Just got my new Heller Soleil Royal

Grymm wrote:

As for me, I build for the enjoyment.  My focus in every day life is stronger and more refined when I work on models.   The Royal, for all its faults, is still beautiful.  My son went crazy when he saw it.  We're both into the old sailing vessels.   He can't wait to help me with it.  And that makes this kit, for me, the best kit in the world.

Hi Grymm,

That's a great approach to have with this hobby. I got back into the hobby a few years ago after a 25 year hiatus. It does indeed help "center" yourself. I'm very glad I got back into it. The main thing is to build what you want and have fun doing it. That's all that matters unless you are building something for a client or museum. Sorry I can't be of much help to you on the kit, I build mostly WW I and WW II  ships.  I do have the Heller Victory in my stash, taunting me to take it on some day. I'm sure I can handle it, but not sure I want to commit to a 2 to 3 year build at this point.

Building the kit with your son is a wonderful thing. My Dad never went in much for modeling, but I did build a sailing ship with my Mom when I was a kid. We built the old Revell Charles W Morgan whaler together. Even though I am now in middle age, I never forgot the experience. I'm sure your son won't either. It's such a pleasant memory, that I happened to see the exact kit we built on eBay. I just HAD to get it for nostaglia reasons. I don't know if I'll ever build it, but just seeing the kit makes me smile.

Good luck and have a great time ! You're creating a great memory.

Ted

Grymm - we're on the same page.  Each modeler needs to set his/her priorities.  I just don't want to see anybody go into an enormous project like that without knowing what he/she is getting into.

The Heller Victory and La Reale are indeed better kits.  (This Forum contains several threads dealing with the former.)  I especially like La Reale.  I'm no expert on French galleys, but it certainly matches the drawings and artwork I've seen - and the "carved" decorations are just as well-executed (and almost as numerous) as those of the Soleil Royal.

Unfortunately La Reale seems to be out of production; if you find one my suggestion is to grab it.  The "new" Airfix 1/100 Victory is a repackaging of the Heller one.  One point to consider:  folks who've bought the Victory recently report that the plastic is brittle and prone to serious warping.  That wasn't always the case.  If I were in the market for a Heller Victory I'd try to find an older one - either in an old, well-stocked hobby shop, on the Web, or at a flea market or auction.

Regarding the kit blocks and deadeyes vs. aftermarket replacements - there's no need to make any decisions about that at the moment.  But be warned:  the only way to make the kit parts work would be to file a groove around every one of them.  And there are several hundred.

As for ratlines - we've discussed that subject in the Forum several times too.  My own opinion, based on 50 years of ship modeling, is that the Great Ratline Problem is a hoax perpetrated on innocent consumers by ship model kit manufacturers.  Rigging ratlines to scale actually isn't hard.  It takes a fair amount of time, but nowhere near as much as many people seem to think - and probably not much longer than using any of those jigs and other gadgets would take.   If you haven't started the kit yet, you're months away from having to worry about ratlines.  When you get to that point, you may want to look over this Forum and see how other folks have dealt with the problem.  It really doesn't need to be intimidating.  If you can put all those guns together, you have the necessary dexterity to rig ratlines. 

Regarding gold leaf - I tried it on my Soleil Royal, and didn't like it.  (Admittedly I built the kit about 25 years ago, and some new products have come on the market since then.)  I found there were a couple of major problems.  First, in order to work properly the gold leaf itself has to be laid on a smooth coat of sizing, plus the adhesive varnish - and each additional coat of anything, of course, tends to obscure the detail of those beautiful castings.  Second, though gold leaf is extremely thin (about a millionth of an inch, as I understand it), I found that the tiny compound curves on those Heller parts were too much for it.  The finished product had a slightly powdery appearance - not the shiny, shimmering, metallic look I had in mind.  When I compared a trial run with gold leaf to a similar sample of Humbrol gold enamel, the Humbrol won out:  it actually looked considerably brighter, smoother, and more metallic. 

The nicest-looking gold hobby paint I've ever encountered was made by a now-defunct British company called Rose Miniatures.  It came in two parts:  a small vial of metallic powder and a bottle of amber-colored varnish.  The modeler mixed the two together, and the results were great.  Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything of that nature for many years.  I've found "gold powder" and varnish in art supply stores, but it's all been considerably coarser than the old Rose product.  The gold paints made by firms like Humbrol and Testor's, though, are actually mighty good.  Maybe you'll have better luck with gold leaf than I did, but I do suggest doing some samples with various other products and comparing the results before you commit yourself.

If you have a twelve-year-old who's interested in ship modeling, you're an extremely lucky man.  My efforts to get my stepkids interested in model building - or any other constructive leisure-time activity - were among my more dismal failures.  However that model comes out (and I suspect it will be spectacular), every hour you and your son spend on it will be an hour well spent - and an hour I'll envy.  Good luck.

Hmmmm.   Interesting.   While I would agree that, for the historical afficianado, discovering the inaccuracies you describe would be very disconcerting.   But at the same time someone who is that "into" their models, the challenge of making it as accurate as possible would make up for a lot of the deficiencies.

As for me, I build for the enjoyment.  My focus in every day life is stronger and more refined when I work on models.   The Royal, for all its faults, is still beautiful.  My son went crazy when he saw it.  We're both into the old sailing vessels.   He can't wait to help me with it.  And that makes this kit, for me, the best kit in the world.

I'll be getting both the La Reale and Victory in the near future, before their prices start rising.  I've read they are much more accurate.   But then, of course, accuracy is always in question when it comes to a model kit.  There are things designers miss, and that they simply cannot do.  I'll still get my enjoyment, and the time mentoring my son.  That's what's important, to me, at least.

Thank you for the references for rigging and the sites to go to for the aftermarket parts you mentioned.  Though, I will probably try to use the parts with the kit first.   I'm stubborn that way.  

All in all, I'm impressed with the kit.  The level of detail is incredible, and I'll be pulling my hair out after painting my 50th cannon, but the end result will be beautiful.  I intend on using another skill of mine for the stern castle.  I'm experimenting with the plastic right now.  I will be doing all the gold sculpture with gold leaf.  Polished, it should look incredible.

The biggest concern I have is the rigging.  It will be a problem for me.  I've always had a problem making sure all the lines are taught.  And let's not even discuss the ratlines.  The jig included is a nice helper, but I'm unsure about how to tie off each horizontal rope, and tying off the end....I'm just not too up on it, though I will have to be.   It'll come to me eventually.

Thanks again.  I'll be posting pics as I do my work.  I'm not a master at this mind you.  You'll probably see some rough around the edges work from my 12 year old boy.  But those rough edges are memories for me to remember years from now.   But I will be posting some pics of how "Mr. Average" with the limited budget/time does it.

Hooo boy....We've discussed this kit several times in the Forum.  Here are links to three of those threads:

http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/559820/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/565324/ShowPost.aspx

http://www.finescale.com/FSM/CS/forums/571961/ShowPost.aspx

You'll see that there's some divergence of opinion about this kit - but everybody acknowledges that it has some serious problems in terms of historical accuracy.  My own, personal opinion is that it doesn't meet the definition of the term "scale model," and in honesty I can't recommend it.  

I'm not, however, suggesting that anybody refrain from building it just because I don't like it.  I firmly believe that such decisions ought to be entirely for the individual modeler to make.  But a project like this takes a long time - probably a couple of years, at least.  I vividly remember when I bought mine (at a price that was pretty staggering for a starving grad student), poured hundreds of hours of work into it, and discovered the numerous major inaccuracies in the kit when I was almost finished with it.  I felt like I'd been ripped off - and I don't think any modeler deserves that.  I wish somebody had warned me.

One point on which everybody seems to agree:  the English-language instructions are a scandal.  (Caveat:  I'm assuming the ones in Grymm's kit are the same ones that came with mine.  Maybe Heller fixed them, but on the basis of what other Forum members have said I don't think so.)  That document seems to have been written by somebody who neither understood French nor had attempted to build the model.  The rigging instructions - French and English both - are especially awful.  The people who designed this kit were superb artisans, but they didn't understand rigging.  (One of the kit's most ridiculous errors is its failure to provide any means of attaching the yards to the masts.  Nobody with even the most basic understanding of how a sailing ship works would make a blunder like that.)  To rig this model really requires some outside reading.  I recommend R.C. Anderson's The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast,  which is available in a low-priced paperback edition from places like Model Expo ( www.modelexpoonline.com ).

Another problem that's pretty much beyond argument:  the blocks and deadeyes don't work.   In a sense that isn't Heller's fault.  Injection-molded styrene is wonderful stuff, but it does have its limitations.  A block or a deadeye, by definition, has a groove around its circumference and at least one hole through it.  Styrene plastic has to be cast in rigid molds, and a rigid mold physically can't produce an object with a groove around it and a hole through it.  The kit blocks and deadeyes just about have to be replaced with aftermarket parts.  Several companies sell them; Model Expo has wood ones, and I'm a big fan of the britannia metal fittings sold by Bluejacket ( www.bluejacketinc.com ).  Unfortunately they're not cheap.  A reasonably full outfit of aftermarket rigging fittings for this model probably will cost more than the kit.  (That expense can, however, be spread out over a long time.  No need to buy all the blocks and deadeyes at once.)

Beyond that, I'll let the comments I made in those other Forum threads stand.  Please read what other members have said as well, and draw your own conclusions.  Bottom line:  in some ways it's a beautiful kit.  I once saw it described in an ad as "the gem of the plastic kit industry," and in some ways I agree.  As a scale model it has some pretty serious flaws.  Just how serious they are needs to be determined by the individual modeler - with eyes wide open. 

Anyway, good luck.  It's a great hobby.