Santa Maria scratch build items

The dowel-in-the-drill trick will work fine for making barrels.  You might consider adding narrow strips of painted paper, applied with white glue, to represent the bands that hold the staves together.  In those days the bands most likely would have been made of wood, rather than iron.

Does your local hobby shop have a model railroad department?  If so, you might see what it has to offer in the way of "scratchbuilder's supplies."  If it carries Evergreen styrene, it certainly ought to carry basswood.  (The hobby shop guy may know it simply as "stripwood."  Either way, it beats balsa.)  The model railroaders have an enormous assortment of aftermarket parts at their disposal, some of which are useful for ship modeling too.  I've found such things as cast metal grain sacks, fruit crates (some with open lids - and fruit inside), and any number of miscellaneous boxes.  Most of this stuff is in HO scale (1/87), but for generic fittings like that the scale doesn't matter much.

Does the boat in the Heller kit have any detail?  You can add frames, thwarts, etc. to the inside with strip styrene.  To make a set of oars with a minimum of fuss, get hold of some brass wire that's about three scale inches in diameter.  Heat a length of it over a candle to soften it, then mash the end in a vise.  The mashed portion becomes the oar blade.

I have no idea what 1492-vintage hammocks looked like.  (For that matter, I don't know whether those guys slept in hammocks - but it seems logical.)  On my little model of the frigate Hancock  I made the hammocks (about 200 of them are stowed in the hammock nettings, on top of the bulwarks) out of the same material I used for the furled sails:  fine tissue paper painted with a mixture of PolyS paint and white glue.  I'm satisfied with the results - and the hammocks look good as new more than twenty years later.

The Anatomy of the Ship book probably will give you some more ideas.  As far as I'm concerned, the more of this stuff gets put on a model the more interesting it will be.  Good luck.

For the flavor of the period and details:

There is another Anatomy of the Ship book available on one of Pamir's contemporaries, 'The Four Masted Barque Lawhill'. Goes for about $35.00 on www.ADDALL.com used books. 

There are the usual detail drawings and a lot of b/w on deck photos.

There is also a book called 'Captain's Album", published by the Swedish Shipping Gazette (in English) with great deck photos from the period. Goes for about $20 on www.ADDALL.com used books.

Also on ADDALL are "Pamir - A Voyage to Rio in a Four-Masted Barque", "The Last Time Around Cape Horn: The Historic 1949 Voyage Of The Windjammer Pamir" and "THE VANCOUVER VOYAGES OF THE BARQUE PAMIR "

Regarding hammocks:  whether 'tis legend or fact, the preponderance of info seems to say that Columbus and crew "discovered" hammocks during his first voyage.  Since the SM never saw Palos again (broken up in Haiti in December 1492), it's highly unlikely (if you believe that hammocks were discovered on the first voyage) that any existed on this ship.  Most likely sleeping arrangements were of the "on deck, space available" variety.  As is obvious, the extreme paucity of reliable information on this most important ship leaves one to his own devices.  To be credible, it remains to "go with the flow" and build what the informed viewer expects.  The uninformed viewer expects an entirely different set of accessories (one asked "Where's the steering wheel?) and is not to be suffered lightly.  Ship's stoves on caravels were typically on the weather deck, made of iron and set in a sand box.  The SM, being rather larger than Pinta and Nina, may have had her stove below decks, still set in a sand box .  Food storage boxes may have been secured to the stern transom to give the crew the benefit of not having to smell what they would be earting and to hopefully delay spoilage in the cooler air. 

Best,

Ron 

Now that Ron mentions it, I recall having read (somewhere or other; I have no idea where) that the hammock was a Native American invention.  If that's the case, we can pretty firmly rule out the use of hammocks on board the Santa Maria - and all other European vessels built prior to 1492.

I also recall seeing some old engravings of fifteenth-century ships with bottles, jars, and other containers hanging over their taffrails.  (The senile brain is remembering, faintly, a hint of a cut of meat being stored in the same manner.)  That would be a nifty touch for a model of the Santa Maria.

The old Revell kit, as I remember, had a passable representation of a stove molded integrally with the main deck.  I'm not familiar with how Heller handled that detail - if at all.

One other commodity that surely would be stored somewhere on the weather decks of such a ship:  spare spars.  No competent captain would dream of undertaking a voyage like that without making provision for repairing damage to his top hamper.  The spare spars might be tapered and ready to rig, or they might take the form of simple, untapered logs (probably with the bark stripped), waiting for the ship's carpenter to shape them as needed.

Interesting stuff.  One neat feature of a project like this is that it provides plenty of room for individual taste and speculation.

These are all great ideas and give some food for thought.

I have heard or read that the sailors slept whereever they could i.e. coils, on boxes, etc. If this is true, than no hammocks. Would have been a nice feature.

I am sure, well not sure, but hope that the book will detail some of this information.

Good ideas concerning making the oars and also the addition of extra spars. The Heller kit does not have anything in the ways of a fire pit, etc. The details are pretty scarce as far as I can see. The bulkheads do have ribbing though. and a somewhat passable rendition oplanking. but not like the hull.

The main mast as per Heller is made of 2 parts but are stacked right on top of each other, hence the idea that it is 1 piece with a crows nest in the middle. The spars look like 2 pieces of wood lashed together as are most of the other wooden sailing parts.

The idea that I can scratch build so many things to detail ths kit is a plus.

Keep the ideas coming. nothing is to far fetched. Perhaps I will use or maybe not. Perhaps other modelers of the SM may get something from this thread also.

On the side. I fearfully reapplied the flat coat again. This time without any problems. I just did about15 very light coats. Photos to come.

The cook stove Jtilley wrote about on the Revell model was nicely detailed.For you that know more about the history than I do.Wasn't the cook stove back under cover more? I remember when the remake of the Half Moon was traveling in the Great lakes area a few years back.The tour  guide and Captain told about the cook not only being cook but also medical person on board.Because the cook had the knifes to do operations with.Also because he had a fire any sick or injuried personal could be put by the heat to be kept comfortable.The stove on the remake was under a deck to keep out of  the weather.Now I know there was great fear of fire aboard the wooden ships.

Bob I know you don't live in the U.S.But in the wood section of Hobby Lobby they have wood barrels in different sizes they work great.

I know in later years like on the HMS Victory they carried livestock.But these ships were very small.Perhaps they carried Chickens,Goats, and other smaller animals.They would carry baskets of what fruits and vegetables were available.I used colored peppercorns on one of my ships in baskets.They looked like different types of fruits plus some looked like they where decaying.They looked pretty close to scale.

Rod