¹⁄700

Spanish Navy Battleship PELAYO, 1895

I had realized that the profile drawing in the Spanish Pelayo monograph was not entirely telling the truth, and I would need far more information. I scoured the internet and ended with placing help-needed requests on the message boards; these quickly yielded an avalanche of photos and even better still, scans of builders drawings!

I was able to contact the well known Pelayo authority Nick Mitiuckov who had just had published a new monograph of Pelayo; the book was rushed to me from Russia by Sergey. I was now better armed to be able make sense of the grey areas, as I now had cross-sections, as well as some deck photos which went some way to clearing up some of the queries that had surfaced through the build.
I made two capstans using small tube and N-scale railway buffers.







I was able now to see the exact positions of the deck hatches and companion-ways, as well as the positions of the ornate 'leisure' seat benches on the quarter deck.



These items I bent up from very small bits of corrugated PE;



I have never seen such items of civilized non-military equipment on any other capital ship!



In the meantime I had masted the ship using stainless steel tubing to give rigidity.



The fighting tops used were those supplied in the kit, they appeared to be about the right diameter, however I wanted to have the apertures open, this I achieved by cutting out a slice using a rotary saw blade. Thereafter the 'step' was given more definition again using the vinyl tape.