This is the way we loom a shroud, loom a shroud, loom a shroud...

GeorgeW wrote:

I agree, I rigged my Soleil Royal entirely by reference to R.C. A nderson, an excellent book. ps: At least you're not concerned with Hammock netting on The Soleil Royal!

To do the Soleil's rigging right, it is in someways  more challenging than it would be for the Victory.    Victory's rigging benefits from an additional 100 years of rationalizing, simplification and streamlining compared to those of the Soleil.    In addition to having to do everything you would have to do in the Victory, the Soleil would also require tedious crowsfeet of each top platform,  square tied cartarpins undereach top platform,  the many complex stay arrangements with multiple load relieving pulleys.

BTW, one item of rigging, definitely used on both the Soleil and the Victory during battle, but which seem to have been overlooked in all models depicting either ship going into battle, are the splinter nettings rigged to cover the entire upper deck surface.   Splinter riggings are always rigged when a ship goes into battle.   It catches splinters, blocks, and other small rigging items that car constantly being shot loose from the rigging during battle, and keeps them from falling on the heads of the deck crew.    There are many contemporay drawings showing splinter netting over the quarterdeck.    Unfortunately none shows just how they are rigged.     Modern paintings of sailing ship battles seem to negliect them all together.    To this day I've never seen any discussion of just splinter nettings are actually rigged.

Any information on the splinter netting would be welcome.
 

I am grateful to everyone here (JTilley) and the other fantastic modellers here for all the input.  If I had the budget for the books you speak of (which I did make note of, for the future), I would purchase them in a heartbeat.  But our budget is tight right now since I'm back in school and living on my VA compensation and my wife's nursing job.  I know that using these reference materials would prove invaluable to my build of the Royal, but modelling is therapeutic for me (helps to forget the pain in my legs), so it is almost a necessity that I continue the build without the much needed reference material you describe.

So with that, I plunder into the darkness of the Heller Soleil Royale.  I will ask a lot of questions.  This will be an almost 100% out-of-the box build.  I won't have to worry about rigging for a while, so I focus on the hull, and will be asking questions for suggestions on color choices, techniques, and so on.

Boy I wish I had all of your skills and patience.  But, I'm sure I will end up with a fine build.  For me, the joy is in building it.  Heck, I have 4 kits either going or waiting to go.  Cutty Sark (for my boy's room), 1:96 Constitution (for my other boys room at his mother's house), Heller Victory (another one for my boys room, and the Royal (probably going into my daughter's room.  She thinks the blue colour is "cute").  None of them are for me.  I just live for the build.  And my kids love what I do, so I must be doing something right.

So get ready JTilley, once I reach rigging, I'm going to chew your ear off.  I hope you don't mind...

Thanks everyone,

Grymm

I can certainly identify with the financial problem.  And I've taken advantage of the therapeutic aspects of model building more than once in my 55 years.  I'll be more than happy to help as much as I can by way of this forum.  But there is just no way that I or anybody else can provide all the information needed to rig a seventeenth-century ship model by means of Forum posts.  Quite apart from the space and time it would take (I suspect we'd overload FSM's capacity), it just isn't possible to convey that sort of thing in the necessary detail and clarity without the help of pictures - lots of them.

The Longridge book on the Victory is pretty expensive, unfortunately.  The Campbell plans of the Cutty Sark, as I've mentioned earlier, cost about $15.00 and can be ordered via the ship's website.  The Anderson book (which will tell you how to rig the Soleil Royal far better, and faster, than I ever could) is available in a cheap paperback edition from Dover Books.  I found a used, "like new" copy on the Barnes and Noble website for less than $9.00:  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/used/ListingResults.asp?z=y&WID=309395&TTL=Rigging%20of%20Ships%20in%20the%20Days%20of%20the%20Spritsail%20Topmast&CNT=R.C.%20Anderson&Itm=1

Even with the shipping fee thrown in, that's less than the cost of a couple of good paint brushes.

Regarding the other books I've mentioned, you might try your local library.  Even if it doesn't have the books in question in its own collection, many American libraries participate in the Inter-Library Loan Service.  That lets one library use its computer to borrow books from any other library that's part of the system.  If your local reference librarian can make use of Inter-Library Loan, you can get all those books in hand within a week - probably at no charge.  (If the librarian has trouble locating a library that has them, you can point him/her in the direction of the one operated by the joint where I work:  Joyner Library at East Carolina University.  It has all the books we've been discussing - though not the Cutty Sark plans.)

Please believe me:  even a very modest investment in information resources will produce tremendous dividends.  The Web is a wonderful thing, but it just can't replace books for every purpose.  Building that model will be a lot easier - and a lot more fun - if you have even one book in front of you. 

Thanks for the info on that book.  I think I can squeeze the funds for it.  It will prove very handy.

I know I'm not going to get a completely historically accurate piece, but I'm sure it will be something I can be proud of.

And yes, I'm already going nuts with all the guns on this thing.... Number 44 done and counting...ugh...

As for the Cutty Sark, I'm almost done with the ratlines (which is appropriate, since mine look pretty "ratty").  Then I'll move on to the yards and the running rigging.  I am absolutely loving this kit and look forward to the Revell Constitution.  Boy, to have the good ole' Revell days back.  I could imagine what they could do...

There are some nine pics of the Soleil Royal at the following site, might be of interest to you.

www.chumster.co.uk/forum/index.php?mforum=bobbie

Coming in late to this thread as I'm not much of a sailing ship enthusiast. Many years ago I bought Noel Hackney's book on building the Airfix "Victory". Needless to say, it has sat on various bookshelves ever since. Now we are discussing books, perhaps one of you erudite gentlemen can give me an opinion on this one, should I ever decide to build a "Victory".

Thanks

Rick

The Hackney book isn't bad at all for what it was intended to be:  a guide for purchasers of the old Airfix 1/171 kit who wanted to go a little (but not a whole lot) further than what was provided in the box.  Most of the additions and changes it covers have to do with the rigging, and it's a reasonably accurate introduction to how the rigging of such a ship worked.  On the other hand, the author (quite possibly at Airfix's behest) used the gawdawful plastic-coated "shroud and ratline assemblies" that, in those days, came with the kit.  To my eye, at least, they just about wreck the appearance of his finished model.  (The current version of the kit replaces those...things... with a so-called "rigging looom," which is almost, but not quite, as bad.  If you do a search on the word "ratlines" in this Forum you'll find some highly emotional diatribes about the subject, which is a bone of great contention among ship modelers.)

If you're doing the old Airfix Victory, that little book is certainly a worthwhile acquisition.  It won't tell you how to build a really sophisticated model, and it won't be of much help on other manufacturers' kits.  But with the debatable exception of those infernal "shrouds and ratlines," it's not likely to steer you in any wrong directions.