Moonbug

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

Wow what a respons !
 
When I knew this I have posted sooner
I see that all the chairs are now occupied .....
And the popcorn an drinks are going around
Nice !!!!!!!
 
@ Robbyn,
 
Glad you find it and Sherry thanks for getting Robbyn over here.
 
@ Ferit,
 
I see you change your nickname? why ?
 
@ Bug,
 
Be a man and order that ship and have fun with it !
Just what I have !!!!!!!!!!
 
@ Mark,
 
I think you make a typing fault......
I think it should be 3014 instead of 2014 ???? correct ?????
When the middle deck is planked I think I go back to the San Ildefonso and do some rigging......
I want to switch between those two.
 
And for the rest of my friends.....THANKS !!!!!!! Also for the likes.
 

Nice work Sjors,
 
Except you all are making it very difficult for me to decide what my next build is going to be. :-/
 
-Bug

Bug,
 
I just had a nice time reading and catching up on your build,  It's great to see you back.   BTW, belaying pins really didn't exist until around the late 1600's or early 1700's.  Lines were tied off directly to the rails.

Nice work Sjors,
 
Except you all are making it very difficult for me to decide what my next build is going to be. :-/
 
-Bug

Time for cleats.  After a couple failed attempts at making wooden cleats for the bulwarks, I finally came across this entry from Floyd:
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1906-wooden-cleats/
 
which of course made me feel silly for not looking here in MSW first.  Doh.
 

At any rate, I used a very similar process starting with a 3mm X 2mm strip, measuring off every 10mm for the width of the cleat I needed. I used a 10mm dremel grinder for the bottom of the cleat and a 3mm to 7mm conical shaped grinder for the top.

 
I then sanded and rounded the edges with 400 grit sand paper. I did this BEFORE I cut them apart since sanding any kind of small piece is much easier for me if it's still on a stem.
 

 
After cutting the cleats apart I rounded the edges.

The handle of the pump is created from two strips of 2mm x 2mm square walnut sanded and etched out. They are based in 3mm x 3mm square walnut strips sanded to fit the side of the pump.

 

   

 

The pieces all put together initially and then stained.

 



 

The pump mechanism and the strips around the pump are made from a scrap brass dowel and scrap brass flattened pieces.  I flatten the end of the brass dowel out by putting it between the flat areas of a pair of pliers and striking it with a hammer.

 

   

 

All of the strips, the handle, and the pump mechanism are attached using a touch of glue, and then firmly attached using pins with the heads sanded down. Finally the pumps are re-stained, and the brass pieces are given a layer of patina.

Time for cleats.  After a couple failed attempts at making wooden cleats for the bulwarks, I finally came across this entry from Floyd:
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1906-wooden-cleats/
 
which of course made me feel silly for not looking here in MSW first.  Doh.
 

At any rate, I used a very similar process starting with a 3mm X 2mm strip, measuring off every 10mm for the width of the cleat I needed. I used a 10mm dremel grinder for the bottom of the cleat and a 3mm to 7mm conical shaped grinder for the top.

 
I then sanded and rounded the edges with 400 grit sand paper. I did this BEFORE I cut them apart since sanding any kind of small piece is much easier for me if it's still on a stem.
 

 
After cutting the cleats apart I rounded the edges.

Awesome, looking forward to the photos.
 
- Bug

Hi Al,
 
First, please read my reply to the question you asked in Framing and Planking a Ship"s Hull by clicking HERE . That will save me repeating myself .
 
When doing an Open Side hull it's a good idea to glue some temporary battens, say four spaced about an inch apart, to the full length of the open side first using PVA glue. This will ensure that the frames won't pull the keel out of alignment. You can easily remove the battens when the Planked Side is finished by simply cutting them off the frames, but some Isopropyl Alcohol will soften the glue and you will be able to re-use them if necessary.
 
JeffE also gave some very good advice in an earlier post - I'd take it all if I were you.
 
The Sapelli planking strips supplied with the kit are not the easiest timber to use for planking, but with care you can still achieve a good result. Soaking them first, clamping to the hull or around a Former to dry, and then gluing them on after final tapering/bevelling is the best method as the inside of some will be visible. I used a home-made "crimping" type tool on my AL Bounty, which was a lot quicker (I was on a deadline to finish her) but the commercial types (Amati etc) will work with a bit of modification if you wish to go down that road.
 
Remember to Dry Fit every plank, and sand the edge until you get a really good fit. You may have to repeat this step a number of times, but it's worth it. Try and get the plank to sit on each frame without any more pressure than simply stopping it from moving while the glue dries.
 
  Danny

Time for cleats.  After a couple failed attempts at making wooden cleats for the bulwarks, I finally came across this entry from Floyd:
 
http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1906-wooden-cleats/
 
which of course made me feel silly for not looking here in MSW first.  Doh.
 

At any rate, I used a very similar process starting with a 3mm X 2mm strip, measuring off every 10mm for the width of the cleat I needed. I used a 10mm dremel grinder for the bottom of the cleat and a 3mm to 7mm conical shaped grinder for the top.

 
I then sanded and rounded the edges with 400 grit sand paper. I did this BEFORE I cut them apart since sanding any kind of small piece is much easier for me if it's still on a stem.
 

 
After cutting the cleats apart I rounded the edges.