Under-water line at Santa Maria from Revell

Hello Katzennahrung,

I am working on the Heller Santa maria and it seems Rod is working on the Imai kit. I just learned some interesting things about the Columbus ships or more precisely the spanish ships of this period.

Firstly, since there is scarse information pertaining to these 3 ships exactly, a little creativity on your part is OK No one could say you were wrong.

What I did learn about the water line and the darkness you are talking about is as follows. It is a very dark color, almost black. This is because this part of the ship was covered in Tar to retard the growth of barnicles, etc. It was put on so thick that the planking as above water is not really visible. So paint this a flat black or a dark dark brown would not be wrong.

As for following the ________ (Sorry, I forgot the word) is a bit up to you. some say that it is horizontal while others say that it curves upward at the bow. My thinking is that it would have been done the latter way as when she was sailing, the bow would have been awash in seawater. Why wouldn't they protect that as they did the lower part of the hull?

I hope this helped answer our question. perhaps others will also reply to give you further ideas and hopefully to give me some vocabulary lessons.

Happy modeling,

Robert

Spelunko wrote:

As for following the ________ (Sorry, I forgot the word) is a bit up to you. some say that it is horizontal while others say that it curves upward at the bow. My thinking is that it would have been done the latter way as when she was sailing, the bow would have been awash in seawater. Why wouldn't they protect that as they did the lower part of the hull? I hope this helped answer our question. perhaps others will also reply to give you further ideas and hopefully to give me some vocabulary lessons. Happy modeling, Robert

Thanks, thanks. Taping and masking along the fenders is easier for me. I will  paint it with Humbrol "chocolate" color.

Likely I will post some images of my assembling. I prefer a different color scheme than what is given in the Revel assembling manual. For the main parts of the hull I used Italery/Model Master "leather" paints. The decks have been painted with Humbrol "sand".

I prefer the aformentioned combination. The replicas in Spain come close to my leather paintings and look like dark "maroon brown".

To my knowledge the plastic Revell "Santa Maria" and I also believe the Heller "Santa Maria" are a little bit different from all the other wood kits of the Santa Maria. I know of only one Santa Maria wood kit from Constructo at scale 1:100 which looks like the one in plastic.

The wood kits (and the replicas in spain) typicaly share a different forefront (do not have got the right nautical terms handy).

Regards,
Katzennahrung
Btw: The replicas in Spain do have standing rigging and shrouds made of ropes which are white in color.
Btw2: I red somewhere that they know where the ship wrecks of the Columbus ships might be located. Does anybody know why on earth nobody starts a project to rescue them? I think the Columbus ships are one of the most important ships. And such wreck findings will lead to some conclusion how they looked like in reality, eventually.

Spelunko wrote:

As for following the ________ (Sorry, I forgot the word) is a bit up to you. some say that it is horizontal while others say that it curves upward at the bow. My thinking is that it would have been done the latter way as when she was sailing, the bow would have been awash in seawater. Why wouldn't they protect that as they did the lower part of the hull?

Thanks for sharing the photos.

While some of the shots are useful, there are somethings which I wish I could have seen.

Anyway, the reason the all of the rigging is tan colored is that it has not been treated as it normally would have if they were actually using those ships. For standing rigging (shrouds, stays, etc) these would have been almost black as they use a tar rubbed into the rope to keep it from roting. This made using running rigging very slippery if they did that to those ropes also. Hence, they are left as untreated rope. Other things you may notice is the different thickness to the rope. This can also be displayed on the model. Finally, the blocks, deadeyes etc may not be right which are supplied in your kit. I ahve never seen it so I wouldn't know. Check out the pictures you have, compare to the ones you have and see. Go online to see how others have rigged this. My Heller plans are pretty good if you actually don't want to move anything. But if you want some realism, I would see about finding another source for the rigging. If it will take you a while to get to that part, perhaps I can help you. I have a book coming on the ships of columbus which I hope will give me and perhaps you the correct way to rig this old lady.

Best of luck.

Robert

Spelunko wrote:

Thanks for sharing the photos. While some of the shots are useful, there are somethings which I wish I could have seen. Anyway, the reason the all of the rigging is tan colored is that it has not been treated as it normally would have if they were actually using those ships. For standing rigging (shrouds, stays, etc) these would have been almost black as they use a tar rubbed into the rope to keep it from roting. This made using running rigging very slippery if they did that to those ropes also. Hence, they are left as untreated rope. Other things you may notice is the different thickness to the rope. This can also be displayed on the model. Finally, the blocks, deadeyes etc may not be right which are supplied in your kit. I ahve never seen it so I wouldn't know. Check out the pictures you have, compare to the ones you have and see. Go online to see how others have rigged this. My Heller plans are pretty good if you actually don't want to move anything. But if you want some realism, I would see about finding another source for the rigging. If it will take you a while to get to that part, perhaps I can help you. I have a book coming on the ships of columbus which I hope will give me and perhaps you the correct way to rig this old lady. Best of luck. Robert

There are some more images than the one given in my original post. You can go directly to the page. As I said: the images have been shot by my boss and we were in a hurry. It was only by chance that we saw the replicas there (we were just walking around and my eyes in a moment spotted the ships).

You can also see from the images that Heller produces a slightly different "Nina" with just two masts and not three.

I think I will go with the rigging as shown in the Revell manual. As I said elsewhere: 20 years and at age 52 from now a time will coming where I will start to produce some more realistically looking ships. The next 20 years will come out as a training period.