Columbus ships, Santa Maria and Pinta, kit by Amati...

Deck planking has started. From a reference line i draw on the deck, i started to plank the deck. There will be about 20 planks in the same length, so i pre-cut them in preparation...

1635.jpg

One old pencil (dark brown colour) was used to simulate caulking on one side of the planks..

1636.jpg

During planking process i was again pleased with the performances of the glue dispenser i recently obtained. The 1mm glue line, steady in all way and dispenser that does not clog up, staying always available, due to the fact that it has a silicone cap. Perfect. Strongly recommended...

1637.jpg

The result so far...

1638.jpg

Happy modelling...
 
Speeding up the process of caulking simulations...

1639.jpg

1640.jpg

1641.jpg

1642.jpg

1643.jpg

1644.jpg

Here is the way i planking those few planks at the edge of the deck. First i mark the mark where the planks will start to run with its own width again by leaning the plank to the hull until it start squeezing between hull and deck planking..

1645.jpg

Then move planks all the way to the point where plank touches the hull

1646.jpg

Transfer the first mark which becomes the second point where diagonal cut will be done. The first point lis eft hand side corner of the plank. Then i cut the plank and test the fitting..

1647.jpg

Once all is good, glue and put in place..

1648.jpg

Continue with planking...

1649.jpg

1650.jpg

1651.jpg

The stern might not be that visible, but still...

1652.jpg

1653.jpg

Then i do lots of scrapping using just a razor blade and light sanding with 600 sandpaper.

And that should do for this deck planking... Next is to simulate the treenails, and plank length... and layer of some oil...

1654.jpg

Happy modelling.
 
Starting to simulate deck planking and treenails..

Made a little tool to mark planks meeting point, out of one old used #11 blade..

1655.jpg

1656.jpg

1657.jpg

1658.jpg

Then 0.4mm drill was used to drill actual holes for nails; tried few different drill sizes and 0.4mm appears to be the most adequate and not out of scale..

1659.jpg

Happy modelling..
 
Starting to simulate deck planking and treenails..

Made a little tool to mark planks meeting point, out of one old used #11 blade..

View attachment 303341

View attachment 303340

View attachment 303339

View attachment 303338

Then 0.4mm drill was used to drill actual holes for nails; tried few different drill sizes and 0.4mm appears to be the most adequate and not out of scale..

View attachment 303337

Happy modelling..
Good morning. That is a unique planking method(well to my self as a novice). I rather like it. Cheers
 
Those tiny nails are made using some old scrap/extra planking strips.
From scrap wood like this...

1668.jpg

Cutting them into 5m length pieces so they can be cut follow the grain into nails...

1669.jpg

Cut them to triangular shape..

1666.jpg

To show the scale, these are my Tamiya pointy tweezers

1667.jpg

Using cherry wood for demonstration of their shape...

1665.jpg

1664.jpg

In the deck..

1663.jpg

Cut to the deck..

1662.jpg

I scrapped the deck instead of sanding..

1661.jpg

And final result

1660.jpg

It is very time consuming process but will look nice after a layer of oil...

Happy modelling..
 
Deck treenails exercise has been completed; all nails are in , scrapped and ready for an oil coat..

1674.jpg

To break a bit from tree nails, i stared to do a hull planking.. the planking material is very nice quality and easy to work with... but because of the curves this time i use just a CA instead of carpenter' glue..

1675.jpg

1676.jpg

1677.jpg

Happy modelling...
 
No much to report, planking, planking and more planking..
I must admit planks that come with the kit are very flexible and not that delicate to work with despite the thickness of 0.3mm... but on the other hand there is no much room for planking tapering and other techniques to for the best fitting ...

712.jpg

711.jpg

710.jpg

Happy modelling..
 
The hard part of hull planking has been completed. I kind of like the replica planking pattern so i decided to mimic it as much as i can..

SM-Replica.png

First i traced the hull shape in the are when combined planking will be applied..

1020.jpg

Then trace the shape to the hull..

1021.jpg

1022.jpg

Planking started.. and shape once more transferred to the finish planking.

1023.jpg

1024.jpg

1025.jpg

Then it was cut the shape..

1026.jpg

1027.jpg

1028.jpg

Now i started to do few more planking...

1030.jpg

1029.jpg

For this i used regular planks, cut them in half and glue to the hull. Then i decided to speed it up bit but cutting the plank in half but not all the way thru. The plank is cut completely towards the ends but in the middle, the plank is not cut all the way thru, just light cut to show the planking shape. This allows me to glue two half planks as one, 4mm wide plank.

1031.jpg

1040.jpg

1041.jpg

1042.jpg

Now, sanding, scrapping, and work on the keel covering damages are next steps.

I must admit i am not 100% happy how planking ended up; using fixed size planks did not allow me to create proper planking coverage specifically at the keel where plank wider dimension is required. But, i was not in the mood of spending more money ordering wider planks and went with what is in the box. Included planks are 0.3mm thick making them very usable when it comes to follow "weird" hull shapes but very fragile and easy to snap..

Happy modelling..

1030.jpg
 
Last edited:
Bravo pour ce beau travail sur ce modèle !
J'ai aussi réalisé les trois caravelles, Billing Boats pour la santa Maria et Amati pour la Pinta et la Nina à l'échelle du 1/50e ! bonne continuation
 
Bravo pour ce beau travail sur ce modèle !
J'ai aussi réalisé les trois caravelles, Billing Boats pour la santa Maria et Amati pour la Pinta et la Nina à l'échelle du 1/50e ! bonne continuation
Thank you for your comment. At this point i am building Santa Maria and Pinta; was not able to get hands on Nina but planning to complete it as well in the future so i have the whole fleet...

And your blog is very interesting and knowledgable, thanks for the link.

Cheers
 
Those tiny nails are made using some old scrap/extra planking strips.
From scrap wood like this...

View attachment 303882

Cutting them into 5m length pieces so they can be cut follow the grain into nails...

View attachment 303881

Cut them to triangular shape..

View attachment 303884

To show the scale, these are my Tamiya pointy tweezers

View attachment 303883

Using cherry wood for demonstration of their shape...

View attachment 303885

View attachment 303886

In the deck..

View attachment 303887

Cut to the deck..

View attachment 303888

I scrapped the deck instead of sanding..

View attachment 303889

And final result

View attachment 303890

It is very time consuming process but will look nice after a layer of oil...

Happy modelling..
Nice work with all those tree nails
 
The 1x1mm stringers were placed on the deck. Tiny, tiny, pay attention, they break easily..

1410.jpg

The bounty sheet protecting the hull...

1411.jpg

After transferring the position from plans, i started to put a bulwark stays, 2x2mm. I was expecting to have the same dimensions for stays and stringers but they are not, at least as per the instructions. But they look OK once installed..

1412.jpg

Pinta decided to drop by and check the progress..

1413.jpg

1414.jpg

Checking the position of cannons opening since they are fairly low to the ground.

1415.jpg

And bulwark stays were cut to the correct hight.

1416.jpg

Happy modelling..
 
Back
Top