Moonbug

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...
First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  
 

 
But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 
 

 
With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 
 
Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

Marktime,
 
   When I started my build I spend a lot of time looking at your build, as I appreciated your research and accuracy.  However, since the MSW 1.0 crash, you only have the completed pictures in the gallery.  As I'm going over my rigging plans, I noticed on your build that you added some standing rigging - as I've annotated here - included this very cool rig that drops down and connects to the ring on the Windlass.
 

 
    I vaguely remember you explaining some of these things in your initial log. Can you please tell me why you added these lines and on what you based it?
 
Thanks!

Over the course of the last couple of days, as I continue to make and mount cleats and rails to the deck and bulwarks, I've taken some time to add the nails to the futtock riders (long overdue), and build the sheaves / pulleys that are mounted to the top of the masts.  Here are some progress photos.

Awaiting some information, and always subject to adjustments - here is my new rigging plan compared to the AL plan. As I said, most of the actual rigging was actually pretty accurate, but the locations to where rigs were reeved and tethered were not.
 

I've color coordinated not only the type of fixture (cleat, rail, etc) but I also color coordinated rigging that is coming from the mizzen, main, and fore/bow.
 
I do realize I have quite a ways to go before I get started with rigging, however I quickly discovered that this step needed to be done prior to continuing to outfit the deck and hull with cleats, rails, and sheaves.  Obviously I can't add those items unless I know how they will be used.
It also makes me realize that this was one crowded little vessel and was likely pretty tricky to get around and get things done!  I still have a few deck fixtures I'd like to add (a second skiff, cooking area, etc) and I'm wondering where it'll all fit...
 
I also realize I'm going to have a Helluva time rigging the mizzen so that I can raise the false poop deck to make the captain's cabin visible. In all likelihood I'll need to fudge some things...
 
- Bug

Awaiting some information, and always subject to adjustments - here is my new rigging plan compared to the AL plan. As I said, most of the actual rigging was actually pretty accurate, but the locations to where rigs were reeved and tethered were not.
 

I've color coordinated not only the type of fixture (cleat, rail, etc) but I also color coordinated rigging that is coming from the mizzen, main, and fore/bow.
 
I do realize I have quite a ways to go before I get started with rigging, however I quickly discovered that this step needed to be done prior to continuing to outfit the deck and hull with cleats, rails, and sheaves.  Obviously I can't add those items unless I know how they will be used.
It also makes me realize that this was one crowded little vessel and was likely pretty tricky to get around and get things done!  I still have a few deck fixtures I'd like to add (a second skiff, cooking area, etc) and I'm wondering where it'll all fit...
 
I also realize I'm going to have a Helluva time rigging the mizzen so that I can raise the false poop deck to make the captain's cabin visible. In all likelihood I'll need to fudge some things...
 
- Bug

Great work with your deck - love the details.
 
- Bug

Jean-Pierre,
 
   Thanks so much for stopping by my build, and I appreciate the insight!  It's always a pleasure to chat with a fellow enthusiast of this time period. As you know, it's quite a challenge weeding through the varying opinions and speculation regarding the Santa Maria. Particularly because Columbus himself has such disdain for her that he didn't write of her nearly at all, preferring the sleek caravels much more.
   I do in fact have Mondfeld's book, which I adore, as it is one of the most comprehensive sources of information regarding the differences in centuries. That probably explains much of the similarity! ;-)  
   When I was in the early stage of planning out the Santa Maria, it became clear to me that I would have to make some tough choices regarding which author to pay attention to, and which direction to go as a result. And you are absolutely correct, most of these gents present evidence solely to support their own opinion. While you are obviously correct regarding most carracks and their three masts, Xavier Pastor's version in his book "The Ships of Christopher Columbus" shows the SM as a Nao with the bowsprit and spritsail added.  In Mondfeld's book he does explain (p.226) that the bowsprit first started to appear as early as the 13th century, and later in the book he shows a Flemish carrack from about 1480 that shows a bowsprit, although it is not rigged with the spritsail itself. After going back and forth quite a bit, trying to find any documentation on ships built in the 1400's, and looking at every photo I could find of the Mataro, I decided to go with the extra mast. Particuarly because of the ambiguous nature of the Santa Maria's origins and even where she was built before she was purchased from Columbus.
 
Thanks again, input and viewpoints are always welcome and I hope you enjoy the build. Incidentally, I am supremely jealous that you've had a chance to inspect the Mataro in person, what a wonderful opportunity!
 
By the way marktime and Mark, had I remembered to pay attention to Mondfeld's book I wouldn't have had my little belaying pin gaff!
 
- Bug

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...
First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  
 

 
But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 
 

 
With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 
 
Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

Great looking build.  I'll keep watching with interest.  I'm still mystified by scratch builds.
 
- Bug

Awaiting some information, and always subject to adjustments - here is my new rigging plan compared to the AL plan. As I said, most of the actual rigging was actually pretty accurate, but the locations to where rigs were reeved and tethered were not.
 

I've color coordinated not only the type of fixture (cleat, rail, etc) but I also color coordinated rigging that is coming from the mizzen, main, and fore/bow.
 
I do realize I have quite a ways to go before I get started with rigging, however I quickly discovered that this step needed to be done prior to continuing to outfit the deck and hull with cleats, rails, and sheaves.  Obviously I can't add those items unless I know how they will be used.
It also makes me realize that this was one crowded little vessel and was likely pretty tricky to get around and get things done!  I still have a few deck fixtures I'd like to add (a second skiff, cooking area, etc) and I'm wondering where it'll all fit...
 
I also realize I'm going to have a Helluva time rigging the mizzen so that I can raise the false poop deck to make the captain's cabin visible. In all likelihood I'll need to fudge some things...
 
- Bug

Hi Lawrence,
 
Thanks for your kind comments. Sjors was referring to "another" 10 years from now. This build has now been underway for coming up 18 years (on and off), so yes, I'm keen to get finished and start something fresh.
 
But there is no point in rushing - it will be finished when it's finished to my satisfaction. Only problem is, the longer I hang around MSW, the higher the standard for satisfaction becomes!!!
 
In the meantime, I've found that Cornwall Model Boats, in the UK, stock some Amati 5mm Anvil Cleats (in metal) that look like they will do the job nicely if I can't manage to make something sufficiently usable from timber. So we have a back-up plan!

Thanks Matti, I appreciate it!  I've been enjoying watching your Wasan come together!
 
- Bug

Awaiting some information, and always subject to adjustments - here is my new rigging plan compared to the AL plan. As I said, most of the actual rigging was actually pretty accurate, but the locations to where rigs were reeved and tethered were not.
 

I've color coordinated not only the type of fixture (cleat, rail, etc) but I also color coordinated rigging that is coming from the mizzen, main, and fore/bow.
 
I do realize I have quite a ways to go before I get started with rigging, however I quickly discovered that this step needed to be done prior to continuing to outfit the deck and hull with cleats, rails, and sheaves.  Obviously I can't add those items unless I know how they will be used.
It also makes me realize that this was one crowded little vessel and was likely pretty tricky to get around and get things done!  I still have a few deck fixtures I'd like to add (a second skiff, cooking area, etc) and I'm wondering where it'll all fit...
 
I also realize I'm going to have a Helluva time rigging the mizzen so that I can raise the false poop deck to make the captain's cabin visible. In all likelihood I'll need to fudge some things...
 
- Bug

Marktime,
 
   When I started my build I spend a lot of time looking at your build, as I appreciated your research and accuracy.  However, since the MSW 1.0 crash, you only have the completed pictures in the gallery.  As I'm going over my rigging plans, I noticed on your build that you added some standing rigging - as I've annotated here - included this very cool rig that drops down and connects to the ring on the Windlass.
 

 
    I vaguely remember you explaining some of these things in your initial log. Can you please tell me why you added these lines and on what you based it?
 
Thanks!

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...
First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  
 

 
But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 
 

 
With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 
 
Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...
First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  
 

 
But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 
 

 
With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 
 
Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

Jean-Pierre,
 
   Thanks so much for stopping by my build, and I appreciate the insight!  It's always a pleasure to chat with a fellow enthusiast of this time period. As you know, it's quite a challenge weeding through the varying opinions and speculation regarding the Santa Maria. Particularly because Columbus himself has such disdain for her that he didn't write of her nearly at all, preferring the sleek caravels much more.
   I do in fact have Mondfeld's book, which I adore, as it is one of the most comprehensive sources of information regarding the differences in centuries. That probably explains much of the similarity! ;-)  
   When I was in the early stage of planning out the Santa Maria, it became clear to me that I would have to make some tough choices regarding which author to pay attention to, and which direction to go as a result. And you are absolutely correct, most of these gents present evidence solely to support their own opinion. While you are obviously correct regarding most carracks and their three masts, Xavier Pastor's version in his book "The Ships of Christopher Columbus" shows the SM as a Nao with the bowsprit and spritsail added.  In Mondfeld's book he does explain (p.226) that the bowsprit first started to appear as early as the 13th century, and later in the book he shows a Flemish carrack from about 1480 that shows a bowsprit, although it is not rigged with the spritsail itself. After going back and forth quite a bit, trying to find any documentation on ships built in the 1400's, and looking at every photo I could find of the Mataro, I decided to go with the extra mast. Particuarly because of the ambiguous nature of the Santa Maria's origins and even where she was built before she was purchased from Columbus.
 
Thanks again, input and viewpoints are always welcome and I hope you enjoy the build. Incidentally, I am supremely jealous that you've had a chance to inspect the Mataro in person, what a wonderful opportunity!
 
By the way marktime and Mark, had I remembered to pay attention to Mondfeld's book I wouldn't have had my little belaying pin gaff!
 
- Bug

Jean-Pierre, pleasure to see you here. Could the foremast be raked forward to facilitate dropping the foresail yard seeing that the foresail could only be furled with the yard brought down to the deck?
 
Bug, a quick look at Xavier Pastor p. 89 has brought me up to speed on the halliard. Ii is what I have called "falls".

My congratulations for this excellent build, which is by far the best Santa Maria build I've seen so far.
 
I have myself since quite a bit of time been interested in the Colombus ships, and have been very impressed by the approach by Wolfram zu Mondfeld, which matches most of your own research by the way.  And I am pleased to see that you made her with a round "bum", a feature that has been omitted in all kits, with the exception of the plastic kits (Revell, Heller, Imaï) which are all based on the Guillen Y Tato reconstruction.  But this ship had a particularly small draught and indeed would have been a very bad sailing ship.  This reconstruction was moored for a long period of time in front of the Naval Museum of Barcelona, and when I last spotted her in the 1980's I think, she was being transformed to add a forecastle, which the original Guillen Y Tato model (and any of the plastic kits) did miss.
 
Now there is one point on which I still do not agree with most of the authors and that is the rake of the fore mast on carracks. Virtually ALL drawings or paintings of the peariod show 3 absolutely vertical masts.  Only on one painting from the early 1500's did I see a forward raking mast as shown on all models.  But the Santa Maria was built around 1450 if I remember well!  Now I know that even the best researchers tend to think that evidence should match their conclusions i.o. the contrary, but still...
As an example of this, take the Mataro ship, now in Rotterdam.  The large model show a very wide and comparatively short model.  I have inspected the original quite thoroughly, and noticed that the model is very well detailed indeed, so it must have been built with loving care.  But researchers claim that it was built out of proportion and would be unstearable with only one mast.  Now on the oldest photograph of this model that I saw, shsa had three masts.  Then on later pictures she had lost her fore mast, and now she has lost her mizzen as well.  Of course I do not pretend to know better than the people who made those statements or who made those changes, but I personally prefer to believe what I see than what people tell me I should see.
 
So I think I would build a

Very nice work!
 
-Bug

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...
First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  
 

 
But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 
 

 
With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 
 
Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...
First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  
 

 
But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 
 

 
With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 
 
Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

Hi Augie,
 
I'm impressed the jig was included with the kit. Do you know if this occurs with other kits or was this an exception.

Hey Mark, thanks for stopping by. Following your scratch builds always provides great little tips for builds. Nice work on the Licorne.
 
Thanks for the info on the pins. The good news is, by the time I got my recent book and discovered the time frame of when pins came into play on caravels and naos (well after the SM obviously) I had only errantly built the mainmast rail with pins. So that's the only one I need to fix. However I still need to figure out HOW the ropes were tied to the rails at that time and how the excess rope may have been stowed against the line or on the the deck.
 
-Bug

No, no, no.  Sure, you need to know exactly where the ship will go before you start it.  But that does not mean that you need to share that information immediately.  You have 2 years to work on it.  Jewelery, a new car or perhaps a long-awaited vacation can come in handy here....especially when you begin moving the dining room table into the garage to make space for your masterpiece.
 
Dual build with a stagecoach.  Why not?  Check out the log on the Ogalalla Prairie Schooner