Pavel Nikitin - Santa Maria

Pathfinder65 · Tuesday at 8:40 AM

dockattner said:
Looks good, Jan!

Thanks Paul, just a tiny bit of imagineering.

Jan

Daniel20 · Tuesday at 8:51 AM

Pathfinder65 said:
Lower Transom planking Port side:

I started by being a bit more agressive "fairing" this part of the frame.

View attachment 588652

The next step was to remove the char, lightly sand and glue the planks together as one piece.

View attachment 588654

Then a few dry fits to get a good fit.

View attachment 588666

Followed by a final check for a bit of overlap.

View attachment 588656

With a "filler" piece added the plank assembly was glued in place.

View attachment 588657

Today is a repeat for the Starboard side.

Jan

That's great instruction for those who are considering this as a build.

Pathfinder65 · Tuesday at 10:15 AM

Daniel20 said:
That's great instruction for those who are considering this as a build.

Yup, I had to think about it, I could not get a good fit with my initial fairing of that frame.

Jan

Pathfinder65 · Wednesday at 9:32 AM

Lower Transom planking completed:

Next step is a minor sanding marathon to finish the edges.

Jan

dockattner · Wednesday at 12:25 PM

Nice symmetry, Jan! You're getting good at this thing!

Pathfinder65 · Wednesday at 12:57 PM

dockattner said:
Nice symmetry, Jan! You're getting good at this thing!

I'm having a great time withn this build. Still a long way to go.

Jan

Pathfinder65 · Thursday at 11:28 AM

Working on odd bits while waiting for a shipment from Pavel's store.

I found a minor problem with assembling this part.

The plan:

The Parts aren't all cut the same

The problem:

Two parts fit but the third part is a bit of a problem.

Jan

RussF · Thursday at 12:28 PM

Interesting ... the drawing of the flat shows the parts in the correct orientation - it appears that between there and the laser, one part got flipped over. Does the odd section have the rectangular laser marks on the reverse side?

Pathfinder65 · Thursday at 12:40 PM

RussF said:
Interesting ... the drawing of the flat shows the parts in the correct orientation - it appears that between there and the laser, one part got flipped over. Does the odd section have the rectangular laser marks on the reverse side?

Yup, that section has the laser marks on the reverse side. It doesn't matter how I try to fit them, one side winds up odd.

Jan

dockattner · Thursday at 12:42 PM

Is there only one on the main mast? Nothing on the foremast?

Pathfinder65 · Thursday at 2:04 PM

dockattner said:
Is there only one on the main mast? Nothing on the foremast?

Hi Paul,
There is just that one. I don't know if any of the other "Santa Maria" builders have run into this problem.

Jan

Pathfinder65 · Friday at 2:53 PM

Hmm, since I could not work on the crows nest I moved on to do some deck planking.

Another "Gotcha" moment.

The instruction manual page showing the deck pieces.

The pieces from the kit, sanded and shaped.

A screen shot of Pavel's YouTube video showing the same pieces.

Screenshot 2026-04-03 at 11.14.10 AM.jpeg

The problem:
The bottom left hand corner (Blue arrow) is filled in on the YouTube video, but missing in the kit instructions and actual pieces. Looks to be a Laser programing error.

I'm going to go with the video version and fill in the small gap.

Jan

Pathfinder65 · 2026-04-05T10:13:54-0500

The rear deck "fixed" and glued in place.

After several dry fittings of the planks I chose to glue the deck planks together and then gluen the whole assembly in place.

Jan