have to be replaced with cloth.

I meant to put pics up this morning, but I couldn't find my SD memory for my camera.  After class and work I'll take some pics and hopefully have some up tonight.  As I've already said with certain paranoia and dread, don't laugh too hard....

Another question.  I have not rigged the guns.  In reality, there are really not that many guns to rig, but I just decided not to do it.  I do have time to change my mind.  What would be the best way to approach it?  It seems all the eyelets I have found, while good enough for normal rigging, are just too out of scale for rigging the cannon.  And I'm talking about simple rigging, not all the blocks and tackle I have seen on some builds.

Grymm

Hi guys,

Yesterday I bought the 'Soleil Royal' kit from a lady whose husband passed away and wanted to get rid of it. Most of the content is still in sealed bags, though the paperwork of the kit is missing. Does anyone of you happen to have the plans etc. digitized or have the possibility to do so? Or should I get rid of the kit? Either way, it would be best to have plans with it. I also bought the Heller 1/150 Cap Horn from the lady. Any comments on that kit? Many thanks in advance.

Well, my comments earlier in this thread probably make my opinion of the Heller Soleil Royal pretty clear.  I wouldn't have the...thing...in my house.  But quite a few other people seem to like it - and still others, while acknowledging its extremely serious flaws, note that there's nothing else quite like it on the market and put up with them.  The earlier posts in this thread should give you plenty of opinions to consider in forming your own.

I'm not sure, but I believe the Cap Horn is a reissue of Heller's earlier Passat and Pamir kits.  The latter two German barques were near sisters; using the same moldings for them was reasonable.  On more than one occasion Heller created fictitious French names for models of ships of other nations, presumably to improve sales in the French market.  (I believe they actually reissued Aurora's ancient Cutty Sark with a French name.)

I bought the Heller Pamir a long time ago and was pretty impressed with it - though I don't think I ever got around to building it.  As I remember, it was reasonably accurate in its overall shapes and reasonably well detailed.  The big problem - which wasn't entirely Heller's fault - was that those enormous German steel sailing ships had so many complicated mechanical details that were hard to represent realistically on such a small scale.  (A key feature of such ships, for example, was the famous Jarvis brace winch.  On 1/150 scale, a Jarvis brace winch is less than half an inch square.  Heller's renditions of the brace winches on that model weren't bad, but they were barely recognizable.)  The other thing I remember about that kit was a typical Hellerism - a skilled artisan's misinterpretation of a detail because he didn't understand it.  Somebody came up with the not-bad idea of representing the jackstay eyebolts on the yards as little, stepped rectangular blocks, with instructions to glue pieces of thread between them to represent the jackstays themselves.  Not a bad idea - but somebody put the "eyebolts" on the fronts of the yards.  (There should be two rows on each yard - one on top, for the sailors to hang onto, and one 45 degrees forward of it, to take the head of the sail.  A jackstay on the front of a yard would look ridiculous.)  Not hard to fix, but silly.  Bottom line:  the kit could be turned into an extremely impressive scale model, but only with a great deal of demanding, repetitive work.

Caveat:  all this assumes the Cap Horn is in fact a reissue of the Pamir/Passat kit.  I may well be mistaken about that; maybe either Michel vrtg or EPinniger can correct me.

As far as I know, the Cap Horn is not based on the Pamir/Passat kit but on the Preussen kit. Whlie Preussen was a 5-masted fully-rigged ship, Heller changed the model to a 5-masted barque, but I am pretty sure there was no such thing as a french half-sister to the Preussen, so everything jtilley said about Heller´s strange re-naming practice does still apply. I have never owned the Preussen kit, but judging from built-up photos it seems to be very similar to the Passat kits in terms of overall quality except that it has no blocks or other rigging details included.

I´m not sure if Heller had intended to sell the Preussen as a different kit right away from the start - if not, there should be some some "surplus" yards left and maybe you can "reconstruct" the Cap Horn to accurately represent the square-rigged Preussen.   

Greavis wrote:

Hi guys, Yesterday I bought the 'Soleil Royal' kit from a lady whose husband passed away and wanted to get rid of it. Most of the content is still in sealed bags, though the paperwork of the kit is missing. Does anyone of you happen to have the plans etc. digitized or have the possibility to do so? Or should I get rid of the kit? Either way, it would be best to have plans with it. I also bought the Heller 1/150 Cap Horn from the lady. Any comments on that kit? Many thanks in advance.   Luc

 

Yes.  I have the Plans in French.    I can either digitize it and send it on a CD, or photo copy it and ship it by mail.   Whichever you like..

I am having a blast with this kit.  I'm not any kind of huge historian, so the accuracy of the ship debate is irrelevant to me.  I just love to build and this kit is beautiful and will test your painting skills.  You'll love building this kit.  Don't get rid of it.

I have the instructions.  They are in french with english translations in the back.  If the other poster for some reason can't get them to you, I'll see about getting mine copied for you.  Just let me know.

Grymm

I'm sure honneamise is correct about the origins of the "Cap Horn" kit - i.e., that it's a reboxing of the Preussen, rather than the Pamir/Passat. 

I never bought the Heller Preussen, but I do recall reading some favorable reviews of it.  I imagine it used some detail parts from the Pamir/Passat kit.  In this case that's probably legitimate; many of the deck machinery parts and fittings were pretty standardized in those days.  I do wonder, though, if somebody removed those ridiculous "eyebolts" from the fronts of the yards.

Back to the Soleil Royal - Grymm's enthusiasm not withstanding, whether you'd like the kit or not really depends on what your hobby is.  A serious scale ship modeler is likely to regard the kit as a piece of extravagantly-priced junk; it doesn't meet most reasonable definitions of the term "scale model," as it's normally applied to aircraft, railroads, cars, armor, modern warships, etc.  Earlier in this thread (and on several other threads in this Forum) you'll find some lengthy descriptions of the kit's numerous flaws in terms of historical accuracy.  In other phases of scale modeling, a list of mistakes like that would make serious modelers avoid such a kit like the plague.  Sailing ship modeling, on the other hand, includes - and welcomes - a considerable number of people to whom scale accuracy doesn't seem to matter much.  That's certainly their privilege.  The kit can be made into a nice living room decoration that, in the eyes of most people, will look pretty much like a seventeenth-century French warship.  If that's what you're after in the hobby - by all means build the kit, and enjoy it.  I bought mine (many years ago) on the naive assumption that the finished product was going to be a scale model.  During the two years or so that I worked on it I gradually became aware that it wasn't any such thing, and by the time I was finished I wished I'd never bought it.  I still do. 

An analogy:  the Heller Soleil Royal resembles a real ship about as much as a Lionel O-27 steam locomotive resembles a real steam locomotive.  (Well, maybe the Soleil Royal is on a slightly higher level than that - but not much.)  Lionel trains have provided a tremendous amount of pleasure and satisfaction to thousands - maybe millions - of people over the decades.  I wouldn't suggest for an instant that the world stop buying Lionel trains.  Generations of Americans have gotten their introduction to the concept of the railroad from Lionel.  But every adult model railroader knows those things are not scale replicas of the real things.  A big Lionel layout, with trains running around it full tilt, lights flashing, and varous thingamajigs whirring, is a fascinating, beautiful thing, and a great exercise in nostalgia.  But surely nobody thinks it looks like a real railroad.

Maybe we need some new vocabulary to talk about such things.  The model railroaders make a non-critical distinction between "model railroads" and "toy trains."  Perhaps we need some similar distinction to cover the differences between the Heller Soleil Royal and, say, the Revell Constitution (which certainly has its share of flaws, but is a genuine scale model).  To call the Heller Soleil Royal a "toy ship" seems a little harsh, but probably describes the thing more accurately than calling it a "scale ship model" does.

I obviously harbor a rather intense dislike for the Heller Soleil Royal kit.  In my opinion Heller, in promoting it as a scale model of an actual ship, is (or was) perpetrating an act of deception against the public.  (An interesting question is whether the people who designed it knew how inaccurate it was.  My guess is that they didn't.  Anybody who puts sharp points on belaying pins, and doesn't know that yards are supposed to be fastened to masts, clearly doesn't know much about ships.)  I don't suggest that, because I don't like the kit, nobody else should build it.  I do think, though, that potential builders of it ought to enter the project with their eyes wide open.

Thank you all for the info and the offers to help me out. Some great person I found online bought an extra kit to have 'extras' to build the first kit, so he has two sets of plans and will send me his spare set. By the time I arrive in the States, which will be Friday next week, the plans should have arrived at my mother-in-law's in PA. Greetings from Belgium.

Luc

JTilley, I respect both your ability and knowledge.  Though I build models for the "living room display", I consider myself in all respects a scale modeller, and a serious modeller at that.  Anyone who will put down over $100 for a pile of unassembled plastic has to be pretty serious about the hobby.  There are two camps, the accurist (as I will call them), and the realist.  Now, these may not seem appropriate terms to use, but let me explain. 

The accurist is a modeller concerned with the finest points of accuracy.  Everything is measured properly to ensure that scale is perfect.  Everything on the model must be as it was on it's real counterpart.  The colors are exact, there are no seams.  The accurist purcases a kit expecting to modify it, knowing that there is no truly accurate kit out there.  There is always something that must be modified, or added.  When an accurist finishes his kit (and many of these kits will take an accurist years to complete because the patience of the accurist is impeccable), the accurist can then point out any point on the model and give historical reference.  The accurist is also a historian, with virtually perfect knowledge about the entire historical period for the kit he/she built. 

The realist can most closely be associated with the average modeller, and the types of realists vary greatly, with dozens of levels of realist.  As knowledge and skill increase, the realist eventually arrives at the crossroads, deciding on whether to take the next step and become an accurist or not.  But, the realist buys a kit for a variety of reasons.  The realist can be driven emotionally, or the "Wow! That's cool looking" factor, or can be driven by the family factor as myself.  For me, an obvious realist, I originally got back into modelling, ship modelling in particular, because it has build a stronger connection between me and my step-son.  But, now the desire has elevated into a pure joy of the hobby itself. 

The realist can build for an enjoyment of the hobby itself, or for an understanding of the subject for which they build.  Accuracy is not at the forefront.  A realist buys a kit knowing it may or may not be accurate.  But many realists do not care.  They build for the sheer joy and self satisfaction, be it as a show piece in their living room, or as a gift for their child.  The realist can also practice the habits of an accurist or not.  A realist is not so concerned with the historical accuracy of their subject as they are with the presentation of the finished product.  I equate it to a child and a coloring book.  A non hobbyist just scribbles all over the page.  The realist wants to make sure they keep the colors inside the lines and that it looks presentable.  The accurist has to make sure that the red on santa's coat is the proper red, but also had to draw in an extra button on his coat in order to make it accurate.

Realist or accurist, both camps are serious modellers.  Personally, I will never say that anyone here, or anyone in the hobby itself is anything but serious, especially taking into account the money, time, and hard work everyone puts into these ships.  Soleil Royal, Victory, Constitution, Cutty Sark....these are all detailed kits that take a lot of hard work.  We are all serious modellers.  

While not the most accurate kit in the world, I do recommend the Soleil Royal.  It is a beautiful kit and will test your painting skills.  Now, I wouldn't expect it to be put on display in a national museum as a representation of the actual ship.  But out of all the modellers in this world, only a few build kits of that calibur.  Here on the forum, the vast majority of modellers that actually make posts are home builders, but experienced builders.  All of the people here build beautiful kits and I find myself staring at the builds in amazement every time I'm here, wondering if I'll ever reach that level of skill.  The rendition of the Black Pearl stands out in my mind.  It's one beautiful build. 

But I often wonder about the modellers in the shadows.  These are the modellers who are too nervous or apprehensive to make a post.  These are the modellers who won't post pictures of their builds out of fear of ridicule.  I often wonder if sometimes these modellers become so intimidated that they don't make a post, or even abandon the hobby, thinking that they can never achieve what some forum members do with ease.  I hope these modellers in the shadows do make posts.  Like I said, we're all serious modellers.  Whether you build out of worry of scale or not is irrellevant.  That you do build, for whatever reason, is what matters.  Model building is good therapy, builds hand/eye skills, and in my case, brings a father closer to a child.

Here on the Finescale forums you will find accurists and realists.  They are both needed in this hobby, and neither is more important than the other.  Both camps have wonderful contributions to make to this craft.  Both are needed to keep this hobby alive, and I look forward to the posts everyone has to make.  If anyone out there is hesitant about contributing to the forum, please post.  I look forward to reading your input, and seeing your builds.

JTilley, one day, I would like to buy you lunch.  I would love to spend an hour or two talking about the age of sail.  I have a lot to learn and you would be a wonderful mentor....and I'll try and stay away from the subject of the Soleil Royal.... : )

To everyone....build and enjoy.

Grymm

So anyway, back on subject.  I do find this thread fascinating. 

So, what need be done to bring the Heller Soleil Royal up to....um....snuff?  There is the obvious issue of the Parrels, which, for most, is easy enough to correct.  But, for the Seventeenth century, what type of Parrel should be used?  From everything I've seen, the bead-type Parrel is of the late 17 or early 1800's.  How should the yards on the Royal be attached to the masts?  I am virtually done with the hull, so having a simple-yet-sort-of-accurate method of attaching the yards to the mast would be of some value to me, though spending money on aftermarket parts is not possible at this time.

But, what other issues are there with the kit that literally anyone can, for lack of a better word, fix?  I've read here on other threads of issues with the hull and that the masts are a bit tall, but I'm not sure of what other issues exist. 

As for mast height, where should the masts be cut?  Looking at the kit, from my inexperienced eye, the masts look fine, though I know I must be wrong.

Grymm

You'll find a table of representative spar dimensions, including the variations from nation to nation, in Dr. Anderson's Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast.  Not having the kit in front of me, I can't advise how far off the spar dimensions in it are - if at all.  My recollection is that the topmasts are too long - but I could be mistaken about that.

It's supposed to be possible to install and strike the topmasts using the gear in the ship, without help from any equipment on shore.  The topmast, therefore, has to be of such a length that it can be stood on the deck in front of the lower mast, without the head of the topmast bumping into the top (the round platform at the head of the lower mast).  A pair of heavy tackles called topropes run over a pair of "sheaves" in the lower cap (the odd-shaped gadget that sits on top of the lower masthead), and run down through a pair of sheaves built into the heel of the topmast, then up the other side of the lower mast to be secured to an eyebolt underneath the other side of the lower cap.  Heaving on the end of the toprope makes the topmast slide upward; its head passes through the round hole in the cap, and the topmast keeps going until the square portion at its heel slips into place in the square hole in the top.  Then a wood fitting called a fid is hammered into a smaller, horizontal hole in the heel of the topmast, the topropes are slacked off, and the weight of the topmast is taken by the fid.

One characteristic of French rigging (which Dr. Anderson explains in much more detail) was the shape of the cap.  A French cap has a big, distinct, round hump in its after half, with a pair of grooves in it.  Those grooves form the "sheaves" over which the topropes passed.  (In some cases there may have been a genuine sheave, with an axle, built into the cap.)  The typical English cap was a simple oblong shape with a pair of holes in it (one square, for the lower masthead; one round, for the topmast) and four eybolts in its underside.  Two of the eyebolts took the bitter ends of the topropes; the other two had big single blocks hooked in them, and the blocks performed the same function as the grooves over the tops of the caps in French ships.  The English apparently were in the habit of setting up  the topropes only when hoisting or striking the topmasts; French ships seem to have left their topropes set up all the time.

My recollection (which is old and unreliable) is that the Heller topmasts are so long that the topmasts won't fit between the deck and the tops.  That obviously can't be right.

This sort of thing is pretty fundamental to understanding how the rigging of a ship works - the sort of thing that the people who designed the Heller kit apparently did not understand.  (There's ample evidence in that kit that its designers simply did not understand the basic principles of rigging.  They learned something about it before they designed their H.M.S. Victory, though the rigging diagrams in that kit have more than their share of silly, irrational mistakes.) 

I say again:  if you want to understand how the real thing worked, you just plain need to get at least one book about the subject and read it.  In this particular case, the Anderson book is the one to get - maybe as a second book, after Campbell's Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay. 

For the record, in fifty years of ship modeling I've never built one in which "everything is measured accurately to ensure that the scale is perfect," or "everything is...as it was on its real counterpart," or "the colors are exact."  (Nobody knows enough about pre-twentieth-century ships to establish their colors with the accuracy that airplane, armor, and modern warship modelers take for granted.)  Nor would I claim for an instant that my "patience is impeccable."  (To me, patience, per se, is a relatively minor part of the hobby.  The guy who stands at a machine all day, month after month, stamping out thousands of identical parts has patience.  The secretary who sits at a desk typing from dictation forty hours a week has patience.  Ship modeling does involve some repetition, and that's the part of the hobby I like least.  But it's a relatively small part of the total picture.)  I'm not as easily pleased by ship models as some people, but a really good one has at least as much of a "wow factor" for me as it does for anybody else - maybe more.  I have to accept the "historian" label; if I didn't, the state of North Carolina would be reluctant to pay my salary.  But I know lots of outstanding scale modelers who wouldn't dream of calling themselves historians.  It's difficult, if not impossible, to be a serious scale ship modeler without reading books, but the hobby most emphatically does not require a college degree in history. 

It's certainly true that no kit is perfect.  They all make compromises, either in order to be "buildable" by the average purchaser, or because of the limitations of the media, or because of financial considerations.  That's largely why some modelers refuse to have anything to do with kits at all, claiming that the only "real" model is the scratch-built model.  I obviously don't take that position. 

The difference between a good scale model kit and a bad one is, obviously, largely a difference of degree.  Each modeler has to decide just where the line between acceptability and unacceptability lies.  To me personally, for instance, the Revell 1/32-scale Japanese Zero is an unacceptable kit; the Hasegawa one is better than acceptable; and the Tamiya one is outstanding.  (Geez, I wish I could afford it.)  I rather suspect that a large percentage of experienced aircraft modelers would agree with that assessment - though some would probably say I'm being too easy on Hasegawa.  And the Heller Victory is better than acceptable.  If I were interested in building a model of that ship, that's the kit I'd buy.  (I'd certainly choose it over any of the dozen or so HECEPOB Victory kits.)  The Heller Soleil Royal, on the other hand, lies considerably below the line.  Again, I'm struck by the inconsistent standards of different genres within the hobby.  It represents reality less accurately than that poor old Revell Zero does.  It suffers from so many mistakes that it almost literally would be easier to start from scratch.  And it's ludicrously obvious (now; I obviously didn't realize it when I bought mine, those many years ago) that the people who designed it simply didn't know what they were doing.   That's why, knowing what I know now (and didn't know thirty years ago), I wouldn't consider buying such a thing.

I certainly agree that it would be nice if sailing ship modelers had the choices available to them that the aircraft, armor, and modern warship modelers do.  (Who would have dreamed that the day would come when we could pick between 1/700 Essex-class carriers from three manufacturers?)  If the plastic sailing ship kit had evolved like its counterparts in those other areas have, we'd have a beautiful, accurate Mary Rose,  Sovereign of the Seas, H.M.S. Prince, H.M.S. Resolution, H.M.S. Centurian, Santissima Trinidad, Flying Cloud, Archibald Russell, and heaven knows what others to choose from. Tamiya and Dragon would be competing to see who could make the best 1/96-scale blocks and deadeyes, and the aftermarket companies would be deluging us with resin and photo-etched brass aftermarket parts specifically designed for the latest plastic ships to come on the market.  And the Heller Soleil Royal, like the Revell Zero, would be regarded as a 30-year-old piece of garbage by comparison.  And ship modelers would be dismissing it with the same sort of language they currently apply to the Heller 1/400 H.M.S. Hood (which was released at about the same time - and is, in most respects, slightly better in terms of accuracy).  Unfortunately, the kit manufacturers have abandoned us.  The difference between Grymm and me seems to be that he thinks that particular kit is worth buying and building anyway.  I don't.

And it's a difference we'll probably always have.  I'm just much more tolerant of the much-maligned Soleil Royal.  It is an exercise in painting that I have enjoyed to no end.  And the look on my boys face makes the ship's deficiencies all but dissappear.  The kit has him interested in it's history.  If for nothing else, the Soleil Royal has served a greater purpose.  My boys education and wisdom. 

I am waiting on the Anderson book to get into rigging her, which is why I've started on the Reale.  The Anderson book will be of help, though I'm not sure if I'm up to trimming the topmasts.  I'm not ready for somthing like that.  But, the knowledge of that type of ship will at least help me understand a little more.

Is there a record of the French rules of proportion? They should tell you the approximate size of the spars is such a thing is available. Otherwise maybe use the English rules. I won't tell.

To my knowledge, the "standard" spar proportions quoted in books on this period are generally those that twentieth-century historians have worked out on the basis of contemporary drawings and models.  In later periods some standardized tables of dimensions and proportions come into play - but not, so far as I know, in the seventeenth century.  That's what makes the books by such scholars as James Lees and R.C. Anderson so valuable to modern modelers. 

For this particular project, Anderson is the guy to consult.  The first four chapters of his book cover all the basic dimensions and proportions one needs to build a good-looking, well-balanced model.  (Caveat:  there's no guarantee that those dimensions will be exactly those of the real ship.  But they'll be close.)  In The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, Dr. Anderson discusses at length what he was able to figure out about the nationalistic differences - the French style, the Dutch style, etc.  (Bear in mind that the book was originally published in 1927.  A few additional models and drawings undoubtedly have turned up since then, but I have the impression that Anderson's conclusions are still pretty much accepted.  I certainly wouldn't contradict Anderson if I didn't have a mighty impressive reason to do so.)  A few years later he published a revised version, under the title Seventeenth Century Rigging.  That book is, essentially, the earlier work with the non-English references deleted, on the assumption (as the author explains in his introduction) that the vast majority of his readers will be building models of English ships. 

When I built my awful model of the Soleil Royal, about thirty years ago, the second Anderson volume was the only one in print.  I probably included some characteristically English features in my model without knowing it.  (I suspect that, compared to the blunders Heller committed in designing the kit, those goofs were relatively minor.  But I take responsibility for them.)  Fortunately for modelers, in 1994 Dover Books published a lovely, low-priced paperback edition of the first Anderson book.  (The low price shows up in the reproductions of the photos, which are small and, in some cases, kind of murky.  But that's a minor complaint.)  That edition is now widely available through, among other places, Model Expo and Barnes & Noble.  (I bought my like-new used paperback copy through B&N for $8.00.)  That's the book Soleil Royal modelers need to get.

I have recently had the opportunity to go to the Musee National de la Marine, where I took pains to photograph the original S/R model as well as several other exquisit large scale models of late 17th early 18th century French warships in that museum.   Obviously persepctive makes exact measurements of dimensions from photos impossible.  But I took pains to photograph each from as far as possible, using f/2.8 telephoto lenses to minimize perspective distortion.

The conclusions I've drawn are:

1.  The hull proportion and shape of the that fabulous 19th century Soleil Royal model was reasonably accurately reproduced by Heller.   What is more, models of other French 3 deckers of the period, some of which had extraordinary pedigrees, including being used official proposal model for new ships, as instruction models to demonstrate features of the warship to Louis XV himself, and some that were built up timber by timber and plank by plank as exact reproduction of existing ships; all had proportions not far different from the Soleil Royal.    So I submit that using Victory's known proportions to estimate the probably reliability of S/R's dimensions is probably not advised.    French warships of late 17th and early 18th century probably did have a different hull proportion compare to better known late 18th, early 19th century ships, and Heller was probably not far off.

2.  All the models of French warships from late 17th and early 18th centuries show extensive gilding and very little painting on their decorative elements.   The statues were not painted on any of the models.   They were all gilded.   Furthermore, there is direct evidence that this is not mere model builder's convention.     The museum featured a spectacular display of the elaborate surviving stern carvings of the Galley Reale from the same period.    These were wholly gilded, with not a inch of paint visible.    Area of paint only began to expand during middle of 18th century.

3.  The model of the Soleil Royal in the museum was based on preserved plans submitted by one well known naval architect, but it is not clear if that was the plan used by the actual ship.    What is more, Museum literatured stated that there were 2 Soleil Royals built between 1660 and 1700.    This is a point not mentioned in any English literature I've seen.    So even if the model does represent one Soleil Royal, it is still not clear which one.

4.  Oh, the Museum model of Soleil Royal, exquisit though she was, is unfinished.  There is no deck furniture, no rigging at all, no great center lantern on the stern, and the beakhead is incomplete.   Everything from the upper deck upwards Heller probably made up.     The Museum's other, completed, largescale model of the 120 gunner Louis (The model was a favorit of King Louis XV himself) from very early 18th century suggests Heller probably got everything wrong from deck furniture upwards.

I think Chuckfan has it about right - with the additional observation that, as he noted in an earlier post, Heller also got the guns completely wrong.  I continue to have reservations about the underwater hull, but the problem may indeed stem, at least in part, from the waterline being marked in the wrong place.  (I'm not sure how the Victory got into this discussion, but I certainly agree that her hull proportions have nothing to do with those of a French ship of nearly a century earlier.) 

The lastest issue of Ships in Scale magazine contains an ad (from Pier Books) announcing a new book by Jean Boudriot, in which he discusses in detail some specific models in the Musee de la Marine.  I haven't seen the book - and the price, $95.00, is beyond me at the moment.  I hope, though, that the Soleil Royal model is among those covered.  M. Boudriot is the dean of the history of French naval architecture during the sailing ship period; I'd be most interested to read what he has to say about this model, and the ship herself (or the ships themselves, as the case may be).  The concept of a book about the models in a maritime museum is a fine one.  (Would that somebody would publish such a work about the "Hull model" of the Consitution at Salem.)  Maybe I can talk the university library into ordering a copy.

With that, I think maybe it's time for me to drop out of this thread.  I suspect everybody who has any interest in my opinion of this kit knows by now what that opinion is, and is sick of reading about it.  I contend that, by the standards of serious scale modeling - as practiced by experienced sailing ship modelers, and by modelers of virtually all other subjects discussed in this Forum - the thing isn't worth buying or building.  An aircraft, tank, or modern warship kit of equivalent quality (and age) would be regarded by the participants in those sections of the Forum as a curious, overpriced antique, and they'd warn newcomers to avoid it.  It's obvious that some people in this section of the Forum disagree; great.  Discussions like this, as I understand it, are why sites like this exist.

Well JTilley, I hope you will at least be available for questions regarding matters of rigging at the very least.  While my knowledge of the subject and task is growing, as is my skill, there are certain areas where I still lack.  You're skill in this area would be very beneficial, regardless of the subject being built.  From your standpoint at least, consider this infamous kit good exercise for me to build up skills for the inevitable day I begin to tackle Heller's Victory, which sits in my closet as we speak.

As always, your input and dedication to the craft and subject matter is impeccable.

Grymm

jtilley wrote:

An aircraft, tank, or modern warship kit of equivalent quality (and age) would be regarded by the participants in those sections of the Forum as a curious, overpriced antique, and they'd warn newcomers to avoid it.

I don't really want to add any more controversy or argument to this discussion, but it seems to me like there is another factor involved: the Soleil Royal, however bad it is, is the only large (by sailing ship modelling standards) scale kit of its subject - a 17th-century ship of the line - in existence. The number of plastic sailing warship kits in 1/96 and 1/100 scale can be counted on two fingers anyway!
There are very few cases of this sort of thing with aircraft and armour (one notable exception is the M50 Ontos, where the only kit available is a rare 1960s-vintage 1/32 Renwal kit. There was a discussion on the FSM armour/military forum a while ago (last year I think) about this vehicle, and at least one member said that they were building it by detailing and correcting the Renwal kit) 1/700 warship modellers are nearly as well catered for, though the range of 1/350 ships is still fairly limited.

Although I am only a "casual" modeller of sailing ships (and have no particular intention of buying any of the big sailing ship kits - Heller Victory, Revell Constitution etc., let alone the Soleil Royal - I'm happy with the smaller Airfix, Revell and Heller sailing ships in 1/150 to 1/200), this is a situation quite familiar to me, as my preferred ship modelling scales are 1/72, 1/144, 1/200 and thereabouts, and other than subs, torpedo boats (and  thanks to Trumpeter, modern Chinese and Soviet warships) this scale range is nearly as neglected as sailing ships nowadays. Most of the kits in scales like this are 1960s-vintage or at most 1970s.
As an example, I am currently building the Lindberg 1/125 Fletcher-class destroyer. It requires a huge amount of scratchbuilding and extra detail, but, other than a very expensive resin kit, is the only big kit of a Fletcher there is, and the only WW2 destroyer of any kind in larger than 1/200 scale. (I actually think it might have been easier to start from scratch, but when I originally bought this kit, nearly a year ago, I didn't have sufficient skill to scratchbuild a ship model this large and complex; it's only via scratchbuilding details and parts for kits that I've built up the skills to build complete models from scratch)

Dear Forum Members,

This is among the most fascinating and most educative threads I've ever read in the forum, I thank all of you who contributed to the clarification about the details of that important warship.

 I have a question, not directly related but anyway... As we know, by the time Soleil Royale was built, warship building was standardized in europe with french leading the way. Many nations did copy french designs and master shipwrights from all over europe were studying in France. I wonder if there could be a possibility that foreign similars of Soleil Royale should have been built. I researched the danish naval museum's fascinating online catalogue of draughts and some danish first rates seemed to resemble too much to Soleil Royale's lines. I suspect that Spain might also have built SoLs along french lines including first rates. Do you have any idea ?? 

The Swedish built the 90 gun ship Konung Karl of 1683 to a design of French origin.   

BTW, did the Spanish built real 3 deckers during the 17th century?   I thought the first true Spanish 3 decker 1st rate was the Real Filippe built during the 1730s.

 

 

 

Not sure if same already posted here, but for modellers willing to build SR following rigging details might be useful (for French three-decker Royal Louis 1692):

http://www.modelships.de/San_Felipe_1690_authenticity/gDSC01680.JPG

 

More plans available here:

http://www.modelships.de/San_Felipe_1690_authenticity/San_Felipe_1690_authenticity.htm