Pyro's Santa María

[Tim Reynaga]

Hi all!

 

Back in 2015 I had a great time with Pyro’s ancient Niña and Pinta kits, and I also picked up a Santa María to go along with them. The first two builds were quite enjoyable, and the completed models were simple but attractive.

 

 

 

When it came to the Santa María, though, I ran out of steam. The original Niña and Pinta were both carabelas redondas (caravels) of about the same size, so the box-scale models displayed together well. The Santa María, though, as a larger nao, should have been visibly bigger – but the box-scale kit was the same size as the other two. Also the Santa María kit, dating originally from 1953, was noticeably more toylike than the later Niña & Pinta models...

 

I only got as far as assembling the Santa María hull (she’s the one in the foreground) before abandoning the build, but I’ve decided to take it up once again!

[Bertie McBoatface]

More sails! Hurrah!

 

The other two look really good. I like your painting style. I look forward to seeing how you do it on the Santa Maria.

[Ray S]

Yes, those hulls look the biz, please share your painting techniques when the time comes! They both look fantastic. All the best with the Santa Maria.

 

Ray

 

Sails are Good

[Bengalensis]

The Niña and Pinta both look lovely! Very nice paint work. Pity about the box scale, but looking at this I'm you'll make good work of Santa Maria as well.

[Tim Reynaga]

Thank you Bertie, Ray, and Bengalensis!

 

 

One of the shortcomings that bothered me about the Pyro’s little Santa María was the kit’s stern. It looked well enough on the sides as shown here, but the aft face had only some rough wood surface detail – and even that was destroyed in cleaning up the seam between the hull halves!

 

 

Since I have another incomplete kit on hand, I cut the side windows from one of the spare hull halves.

 

]

 

Added to the aft-facing section of the fantail along with some plastic strips (roughed-up a bit with sandpaper to look more like wood), there is now at least some representation of the details that might have been present on the original stern.

 

Another weakness of the model is the complete lack of detail on the inner sides of the gunwales.

 

 

I don’t want to invest too much effort improving this primitive kit, but revisiting the build it seems reasonable to add some simple framing...

 

 

 

Evergreen .020 X .015 X and .020 X .010 inch  plastic strips help liven things up a bit.

[Bertie McBoatface]

It does sharpen up the kit very nicely. Otherwise the plastic reminds me of candle wax. 

[Tim Reynaga]

 

Ok, getting into the build a little more, I’m actually starting to like this kit! My earlier reservations about the hull have largely been addressed with some simple detail additions, and after doing a little research it seems Pyro’s overall interpretation was better than I had thought.

 

For a ship this famous, surprisingly little is known about its appearance. For many years, the 1927 vision of Julio Guillén (Director of the Museo Naval in Madrid) of the Santa María as a carabela de armada (caravel) was the most accepted interpretation. Model kits by Revell, Heller, Airfix, Lindberg, Imai/ERTL, and others were based on this version. However, more recently scholars have concluded that Spanish Navy Captain Cesáreo Fernández-Duro got it right back in 1892 with his interpretation of the Santa María as a nao, a precursor to the galleon (which really shouldn’t be that surprising as Columbus himself made no less than 81 references to the ship as a nao in his logbook...)

 

 

Anyway, unlike most of the Santa María model kits out there, Pyro’s humble effort was apparently based on this more accurate version!

Edited August 14, 2022 by Tim Reynaga

[Bertie McBoatface]

I only just realised how tiny it was. That applies to your model and the real thing too.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Tim, as others have said the Nina and Pinta are great looking models. Considering the reappraisal of the type of ship Santa Maria was, how does this affect the scale/size comparison with the other two? Regards, Jeff.

[Bertie McBoatface]

Hey Tim, you could pose Santa Maria behind the Nina and Pinta in a forced perspective kind of display.

[Tim Reynaga]

6 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Hey Tim, you could pose Santa Maria behind the Nina and Pinta in a forced perspective kind of display.

Thanks Bertie, that is a good suggestion!

 

 

I have the similar sized Niña and Pinta displayed together at the moment, but the size difference between them and  Santa María isn't super dramatic, so a forced perspective display just might work.

[Tim Reynaga]

6 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Tim, as others have said the Nina and Pinta are great looking models. Considering the reappraisal of the type of ship Santa Maria was, how does this affect the scale/size comparison with the other two? Regards, Jeff.

Arnold, that's a good thought! And you are right - the size difference between the caravelas and the nao is actually somewhat less than once thought, but specifics of most aspects of the ships is still basically conjecture, The best evidence of the relative sizes of the ships is probably the crew roster:

 

Niña                     24

Pinta                    26

Santa María         40

 

These figures suggest that the Santa María must still have been half again larger than either of the other two.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday again, I guess that's a bit disappointing if you wanted to display them together as a small fleet, all to the same scale. That's one of the reasons I've stuck to 1/600 scale ships, despite me being limited in the range of ships open to me.

     Back to your model, the simple framing you've done inside the bulwarks (?) has improved the looks of the model I think, a bit less toy-like. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Regards, Jeff.

[Tim Reynaga]

Thanks Jeff!

 

Another change to the hull has been to adjust the shrouds which supported the masts.

 

 

The representations of the shrouds/channels molded directly to the hull are basically accurate but a little flat. I added .015 X .080 inch plastic channels aft to give things a more three dimensional effect.

 

The forward shrouds weren’t quite as simple.

 

 

 

Captain Fernández-Duro’s 1892 Santa María reconstruction, contemporary nao drawings, and even the kit boxart show that the forward shrouds should attach to the inside edge of the forecastle at the deck edge rather than farther aft to the hull.

 

 

The molded kit shrouds don’t look bad, but the forward sets should not be in that location.

 

 

I scraped away those misplaced details with the edge of an X-acto and bits of sandpaper. This turned out to be a surprisingly fussy task as the raised detail goes all around and over the strakes – my wife and daughter got through an entire episode of RuPaul's Drag Race before I got it all done! The end result isn’t perfect, but it should look all right as the affected areas will be partially obscured by the stowed anchors.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Tim Reynaga

[Tim Reynaga]

 

Small additions to the hull were a pair of .059 inch hawse holes punched from .020 inch plastic.

[Courageous]

Nice to see what can be done with plastic.

[Tim Reynaga]

 

 

 

The masts are single piece affairs with reasonable detail, although and the odd design of the crow’s nest part makes for some awkward cleanup.  

 

 

 

 

 

The flags are molded directly to the masts and are rather thick. Still, Ysabel’s (Isabella’s) Royal Standard of Castilla y Leon is surprisingly accurate.

 

The other flags aren’t so accurate, though, and the molding of all of them is a little heavy anyway, so I thinned and scraped them clean. I’ll paint them later.

 

 

 

Here are the masts test fitted. To my eye they look a bit tall and spindly, but sails and rigging to come should make them less conspicuous.

[Bertie McBoatface]

It’s very good for its time and building up well. I agree that the masts appear either a little thin or a little tall but it’s hard to say which. 

[Tim Reynaga]

 

With basic assembly complete, the ship received an airbrushed coat of Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow acrylic to represent the “wood” base.

 

 

For the decks, Tamiya XF-57 Buff lightened with XF-25 Flat White did the job.

 

 

To get a smooth finish I wouldn’t normally brush paint wide surfaces like this – especially with acrylics – but over Pyro’s heavy detailing it works just fine!

 

 

The underwater hull was brush painted also. Fifteenth Century Spanish ships were unpainted except for the submerged portion of their hulls, which were coated with a crude antifouling made from a mixture of tallow and tar. I represented this with Tamiya XF-63 German Grey.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Tim Reynaga

[Bertie McBoatface]

In those base colours she looks made from milk, plain and white chocolate. 

[Tim Reynaga]

 

The stern windows were also filled in with the same Tamiya XF-63 German Grey used for the antifouling.

[Tim Reynaga]

As with my previous Niña and Pinta builds, to get a natural wood effect I coated the acrylic Tamiya paints with Grumbacher Raw Umber artist’s oil.

 

 

Even though I had used this oil-over-acrylic technique before, It was still unsettling to slaver the dark raw umber oil paint all over that neatly painted hull!

 

 

 

Once again, though, the technique worked just fine. When wiped down with a thinner-dampened towel, enough of the oil paint remains behind to leave darkened shadows in the recesses and a pleasing wood tone over the rest of the wood areas. I also like that artist’s oils dry slowly; I applied the oils and wiped the model down last night, but this morning I’m still able to work with the as yet unfixed paint – plenty of time to fix mistakes!

[Bertie McBoatface]

39 minutes ago, Tim Reynaga said:

unsettling

 

You aren't joking. It looked awful! But then gorgeous in the next photo.

[Ray S]

Such a simple process, such a wonderful result! Good work Tim!

 

Ray

[Tim Reynaga]

Thank you both - much appreciated!

 

 

Here's the hull with the deck and bulwark insides stained as well.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Tim Reynaga