Emmet

It is obvious that you have acquired excellent skills over the years. I enjoy looking at your work. I bought Amati because I did not know any better. I built La Pinta last year and I was not overly happy with the supplies but the instructions were pretty good. This year I bought Santa Maria and the materials are much better but the instructions are not good. The scale is not accurate and it is a good thing I did one last year when I was new. Without prior knowledge I would have had a bad time. I am estimating all the time. I bought both from Amazon. I Plan to build La Nina next year and I was reading that Columbus' original La Nina had lateen sails and then changed them to square sails in the Canary Islands because the squares were better heading west across the open ocean. They put one lateen sail on the stern to make it easier to sail along coasts. Apparently the Portuguese had used lateen sails along the coast of Africa because you could steer better. So I am wondering about building it. I see Amazon has Artesania Latina's La Nina with lateen sails. Then again I think I will buy La Nina from Cornwall next year. https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?page=search&SS=La+Nina&PR=-1&TB=O&ACTION=Go! I am also doing HMS Victory and I bought that from Cornwall in England-the price was right (even with fast shipping) and the materials and specs are good. Cornwall was recommended by Clearway on this site. He is a guy with a lot of experience and you should look at his models of Victory as well as HMS Terror. I hope I have been some help. I am still on the road to our winter place.

Just checking in to see how you are doing.

Thanks I am now on my way to Florida and stopped at friends that made arrangements for us to get vaccinated. It will be few days before I get going again. Thanks for looking in.

I was just thinking Lapinas asked about curving the wood. I think did do some soaking of the 1st hull pieces but I do not remember the curves being that great. At any rate I thought I would show a serious curve of the caps going from one deck to the next.

Thanks Lapinas Just to follow up about the upper deck. I fixed the deck securely together with masking tape and mounted the cabin. I stuck the mast in to help with fitting correctly. Then I used a surform to plane the deck to match the lower deck. I probably took off about 1/8" on both sides at the most forward point. It was a hairy job. I finished the masts now because as I said before I am trying to leave some things in Jersey. I have even less of a workshop down in Florida. There is a lot to do before the masts will be finalized. I will be gone for a few days. A friend passed away and we are visiting his spouse. It's a crazy time.

Elastic bands are an important tool.

Thanks for looking in. I have observed your work and think you do a great job. I have used the plank bender on Victory but find it is not difficult to bend these boards. I guess I am also trying other methods (the plank bender burned out on me). I would not use my Admiral's iron. I do not want to be assassinated. Perhaps I will buy a small iron. Interestingly I bought the Amati tool and it is not as good ( I am guessing I may never use it again) as using an old set of pruning shears that have a blade on one leg and a flat surface on the other. In general I tried some different ways of doing things on this ship. I built the La Nina last year. I can imagine la Pinta will be net year. I go south for the winter and leave Victory at home in New Hampshire. I like the challenges in ship building. It keeps me busy. The holidays, on the other hand, had me occupied. We just took down our decorations. I slept soundly last night.😏

Capped off the bulwarks and decided to make a mockup of the upper deck and the cabin. If anyone sees this maybe they can tell me that it is possible to laser cut pieces so far out of the expected dimension. I checked out other builds and it appears that I will have to plane down the middle deck so that it aligns with the bulwarks. It seems crazy to have to change the given plywood pieces. They might just as well have left it up to the builder to make the deck. Just for laughs

A little late but Merry Christmas to all. Let us hope this vaccine gets out there quickly.

Doing the deck was not difficult but it did require putting the pieces in and out many times so that they could be filed and surformed to fit the hull sides and join together correctly.

Thanks for looking in. This is a stage where you must be patient and work are small details in total acceptance of how things are less than perfect.

Pretty

Letting glue dry and working on deck pieces.

When I decided to go away from tapering and cut in "center pieces" I was not sure if it was a good idea. Now I feel it worked well. I believe it saved some effort and gave me a lot of experience cutting in. The middle of the hulls on Columbus's ship are big compared to the bow and stern. The garboard did fit in quite well as shown here.

I assume the paunch is the brown piece near the base of the mast. I was reading that they used paunches on the bowsprit as well.

I decided to use the above method to get the planks running more parallel again. I am hoping that it will come out better when I reach the Garboard strake.

Thanks Keith. I just got it in my mind to fill in the space using the following method. I would have had to use stealers and drop pieces. Let me know how it looks after I do a few more.

I did find Lee's book at Abe's for $63 with free delivery. Thanks for the help.

Y.T. is on another website- something about piracy that I could not understand. Ships of scale.

I hope the explanation below is clear.

I should have said I am working on the Santa Maria while I am away from my home base. So I am still learning.

Yes the hull is already much stronger. Fortunately clamps can be used for the first ten 2nd layer planks. Below that the hull can withstand some abuse.

Thanks a lot Interesting that James Lee's books go for many hundreds of dollars. I checked the library to no avail. Here is one from Mac Gregor. I have some books but they do not teally discuss these things in text. They show diagrams and such. I will keep checking. Square Rigged Sailing Ships by David R. MacGregor (1977-04-01) Hardcover – January 1, 1800 by David R. MacGregor; (Author) --- in Amazon I will also have to look here for the topics. I have copied and read many topics from this site. Bear in mind I am starting from a landlubber's point of view. Thanks again