Santa Maria1:48 (Pavel Nikitin)

Thanks so much Chris.

It turned out better than I had hoped. The hull woods are a little different in texture as the sheets they are cut from are likely cut at different times. Plus most of the planks are 2 short pieces glued together to make a long plank. And some of the pieces the woods didn't match. But the dye covered everything pretty well.

Finially got the starboard side stained. Had a problem with mt airbrush, but managed to get the ship sprayed. Ordered a new needle set. Hope that fixes the problem.

Not sure what I'l do next. Maybe the 4 cannons. I can't put a deck on until the cannons are set in place. Plus I must cut 4 holes in the side of the ship for the cannons.

Question for anyone please on tackle for the gun carriages. I haven't found anything on the internet.

Here are a couple of images of the guns for this ship from the instructions. There is no rigging on this model. As the cannons can be seen if one looks under the upper deck above the main deck I would like to add some sort of rigging. I'm thinking just simply left and right tackle from ships hull to rear of the carriage?? Suggestions appreciated.

lakedaisy said:

I'm calling the lower hull finished. Well, except for the airbrushing. That will come after the entire hull is finished.
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Very fine indeed Rob. Cheers Grant

Thank you Grant. Currently putting together the canons and cutting the gunports.

Cut the 4 gunport holes. Here is Pavel's webpage #17 Gun ports

Per the video the gun port towards the bow is 10mm above the wale. This was what I found too. The gun port towards the stern is 6mm above the wale per the video. Be careful I found both sides to be about 9mm. I started with a small drill bit and kept using a larger bit keeping the hole as small as possible until I could see the cannon. Wanted to make sure I didn't cut the gun port in the wrong direction. After I could see the cannon in the gun port I kept enlarging the hole using burrs on my Proxxon rotary tool and a small rat tail file. Then I smoothed the hole with fine sandpaper wrapped around the file. I airbrushed the decorative pieces dark walnut from Pavel's paints and glued them to the hull. The bulwarks on the inside must also the cut out to allow the cannon to fit in place. I did this with the burr by pushing it further into the gun port hole from the outside.

Bravely done, Rob! Cutting holes in the hull is no joke.

Next I assembled the 4 cannon carriages. Then airbrushed them with the patina, lightly sanded and 2 coats of oak from Pavel's paints. Pavel's video is #16 Cannons

I didn't like the shiny brass cannons, so I blackened them with Birchwood Casey Degreaser and Birchwood Casey Brass Black.

In the video he made straps from brass and formed them to fit the cannons sitting in the carriage. This was above my skill level so I cut thin strips for heavy black paper and made the straps. I also added a few nails to simulate bolts. The axles on the carriages have tiny holes in them for pins to hold the wheels. on. I have some small black wire (24 gauge) I use to make eyebolts. It fit perfectly.

The carriages have small grooves cut into the frame. They matche the protruding bands on the cannons. The cannons have a small cascabel on the rear. I had to cut this off to get the cannon to fit properly in the carriage.




I painted the nail heads black... (I somehow turned of BOLD fonts, can't turn them off)


The carriages don't have any rigging in the instructions. So I added some simple rigging.


I put another coat of Minwax Oil-Based Wipe-On Polyurethane, Satin on the deck. Will have to use a little steel wool as too shiny. I need to dull it down a little.

That's all for now. Will have to review the plans and video to see what I have bypassed and not done yet as I wanted to get the cannons in place before proceeding with anything on the interior.

Those cannons look terrific, nicely done.

Jan

Thank you Jan.

Hey Rob,

That looks really great. I'm thrilled. I have a question about painting and sanding.

1. What grade of sandpaper did you use to achieve this great effect on your planking? Did you sand it several times?

2. What airbrush needle did you use for painting? Was it 0.3 mm thick or even thinner?

I look forward to your reply and thank you for showing us. It turned out really beautifully...

Good morning Gunther and thank you for the comments.

The hull didn't require a lot of sanding as I 'pre-bent' each plank to fit the hull shape before gluing. And as Pavel had "pre-shaped" the planks when laser cutting them, they went together nicely. Be sure to slightly bevel both back edges (hull side) of the planks. And a light bevel on the front edges (visible side) if you want the grooves in the hull like Pavel did. And I used a very tiny triangled shaped file from this set to uniformly shape the grooves after sanding the hull. I used 150 lightly as needed, then 220 and finally 320 grit sandpaper. The hull didn't requre a lot of sanding.

I used 0.2mm to spray the dyes. Though 0.3 would have worked too. The dyes don't require any thinning before spraying.

lakedaisy said:

Good morning Gunther and thank you for the comments.

The hull didn't require a lot of sanding as I 'pre-bent' each plank to fit the hull shape before gluing. And as Pavel had "pre-shaped" the planks when laser cutting them, they went together nicely. Be sure to slightly bevel both back edges (hull side) of the planks. And a light bevel on the front edges (visiable side) if you want the grooves in the hull like Pavel did. And I used a very tiny triangled shaped file from this set to uniformly shape the grooves after sanding the hull. I used 150 lightly as needed, then 220 and finally 320 grit sandpaper. The hull didn't requre a lot of sanding.

I used 0.2mm to spray the dyes. Though 0.3 would have worked too. The dyes don't require any thinning before spraying.

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Good evening Rob,

Thank you very much for your answers. I think your design is great and I think I'll ask Father Christmas for a San Bartalome too... It's beautiful. It's great how you can use the airbrush. I'm a fan of your build report.

Gunther... Pavel still has a 10% christmas discount on his site. Pavel's Website...

I'm sure you know... this is the Santa Maria I'm building. I placed an order for another San Bartalome kit, accessories and a couple more paints sests that I placed on 11/22/25. Last I spoke with Pavel, he said my order would ship at the end of December (We will see!). I had purchased a San Bartalome on 07/15/22, but almost quit modeling and gave it away in 2023 (I think it kwas '23, maytbe '24??).

Hey Rob,

Yes, you're building the Santa Maria. It looks so beautiful. I've also decided to order the San Bartolome from Pavel. It's really gorgeous. I'm looking forward to reading your build report on the San Bartolome and hope you'll be able to hold it in your arms soon.

I haven't been using the slipway to hold the ship, so I put together the stand which comes in the kit. I airbrushed stained it before assembly.

One sheet of parts was not cut all the way through and I had to cut the two pieces out with my scroll saw.


The instruction booklet has these parts labeled wrong.

Now that the cannons are in, I can install the quarterdeck.

There's a wall on the aft end of the main deck. There are 2 kit pieces glued to this wall. The kit instructions don't mention these pieces. Not that I saw anyway. I always refer to both the video and kit instructions. Good thing. The video #18 Quarterdeck beams shows the 2 pieces being put into place before the deck beams and deck are put in. There is no way to install the 2 kit pieces after the deck in put in.

The 1st deck beam #11-3 can be seen after it's installed. In the video it's airbrushed after it's glued in place. I airbrushed it before gluing in. I kept looking for the 2 wall pieces in the wood sheets, but couldn't find them. Thought I didn't have them. There are several small boxes with see-through lids i the kit. I found them in one of the boxes.





After airbrushing, I glued the two wall pieces on. Next I installed the deck beams, then the quarterdeck deck. I had pre assembled all the decks and airbrushed them early in the build. So, all i had to do was glue it in place.



There is another vertical wall at the end of the quarterdeck. Next step is to put together the poop deck bulkhead, airbrush and install it.

I put together and airbrushed the hatch. There are no covering board for the hatch coaming as it's just a pass-through for cargo going to hatch below on the main deck.


I had put the quarterdeck planks together correctly... They wouldn't look square if i didn't. However, the hatch coaming was too large to fit down into the access frame square set on the beams below the decking. I cut the coaming apart with my table saw and trimmed the boards to the correct size to fit the access hole. Next problem was the hatch combing was too small reach the edegs of the decking material. I cut and put a square of trim pieces around the combing to cover to the edges of the decking. I now see that I should have cut the access frame below the deck and the trim piece around the coaming would have been smaller.





The poop deck bulkhead is next. It's made from 2 pieces. I taped them together on the back to hold them together. It was a little too large to fit in place due to the 'knees'. It took some sanding on these curved corners for the bulkhead to fit in place. Decorating with accent pieces and airbrushing the bulkhead is next. The knees and poop deck beam (I had already airbrushed it before installing) were put in place earlier in the build. I can now see in the photo that I need to fill the crack between the knee and bulkhead, then airbrush again. Will do this before putting the poop deck bulkhead in place.

Putting in the poop deck bulkhead...

added the decorative pieces...


Cut the bottom supports off


Stained light colored wood dark. Add the door and window...


Glued it to the rear bulkhead...

There is a bulkhead at the bow. The kit doesn't show it being added to the ship, but the video does #21 Hawseholes

Had a hard time figuring out what parts were for the bow bulkhead...

I'm guessing it's these two that would be put side by side. Problem is they are both cut the same, so one can't be reversed. And when put together they are still about 1/2" short of being wide enough to cover the area.


I cut the shorter boards off...


I keep the scrap pieces incase I need extra wood. I cut two scrap pieces off and trimmed them to width. Then glued to two original pieces together and added the planks I made to them to make the entire piece wide enough to fill the area.


This piece goes on the bow bulkhead...