Santa Maria 1:200 - Amati

[Momcil]

Dear All, starting a brand new project with a quite unusual and particular kit. Scale is 1:200 and it is a waterline model no more available from Amati but still in some on-line stores on the web. The instructions are very good, a detailed booklet showing all steps and giving a lot of advice. Metal parts are so-so, overall it will be necessary to check better if the scale has been truly followed

 

[Momcil]

It was quite easy to detach the parts forming the hull with the "bread and butter" approach. With a sharp pencil I draw all reference lines with the aid of a 1:1 scheme in the instruction booklet. A dry fit of the hull shows how tiny she is

 

[RussF]

That's one tiny model! I will eagerly await your progress updates.

 

[Momcil]

Small update about the first parts of the hull glued togather

 

[Momcil]

The hull is now complete and I started the retouch of the side walls and (more demanding) the trimming of the fore and aft castle. It turned out that using a long wooden stick the shape of the kit and some references can be used to give the proper inclination. Process is ongoing...

 

[Momcil]

The hull was completely trimmed and after that I glued the main deck and the transom (kit parts). Unfortunately, there is a small issue since the shape of such elements is not 100% in line with the shape of the hull itself. I am adding so some strips to fill the void space and to have a more homogeneous surface. Such process is ongoing

 

[Momcil]

All strips to fill the void were installed and after that retouched with sandpaper thus to give the proper shape of the hull. I also installed the stem wheel (kit part) to be used as reference for the lateral profiles. It was easy to bend on of them, but I did not like very much how they are coupling with the hull itself. So, I made an important decision not to use them and to start planking the hull in a traditional way. First part to be covered by planks will be the main deck and here, in order to comply with the scale my decision to use a “special” product coming from Northeastern Scale Lumber Co. Such strips are slender respect the minimum one of 2mm that I can get from my usual supplier Amati and probably can do the job!

 

[Momcil]

Preparing the deck planks. I choose the 2”x4” size that leads to a width of (4*25.4)/87 -> 1.16mm being so representative of a deck beam in 1/200 scale. Since the planks are all uniform as colour I decided to paint all sides with dark brown with the aim (hope so) to highlight the texture of the bridge