Pyro's Santa María

[Bertie McBoatface]

I very much like the way this is going. To me it's a twenty-first century build of a twentieth century model of a sixteenth century model of fifteenth century ship. And looks exactly right. You definitely can't tell that it's plastic.

[Tim Reynaga]

10 hours ago, dnl42 said:

That looks quite good! 

The finish is just excellent! Personally, I'd never try a plastic model of a wooden ship as I'd make a complete caricature of the subject,

 

I was wondering if you were going to try to finish by today.

 

 

Thank you so much! One of the nice things about building these old Pyro kits is that the are already a bit caricature-ish, so the pressure to make showpieces of them is off - I'm just having fun with it! As for Columbus Day, or "Discovery Day", "Día de la Raza " or whatever you want to call it... I hadn't even remembered 😆. Today actually was a U.S. federal holiday, but the correct day should be October 12.

 

Anyway, there's no way I'll finish it this week!  🙄

[Tim Reynaga]

10 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

I very much like the way this is going. To me it's a twenty-first century build of a twentieth century model of a sixteenth century model of fifteenth century ship. And looks exactly right. You definitely can't tell that it's plastic.

Thanks Bertie! I like your analysis, it's true - this thing is really a mix! 🤣

[Tim Reynaga]

 

 

Before mounting the sails I experimented with EZ Line for the shrouds. This line had worked well on my USS Constellation build a couple of years ago, but in this smaller scale the flat and slightly uneven width of the material seems just a bit too obvious.

 

 

Now I’m going back to the same polyester sewing thread used previously on my Niña and Pinta builds. It isn’t as easy to get pulled tight without slack, but it looks good since it is basically miniature rope!

[Bertie McBoatface]

13 hours ago, Tim Reynaga said:

Now I’m going back to the same polyester sewing thread used previously on my Niña and Pinta builds.

 

Good decision. EZ Line is easy, and like most things made to be easy, isn't much good. (In my opinion. Other opinions are available.)

[Tim Reynaga]

Before continuing on with the shrouds I removed the spar/foresail to address the excessive curve of the sail.

 

 

Pressing it hard under my finger, the thin molded polystyrene plastic flattened out nicely. To make sure the sail kept at least some of the new shape, I let it sit overnight under a 20 pound dumbbell.

 

 

The sail now shows a nice – but more restrained – billowing curve.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Tim, I think that's a definite improvement with the foresail. Regards, Jeff.

[Tim Reynaga]

Thanks, Jeff. I actually was concerned about the strength of the little sail as I pressed it flat… would the 50 year old plastic part reshape or just snap under the pressure? I should really have warmed the material first to soften it, but I got impatient – and lucky! 

 

Anyway, after abandoning the EZ Line idea for the shrouds I went ahead and added those forward using polyester sewing thread.

 

 

These were attached by first tying the lines, with the knot in the middle, to the mast top and securing each knot with a tiny dab of cyanoacrylate (super glue). The ends were then fixed to the deck edges with super glue and trimmed off.

 

 

 

The mizzen stays were added in the same way.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Tim Reynaga

[Bertie McBoatface]

It looks very authentic

 

[Tim Reynaga]

The shrouds (stays) for the mainmast came next. The previously attached main and topgallant sails looked good, but after trying to maneuver around them to fit the shrouds I ended up just taking them off again to make more working room.

 

 

The stays, as the name implies, were there for the purpose of bracing the masts to stay in position while being pulled forward by the wind-filled sails. Beginning with the forward and aftermost lines, I applied these the same way as the foremast and mizzen stays/shrouds except that these were anchored to the outside of the hull along those chain wale (channel) ledges on the hull sides.

 

 

The lines were secured one at a time with each covering both right and left sides. This evolution, although simple, required care since they had to be kept gently taught but not so much as to distort that thin mast. Also, the tension on the shrouds had to be kept equivalent right-and-left and consistent with the others down the line.

 

 

 

When done there were nine of these mainmast shrouds on each side aligned with the raised shroud blocks Pyro had molded on the hull. This arrangement matches that of Spanish Navy Captain Fernández-Duro’s 1892 replica Santa María, the ship upon which Pyro apparently based their model kit.

[Bertie McBoatface]

Very taut and tidy.

[Tim Reynaga]

On 10/21/2022 at 4:08 AM, Bertie McBoatface said:

Very taut and tidy.

Thanks Bertie!

 

 

I reattached the spars/sails; next up will be the fore stays and then the running rigging.

[Bertie McBoatface]

With the wind right aft, as indicated by the flags, I wonder of the big main course would steal the wind from the foresail? 

[Tim Reynaga]

3 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

With the wind right aft, as indicated by the flags, I wonder of the big main course would steal the wind from the foresail? 

Quite probably so, but who are you going to believe, your own common sense or the Pyro fantasy factory? 😆

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Tim Reynaga

[Rob G]

Lovely work. At the risk of causing pain, what this needs is some crew, to give a real sense of just how small these ships were. A half dozen on deck would probably do, but the full complement would be amazing. 

[Tim Reynaga]

8 hours ago, Rob G said:

Lovely work. At the risk of causing pain, what this needs is some crew, to give a real sense of just how small these ships were. A half dozen on deck would probably do, but the full complement would be amazing. 

Hi Rob, not a bad idea, I always appreciated that Revell provided a few crew figures with their larger sailing ship kits, but for Pyro's small kits we modelers are on our own. Any idea where I might get some crew for this thing? I'm not even certain of the scale!

[Tim Reynaga]

The fore stays – those fixed lines that counterbalanced the back stays and served to keep the masts from toppling backward – have been installed.

 

 

So much for the fixed standing rigging that kept the masts in place. Next up will be the running rigging that was used to control the sails.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Tim Reynaga
add pic

[Tim Reynaga]

 

Before continuing with the rigging I took break to prep the anchors – but I wasn’t particularly happy with Pyro’s interpretation of them!

 

 

One of Santa María’s anchors has actually been preserved and may be seen at the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Although it apparently shared the unusual stockless design of Pyro’s Santa María kit anchors, it was clearly much more slender.

 

 

 

Fortunately, the anchor parts provided in Pyro’s Pinta kit come closer to the original, and I had a spare kit on hand. I decided to mount these on Santa María just as I had done on my Pinta build.

 

 

Then the Santa María kit boxart caught my eye; contrary to the real anchor in the museum, it showed the anchor as having the usual prominent wooden stock at the top just below the ring.

 

 

Curious, I consulted Xavier Pastor’s Anatomy of the Ship: The Ships of Christopher Columbus – and sure enough, the illustration there also showed the anchor to have had a stock! What was going on here? Then I realized... that preserved anchor in the Haitian museum had been recovered in 1796, over three hundred years after it was lost at sea – the original wooden stock had simply rotted away!

 

 

Examples of this are not uncommon. When an anchor from Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, lost in 1717, was recovered 300 years later, it too showed no signs of the wooden stock it was known to have had.

 

 

 

 

And so I cut the tops off the Pyro Pinta anchors and inserted sheet plastic stocks. 

 

 

Here is one of the anchors painted up and test fitted.

[dnl42]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:20 PM, Bertie McBoatface said:

With the wind right aft, as indicated by the flags, I wonder of the big main course would steal the wind from the foresail? 

Indeed she would not have been so rigged had she been running before the wind. Here's a figure from John Harland's outstanding Seamanship in the Age of Sail

 

While I highly recommend this book, it's now very pricey! 😱

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Tim, without a stock of some sort I can't see how those type of anchors would work. The flukes would simply drag along the sea-bed instead of biting into it. The Airfix 'Revenge' has wood stocks on their kit anchors. Nice job on your anchors. Regards, Jeff.

[Bertie McBoatface]

4 hours ago, dnl42 said:

Indeed she would not have been so rigged had she been running before the wind. Here's a figure from John Harland's outstanding Seamanship in the Age of Sail

 

While I highly recommend this book, it's now very pricey! 😱

 

I have that book and second your recommendation. It's packed with information, lucid, well illustrated and I believe it has a reputation for accuracy too.

[Tim Reynaga]

Two steps forward, one step back...

 

 

I agree, gentlemen - as I finished the standing rigging and prepared to move on to the running lines, the orientation of the sails began to bother me. I had aligned them with the-fore-and aft molded flags with the ship running before the wind (i.e., the wind directly astern). In this situation, the mainsail should have been hauled up so as not to steal the wind from the foresail (illustration F in the diagram from John Harland's Seamanship in the Age of Sail)

 

 

 

So I bent the flags and remounted the sails a few degrees to the left to suggest that the ship was heading slightly off the wind, sailing free (illustration D). 

 

The difference isn’t dramatic, but at least it can better explain how both the main and fore sails are full! 

Now on to that running rigging...

Edited October 29, 2022 by Tim Reynaga

[ArnoldAmbrose]

2 hours ago, Tim Reynaga said:

he difference isn’t dramatic, but at least it can better explain how both the main and fore sails are full! 

Gidday Tim, I think it looks a little more authentic too. Regards, Jeff.

[Tim Reynaga]

I began the running rigging – the lines used to control the sails – with the mizzen lateen sail.

 

 

The sheet line was attached to the lower corner of the sail with a dot of super glue...

 

 

...then the line was set to the boomkin (that little spar sticking out from the stern). I also added the brace line to the lower end of the lateen yard...

 

 

...which was then attached it to the aft fife rail. The upper brace was secured to the portside rail.

 

 

Finally, I added the horizontal control line (the one with the two bridles) from the mizzen yard to the mainmast just below the crow’s nest. Also added were the lifts, braces, and sheet lines on the mainsail. This may sound like a lot, but it is all actually quite simplified; I’m going for “representational” rather than full rigging so as not to overwhelm this tiny model.

[Courageous]

Looking very nice. It's great to see what can be done in these smaller scales.

 

Stuart