Heller Soleil Royal…..the ultimate building guide.

Enemeink,

Thanks!  I should have my first efforts within a week.  I really appreciate your help!

Bill Morrison

I found an interesting reference to the color scheme of the Soleil Royal at the time of the Battles of Beachy Head and Barfleur. In his book 25 Centuries of Sea Warfare (1959), Jacques Mordal  wrote, "The hulls of the (French) men-of-war had been brightly painted, contrasting with the wide white bands that marked the lines of the gunports. The gilded carvings on the huge after-castles were glittering in the sunshine; though some of the ships, like the Soleil Royal, had their decorative work discreetly coated with pearl-grey paint."  He also mentions that the sails were decorated with allegorical figures and emblems of all kinds. There is no mention of precisely what those figures and emblems were, nor on which specific sails they existed.

Unfortunately, Mordal did not cite his reference for these comments.

Bill Morrison

I am not familiar with the actual Soleil Royale but I know that I build ship models (or aircraft or anything else for that matter) for one single reason. Fun. I build because I enjoy it. Sometimes I embrace the challenge of getting it totally accurate (such as my current build, the USS Douglas H. Fox, DD779 as she appeared in June 1959) other times, I want a beautiful display for my office or some such. I do know one thing, if it is not fun, I skip it. The picture back on page 1 of this thread by George W shows a beautiful ship with the forest of rigging and beautiful coloration. If the companionway is aft of the mast instead of forward, or something like that, I have no clue but it looks like George W did a labor of love and he should be proud of the result. I certainly would be if I had that ship and could say I built it to any admirer. If it is inaccurate, call it something else or say it is a concept model of a Louis XIV warship. Getting buried in the research is fun for me but I hope the desire for perfect accuracy does not take away the enjoyment of building models because that is what a hobby is for. Let's not get testy about someone else's approach. Let's all enjoy building models and show off pics so the rest of us can say ooh and aah.

Keep it fun.

Pavlvs,

I couldn't agree more! The builds of this kit that have been posted by other builders are incredible.  In my case, I am painting mine in a variation of Jean Berain's paintings, that is, in predominantly a blue and gold configuration. Remember, the ship could have appeared in different schemes at different times throughout her career.

But, the purpose of this thread is to help identify the flaws in the kit and help each other overcome them. For example, John Tilley rightly points out that the kit includes no way to attach the spars to the masts. The builder must create his/her own parrels to do so, thereby improving the basic kit.

There is absolutely no way that a builder can get a perfectly accurate model of the Le Soleil Royal because no complete reference for the ship exists. Every little scrap of information could be helpful to someone out there who wants to build something out of the ordinary. I have not considered painting this kit with white bands and pearl-grey decorations. Someone might find it an interesting scheme, as I did when Searat12 provided the Berain paintings for me.

Again, I agree with you. Let's keep this in a spirit of fun.

Bill Morrison

Bill,

Thank you for your reply.

Not having the means to attach the spars to the masts would certainly not be a mere accuracy issue. I've never tried the Soleil Royale kit myself but a kit should at least have the means to build the kit itself and it seems that this kit lacks that and I would consider that inexcusable from a company like Heller since their other ships seem to be so high in quality. I have the 1/100 HMS Victory. I plan to build it out of the box. I hope that is possible

Pavlvs - I certainly agree in principle with your comments.  In this thread and elsewhere I've made some pretty negative comments about the Heller Soleil Royal kit, but I always try to accompany those comments with the observation that every modeler has every right in the world to establish his/her own standards.  Quite a few people seem to have derived a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from building this kit.  I certainly enjoyed building mine yea those many years ago - though I was starting to get disgusted with it by the time I was finished.

The Heller 1/100 Victory is, by near-universal agreement, a much, much better kit.  But it does have its problems.  Be warned:  like the Soleil Royal kit, it provides no means of attaching the yards to the masts. 

Fortunately, though, the yard trusses and parrels of the period were pretty simple; the problem can be remedied with a little plastic sheet (or wood) and some painted beads.  And the Heller rigging instructions, like those of the Soleil Royal are a mess.  Fortunately, though, H.M.S. Victory is one of the most thoroughly-documented ships ever built, and there's plenty of good material about her in print.  I always suggest that anybody tackling the Heller kit get hold of a copy of C. Nepean Longridge's The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships.  (There are plenty of other good books on the subject, but I think that's the best one for helping with this particular project.)  The text and drawings in that volume will solve just about every problem in the Heller kit.

Again, for the purposes of this thread, allow me to summarize and categorize all of our observations to date:

I. External Coloring: There are three basic styles that I have seen so far, including:

     a. Traditional:  The hull above the waterline should be painted either a basic wood color or hull-yellow with a shade of blue above the Spar Deck line.  The wales should be darker brown.  A variation could be a shade of black from the waterline to the first line of wales below the lower row of gunports. The black should extend to the cutwater and the prow.  Decorative works should be painted in gold.  The hull below the waterline should be either white or some tallow color.  The waterline should be marked 1 to 1.5 cm higher than that marked on the kit hull.

     b. The Style of Jean Berain:  The hull below the waterline should be either white or some tallow color.  Again, raise the waterline 1 to 1.5 cm. The hull above the waterline should be black from the waterline to either the first or second wale below the lower row of gunports.  The hull above that should be painted in a shade of blue, with all wales and decorative works in gold.

As a variation of this style, and to provide some contrast in the blue coloring, I have painted mine with a lighter shade of blue to the spar deck with darker blue between the wales, and a darker shade above the spar deck.

     c.  The Style Described by Jacques Mordal: Mordal only describes the white gunport rows and the pearl-grey decorations. The rest is left to the builder's imagination. 

II.  Stern and Quarter Galleries: There are three conflicting references:

     a. Berain: Open the stern galleries. The quarter galleries could be either opened or closed, depending on which of the conflicting evidence one chooses to use.

    b.  P. Hippolyte Boussac:  Open stern and quarter galaries.

    c.  Musee de la Marine Model: Open stern and quarter galleries. Check the number of windows that disagree with either Berain or Boussac and the kit.

III.  Armament:  Replace the skinny, long barrels with thicker, shorter ones.

IV.  Deck Furniture:  The ladders seem too simple. Consider scratchbuilding more decorative ladders, looking at examples provided by pictures of models of the same period.

V.   Replace the kit belaying pins with after-market ones.

VI.  Masts and Spars:

      a.  Check the mast and spar proportions with the chart found in Wolfram's book on Historic Ship Models and make the necessary corrections.

      b.  Add parrels to attach the spars to the masts.

VII.  Rigging:

     a.  Discard the kits rigging instructions.

    b.  Instead, use Anderson's book The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast as a guide.

VII.  Fill in the knees of the head!!!

I hope that I have included everyone's observations.  If not, please add them.

Bill Morrison

     

Excellent summary, Bill!  Thanks for sifting and pulling these thoughts together.

Cheers, Rick

Rick,

Thanks for the comment! I really appreciate it.

Bill Morrison

Hi all. My name is Tony from Auckland New Zealand. I have to Log in under a bullshit adress ( hence postal code of 90210 from the TV programme! comes to mind immediately)because this site only accepts members from Dixieland  and Mapleleaf areas!

Ive read the whole thread over last few nights and this would have to be one of the most informative and intelligent sites on the net. I am also into Landrovers, and steam trains.

I am working on a HECEPOB ( LMFAO at this description!))at present, an Artisania " Hermione La Fayette. " You must have high import taxes on goods into the States because these kits appear to sell here in $N.Z. for about the same as quoted in $US on your Hobbyshop sites. ( But $1 NZ== $0.56 US0

I recently aquired an unbuilt Solieil Royale kit from a Trademe auction for $ 95.00. that was sitting in a shed for last 20 or so years. I really appreciate the historical info supplied by the Prof and others , but my modelmaking profile and attitude  is about 90%  in agreement with GRYMM.

I will no doubt be looking for guidance from you all when I start this kit this coming Winter( about mid July) when it starts raining here and thus  thus my business slows down dramatically until Christmas when the ground dries out a bit. Any spare time till then will go towards finishing Hermione, which by the way came with lots of full scale plans of the rigging, as well as colored drawings of step by step constuction.

Sounds good!  Have you been watching the L'Hermione website for the build of the actual ship?

Welcome to this thread!  Any of us would be glad to be of any help to you.  I recently acquired my first HECEPOB kit and am actually enjoying it (HMS Pandora). But, I am loving my build of Soleil Royal as well.  I chose to paint mine in the style of Jean Berain, provided to me a short while ago by Searat 12 (Eric), or an all blue and gold format above the waterline.  I am also incorporating many of JTilley's suggestions.  I want my build to look different than the traditional version and I went with Berain as a probable primary source of what the ship looked like at least at one stage of her career.  Anyway, welcome again!

Bill Morrison

For those of you have not been able to find the original paint scheme for 'Soleil Royal,' here it is (as painted by Jean Berain, directly for the King of France).  Note, while it is pretty easy to find the painting of the stern quarter online, the bow is almost impossible to find for some reason (and of course, if you want a repro poster of the stern, surely you would want the bow as well?  Art dealers, go figger!).

Eric,

Thanks for providing both pictures. I am sure that newcomers will find them as helpful as I did.  We should consider that Le Soleil Royal possibly appeared in different paint schemes throughout her career; perhaps she underwent detail differences as well.

Anyway, I do find the possibilities fascinating!

Bill Morrison

Most likely she did (most other ships have changed their spots at one time or another!), this is just the color scheme she was launched with..... Note the details of the bow, beak and beakhead rails.... Quite elegant and slightly different than the Heller kit and others.....

Hi all from Downunder.I think the bluepaint scheme looks a bit garish! Was there another livery that used softer colors??

Can someone please tell me how to emulate the tarred caulking on HECEPOB "Hermione'"s planked deck?? The planks are only 0.6mm ( about 24 Thousands of an Inch) thick glued over 3mm ply. I thougt of painting the deck black and then sanding the surface to leave black reveals between planks, , but at this thickness I'm scared of going thru to the ply when sanding

 

Thankyou in advance, Tony Lawrence, Auckland N.Z..

I'm not going to argue about Le Soleil Royal any more, but maybe I can offer some useful suggestions on deck planking.

I'm assuming the planks haven't been glued down to the "sub-deck" yet.  If they have, all bets are off.  If not, there are two commonly-used methods of simulating caulking - both quite simple, though a little time-consuming.

The first is to use black paper.  (It has to be really black, all the way through - not white paper with black ink on the surface.  I've never used this trick myself, but I'm reliably informed that the best place to get appropriate black paper is at a photography supply store.)  Stack up several of the planks and very carefully glue a strip of the paper to the side of the stack.  When the glue dries, separate the individual planks (each one now having a strip of paper stuck to its edge) with a razor blade.  When the planks are glued down, the paper will form the "caulking."  Afterwards, you can scrape and sand to your heart's content but you'll never go through it.

As I said, I've never used that technique; the one I like is simpler.  Run a moderately hard pencil around all four edges of each plank before you install it.  (I like to use a .5 mm mechanical pencil with a 2B lead.)  The pencil line - extremely thin, but obviously reaching all the way through the thickness of the planking - becomes the caulking.

I like pencil for the purpose, because the line it produces is actually a grey in color.  I tend to gravitate toward smaller scales, in which anything darker would look kind of garish.  On larger scales, lots of modelers use a black fiber-tipped pen (such as Sharpie brand).  That produces a much darker line.  Just be sure the pen you buy is marked "permanent."  (The inks used in the non-permanent ones fade remarkably fast.)  And do a test with it first on a piece of scrap wood.  Depending on the species and quality of the wood, you may find the ink soaks into it and makes the line blurry. 

In any case, finish off the deck with some sort of clear finish.  My preference is white shellac, dilluted almost beyond recognition with denatured alcohol.  It won't add any gloss to the surface; in fact you probably won't be able to tell it's there - until you dribble some paint or something on the deck, and discover, to your relief, that you can wipe it off without leaving a stain.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

John,

Thanks for that tip!  One problem that I have noticed in this kit is that the deck planking is incomplete and perhaps overscale.  For example, on the main deck, the planking stops at the point it runs under the forecastle. Yet, the forecastle is open and the lack of planking is very noticeable. In other words, another building tip would be to plank the decks.  Your techniques would suit admirably! Thanks again!

Bill Morrison 

demomanz wrote:

Hi all from Downunder.I think the bluepaint scheme looks a bit garish! Was there another livery that used softer colors?? Can someone please tell me how to emulate the tarred caulking on HECEPOB "Hermione'"s planked deck?? The planks are only 0.6mm ( about 24 Thousands of an Inch) thick glued over 3mm ply. I thougt of painting the deck black and then sanding the surface to leave black reveals between planks, , but at this thickness I'm scared of going thru to the ply when sanding   Thankyou in advance, Tony Lawrence, Auckland N.Z..

Well, if it is your model, you can paint it anything you like, I suppose!  There have been a number of different paint schemes proposed and used for this ship by various modellers and artists in the past, but as far as I know, this is the only 'official' and historically recognised scheme for the ship (it WAS the French Flagship of the fleet of King Louis IV (the 'Sun King'), and 'garish' or 'over the top' was not really a consideration at the height of the Baroque/Rococco period (just stroll around Versailles sometime, and you will see what I mean!).  The painter Jean Berain was also the minister who ordered all the sculpture work and selected the ships sculptor for King Louis, and these paintings were used as a presentation for the King's approval (which was given).  It is also entirely possible the paint scheme was altered during one of the later rebuilds, but we just have no contemporary evidence for that.  While to our modern eyes the blue and gold scheme DOES appear garish, they are also the French Royal colors, and would certainly make the flagship stand out from the rest of the fleet (couldn't mistake it for anything else!), which would be of help for signalling, maneuvers, etc.  Really though, I think it was mostly done as yet another sop for the King's pride and ego..... As an interesting sidenote, one of the other French first rates of the time, the 'Royal Louis' (not to be confused with the Heller 'Royal Louis' of a much later date) was so overloaded with carvings, sculpture, gilding and all the rest that French Admiral Tourville absolutely refused to take the ship to sea until he was directly and pointedly ordered to by the King himself.......

I decided to paint mine according to Berain, in the blue and gold configuration.  However, I altered some of the blue just to provide a little contrast.  For example, I used Model Master Bright Blue for the lighter shade along the gunports. I used Humbrol Matt 25 Blue (a slightly darker blue in between the gold-painted wales. Then, I used Polly Scale Dark Blue (RLM 24) for the upper hull.  Granted, it isn't exactly according to Berain, but neither are the decorative sculptures and the galleries.  However, it is close and the contrasting shades of blue add a nice depth to the overall effect.

I am still working on the hull and will post pictures when I feel that it is right.

Bill Morrison

In order to provide easy access to this thread for a friend who wants to attempt this model, I am bumping it to the first page.  Good luck, Loren! I hope that it helps!

Bill Morrison

John,

I just ran across the forum on the Le Soleil Royal, and as I was going through the exchanges on information and views, I noticed your name.  You wouldn't remember me, but I first met you when you worked at Streete Hobbies in Columbus Ohio with Bob.  I actually remember your Le Soleil Royal kit review article published approximately January 1977, I just can't remember the magazine's name.  Anyway, the model you built regardless of the inaccuracies in the Heller kit, was extremely well done.  If you still have a copy of the article or pictures of the finished model, I think it would be of interest to individuals who plan on building the model.  I realize that the review was over 30 years ago, but it was quite good, although as in your review you have called out several of the inaccuracies in this forum, such as the hole in the knee of the head,etc...

Regards and best wishes

S. Moore

 

S. Moore, your post blew me away.  I'm afraid you're right:  I don't remember you; that may well be due to the passage of time, and the deterioration of my senile brain.  But if I had more to go by than "S"....If you'd like to send me a private message, maybe....

The article was in the grand old British monthly Scale Models, which was really in its glory (to my notion) in the late seventies.  I don't remember the date, but I think you're right:  somewhere right around 1977.  I probably have a copy of it around here somewhere, but finding it would be a major project.  I have to admit that only some of the kit's deficiencies had jumped out at me at that time; others jumped out later.  (Having the...thing...lurking in the corner of the living room for several years drew my eye to it on a depressingly regular basis.)  As I think I mentioned earlier in one of these threads, when I moved out of the house (that was in 1980) I left the model there.  Either shortly before or after my father died, in 1990, my mother "loaned" it to one of his doctors.  I don't know whether the doctor is still alive or not - or, if he is, whether he still has the model.

Older modelers from the great metropolis of Columbus, Ohio will remember Strete Hobbies with, I suspect, considerable nostalgia.  (Columbus actually used to have quite a few good hobby shops.  Almost all of them, of course, are gone now.)  The original owner was Al Strete, a genuine, honest-to-goodness old-fashioned model railroader.  I wasn't around when he started the store, but I think it must have been in the late fifties or very early sixties.  When he retired he sold the business to Bob Pflaum, who ran it all the time I worked there.  Bob was an...interesting character.  He could be a rather, bitter, cynical man; the store was never particularly successful as a money-maker, and he was always trying to blame that on somebody else.  But he also had a deep-seated decency that actually made him a good guy to work for.  I understand he passed away (cancer) just a couple of years ago.  I miss him, and I miss that dirty little hobby shop (let's not talk about the state of the restroom) - and, above all else, I miss lots of the folks I met there.

Wait a minute...a couple of wires just drifted into each other in the primorial ooze inside my 58-year-old skull...S.Moore...former NROTC cadet, with outrageous stories about a midshipman cruise...philosophy major at OSU...story about the grand procession when the Philosophy Department moved into its new building...Saturday trip to the Air Force Museum in Dayton....Am I on the right track?    

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Hello all – this is my first post on this fascinating thread which sadly seems a little quiet of late.

 My Soleil Royal is still in its box having been bought about 9 months ago and is scheduled for a start in a few weeks (I’m just completing the Heller Real de France)

 By the standard of some of the builds pictured on this thread I’m very much an average “realist” (see Grymm’s post back in October 2006) and so am intending to build pretty much out of the box. However the excellent detail of debate on the thread has persuaded me to make some modifications:

 1.    Raise the waterline 10-15mm

 2.    Parrells for yards as appropriate

 3.    Substitute cannon barrels with more correct-looking brass replacements (the kit barrels do look too long and thin). I’ll keep the carriages for lower decks and sort something out with replacement carriages for the upper deck. To be honest, cannon barrels made from two plastic halves take an enormous amount of work to clean up and often don’t look quite right. This will add about £70 to the kit cost – about $110, but what the hell, it’ll take me a couple of years to build the thing!)

 4.    Colour scheme – not yet sure about this one but I was intrigued by the discussion around this topic . I’m sorely tempted to go for the “Jean Berain” (lots of royal blue) approach but it’s a bit bold so if anyone has any pics of the model in this colour scheme to post I’d be very grateful.

 5.    Rigging – the consensus appears to be that the Heller scheme is inaccurate so, as advised, I bought the Anderson book. To be honest, my main complaint about the Heller rigging instructions is that they are both difficult to follow and not very logically sequenced. I thought the rigging plans for the Revell USS Constitution 1:96 scale that I finished a year or so ago were pretty good. Now I know it’s a bit cheeky but has anyone drawn out a correct set of rigging instructions for the Royal in a relatively easy to follow format?

 

One final comment for anyone building a Heller sailing ship model regarding the “frame” or “machine” for creating the shrouds/ratlines. Don’t chuck it away until you’ve tried it! I bought a Heller “Superbe” about 25 years ago which I part built and put away. Having moved house 3 times the kit suffered some damage. After I bought the Soleil Royale I decided to try to renovate the old, battered, part built Superbe and have a go with the Heller  frame/machine for rigging the shrouds by way of practice. Took a bit of getting used to and its quite wasteful on thread but it actually does work!     

Robert,

I would be glad to send you some pictures of my Berain build but have never been able to figure out how to post on this site.  May I send them to you at your email address?

Bill Morrison

warshipguy

Robert,

I would be glad to send you some pictures of my Berain build but have never been able to figure out how to post on this site.  May I send them to you at your email address?

Bill Morrison

 

Thanks Bill, that would be great (I'm no expert at the technicalities of forum posting, etc..)

Can you access my e-mail address via my forum details or do I need to do something else?

 

Robert

 

Robert,

I will be happy to contact you this evening by email.

Bill

ok...........i just found this site, and was so excited to see others who had the same experiences as i did when i built this kit many many years ago, although i have read only 2/3's of the posts and scanned the rest....just had to put in my two cents........... ....actually i think i tried to build it a second time with wood veneer planking on hull and decks.........i even cut at the waterline to hide the vestigial hull....but....it was still so wrong i threw it away.....the hull, to me, narrows too much towards the bow and shears up too much i always noticed that the cannon decks on the french and spanish ships were relatively straight compared to the british....the model in the paris museum seems much more accurate.....i was even thinking of building a hull out of wood and attaching the superstructures and decorations on top which i may even do one day cause it is quite a sexy looking ship..............again, to me, this is a "close enough for jazz" kind of a build....i would try to glean from the great info given here, and go for it.......i think one has to rely on one's gut feeling, and build for one's self....if, when you look at it, you get a feeling of excitement and joy in your solar plexis, then you're on the right track.....doesn't really matter if others approve....

for example, i built a model of aeropiccola's "prince" and re-built it again by sanding down the bulkheads until i felt it looked closer to the model in the kensington museum in england....and when i look at the hull now, my heart starts beating cause it was the best i could do to match the dockyard model.....you know, i mailed the museum to purchase the lines of that prince, and they said they only had the lines of another model of the prince in the museum which was definitely not the same in my opinion....and when this model was designed and built, they probably used the lines provided by the museum of the other kit......used to be a great model kit but they cheapened it......cast metal instead of brass etc.......working on a huge model of the royal william now, but was thinking of re-doing the royal when i'm done....can work on my desk instead of the garage....be 70 in a few months so i gotta downsize...cheers, vic

Le Soleil Royal is one of my favorite kits, not because it is an excellent kit but because it has so many flaws that can be corrected, although I believe that many people overstate those flaws considerably.  For example, many decry the lack of a method to attach the yards to the masts; yet, the same people state that Heller's HMS Victory is one of the finest plastic kits on the market. It, too, has the same flaw.  Le Soleil Royal is easier to correct simply by adding parrels.

Take care of the flaws much as one does in any model kit and the model builds to a beautiful display piece that may or may not accurately depict the actual Le Soleil Royal; nobody knows for sure.

Bill Morrison

I also have to say that, after studying  photos of the model of Le Soleil Royal at the Musee de la Marine on which the Heller kit is based, I believe that Heller got the hull proportions and other details of the hull, stem, and stern correct. See the link http://www.modelships.de/Museums_and_replicas/Musee_de_la_Marine_Paris/g1669_Soleil_Royal_022.jpg and let me know what you all think.  The only issue I see is that the galleries are open instead of closed as in the Heller kit.

Bill Morrison