Tim,

looking great and again lots of fun to follow you!!

Just as with the little Nina!!

Cheers,
Jan

Thanks Jan!

I'm glad this build is different enough from the Niña to still be intresting.
The Niña and Pinta hulls really are very similar...

It's definitely interesting Tim!!

And yes, the hulls are quite similar, but it's the way you approach this nice little kits and your background stories and and references, that make it so much fun watching your build log!

There's a spirit coming across that you really like those little ships, an that just makes it really enjoyable to follow!

Cheers,

Jan

LOL..even if it was the same kit is fun to follow along with!! Still looking good Tim!! Keep slapping this one around the bench!!

they are different enough.

Tim,
Really loving this thread. Getting history lessons and watching another stellar build for the same nickel. Keep it up!
John

Thanks, guys, much appreciated!

Before taking on the rest of the flags I wanted to get the oil stain on the hull and decks to give them plenty of time to dry. As with my Niña build, to get a natural wood effect I coated the acrylic Tamiya paints with Grumbacher Raw Umber artist’s oil.

Even though I had used this oil-over-acrylic technique before, It was still jarring to slaver the dark raw umber oil paint all over that neatly painted hull!

Once again, though, the technique worked just fine. When wiped down with a thinner-dampened towel, enough of the oil paint remained behind to leave darkened shadows in the recesses and a pleasing wood tone over the rest of the wood areas. Test fitting the mainmast, things look good as I set the hull aside to give the slow drying oil paint a few days to cure.

Amazing how quick the look can change on something...great job on the oil application Tim!!

Along with the hull I also painted up the ship’s boat. The kit part had nice clinker style planking on the sides, but the bottom was featureless (and slightly concave). After sanding it flat I scribed some wavy lines on it with the tip of my x-acto. Under the stain, the lines suggest wood grain.


Now back to those flags…

Nice wood grain effect. I've used artist oils thinned with odorless turpentine, more like a wash, to overcoat acrylic paints. The thinned stuff seems to dry quicker. By using a flat, stiffer bristled dry brush, a streaked, wood grain look can be had, similar to the "antiquing" or woodgraining used to make metal house doors look like wood.
The use of a tool to scratch the primer or base coat to make woodgrain is a great idea - I gotta try that.
Thanks for posting.

EJ

Thanks, EJ. Even though my experience with wood effects is limited, they have actually turned out to be pretty easy on this build.

Those flags, on the other hand...

The Royal Standard carried by Columbus’ ships was the Bandera de Castilla y León (flag of Castile and Leon) which consisted of the quartered coats of arms of Castile, represented by a castle, and León, represented by a lion. This was Queen Isabella’s flag.

Compared with the image from Xavier Pastor’s The Ships of Christopher Columbus (Anatomy of the Ship) on the left, the flag as depicted by Pyro was accurate only in shape. I sanded away the incorrect raised Maltese Cross on the center of the kit part before thinning the edges and giving it a base coat of white. Then I brush applied the red quarters over the white. These would have been perfectly straight on the real flags, but, but since waving flags are not quite flat a little variation from my imperfect hand painting job worked just fine!

Ok, so much for the easy part. Now it was time for the rampant lions in red over the white quarters. These tiny, complex figures were intimidating to paint – and I had to do eight of them over two flags! Having no real idea how to proceed, I took a few sips of Jack Daniel's Tennessee sour mash (to steady the hands, you know), got out my smallest brush, thinned some Tamiya red and just started in. Working slowly and steadily following Pastor’s fine artwork, I eventually came up with a set of lions that I thought looked pretty decent.


They weren’t perfect, but I thought they caught the look well enough. Opinions do vary, however: my eleven year old daughter, looking over my shoulder as I finished, graciously complimented me on the “cool flying monkeys” on my flag.


Oh, well...

Great work as always, Tim

you've gotta luv the 'frankness' of kids hey?

Russ

It's looking great Tim.

I know to well the dangers of letting children provide an unbiased assessment. They always seem to spot the obvious and now you probably always see monkeys when you look at that pennant!

cheers

Michael

wow, nice hand painting!

Russell and Jonathan, thanks! And Michael, you’re right – all I see when I look at that flag now are &@$#%! flying monkeys!

Anyway, with the monkeys on the Castilla y León flag somewhat tamed, I moved on to the pennant.

Pyro had depicted the swallow-tailed pennant as waving, which is good, but the thing is also completely flat! Nice try, but YUCK. The part looked so unrealistic I’d considered cutting it off the mast and just going with the two other flags, but in the end I had nothing to lose by trying to fix it with paint...


The flying monkeys (lions) were even more challenging on this smaller flag, but they are harder to see too! The painted pennant still isn’t that great, but the busy pattern adds interest and it does tend to mask the two-dimensionality of the part.

Incredible had brush work, Tim. You could be a surgeon.

Thanks, Michael. Painting is definitely NOT my strongest area, but this fairly basic kit has made me brave enough to try new techniques! (I've never painted flags before)

Since I want to keep the Pinta a quick build, the rig will be a simplified outfit of lines which I hope will convey a reasonable impression without bogging things down too much.

Beginning with the standing rigging (the fixed lines that hold the masts in place), the first task was the shrouds. The kit had come with molded shrouds sporting horizontal ratlines for the main mast, but they were so heavily molded I just couldn’t bring myself to use them.

(The pic is actually of the Pyro Niña shrouds, but the Pinta’s were just as thick.)

I opted instead for polyester sewing thread which is cheap, tough, and looks just like miniature rope. First, however, I had to determine the exact number of shrouds to install. As with many details about 15th Century caravels, this seems to be open to interpretation. The Pyro kit part had three per side, but the full-sized Columbus Foundation Pinta replica has five per side, and the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History replica ship has six; I split the difference and went with four. Also, following the Columbus Foundation and Corpus Christi replica ships, I decided to leave out the horizontal ratlines and installed only the vertical shrouds. Apparently with these small ships the sails were adjusted by lowering the yards to deck level rather than having sailors scramble aloft, so there was no need for ratlines.

Assembly was straightforward. Each shroud was first tied to the mast, then the ends were attached to the channel edges on either side below. There should be complex tightening tackle with deadeyes and attachment fittings at the base of each one, but for simplicity I just super glued them in place.

I installed the mainmast shrouds and was happy with them...

…until I looked more carefully. Seen closely and backlit, the lines were covered in fuzz!

Sewing thread is great for replicating miniature rope because it is essentially made the same way with small fibers twisted together to make a thicker line. Unfortunately, just like real rope, there are always numerous breaks in the small fibers which protrude from the sides of the line. These aren’t particularly visible on full sized rope, but in miniature these little pennants can combine to create an unrealistic fuzz.

I had heard that this can be eliminated by burning the fibers away with a flame passed quickly by the affected lines.

BAD IDEA!


This may work with the cotton threads typically used for sailing ship model rigging, but forgot that I had used highly flammable polyester thread; when I passed the flame by them they instantly ignighted and melted!

Tim,
Beeswax-- run the line (thread) over a hunk of natural beeswax (you can get it in any good health food store, or Model Expo has it in a handy round dispenser). That's what most commercial model ship builders use to keep the lines from fraying. Ive used this method on all my commission builds. A few years ago, I was asked to repair a 50 year old Model of the USS Constitution for a customer. Her father built the ship, but the rigging was damaged-- he used Beeswax throughout the rigging, and 50 years later it was still fray-free and pliable, just like the day it went on the model. And yes-- it can still be attached with superglue or epoxy. VR, Russ Bucy

Arrgh! the rigging!

I'm sure you'll be able to rescue things though Tim!

The Beeswax idea by Russ (Kevlar06), sounds like it's the go!

The rest of the build is as always, excellent!

Russ

Despite the woes with the rigging, things are looking superb Tim!!

Beeswax is the way to go when it comes to using thread on the rigging. Good luck on the re-rig!

Thanks guys - so it's off to the wood ship section of the local hobby shop tonight to pick up some beeswax...

Tim,

Just caught up with your Pinta build and it looks great. I particularly like the wood grain and the method you used to make it pop. Wonder if it would work for the Hull Plating for the Maya..hmmmm

Your hand painting of the flags is very impressive. I think I would need to drink the full bottle of Jack to steady my hand enough to accomplish such a feat. The lions are cool.

Glad to see that the flaming rigging did not cause any further damage to the ship.

Dave

Thanks, Dave. You're right, the damage was limited to the melted shrouds - once I fought down the urge to throw the model against the wall, that is!

I bought some beeswax, tried it out – what a difference! Just passing the thread through the wax a couple of times smoothed things out remarkably. Thanks for the tip, Russ!

Not only did the beeswax take care of the fuzzies, but it also made the thread more suppple, easier to straighten, and generally better to work into rigging. This is the first time I’ve used it, but I am already a convert!

With my newly waxed threads I replaced all eight shrouds on the main mast, added four to the foremast, and two to the mizzen. Forestays now run from the mainmast to the foremast and from the foremast to the bowsprit. Backstays from the main and fore masts anchoring them to the decks behind the masts finish up the abbreviated standing rig.

The rigging was proceeding nicely, but in my haste to move things along I snagged my finger on the swallowtail banner and snapped it and the top of the mizzen mast off. Doh!

I hope to get the mizzen repaired and the running rigging squared away this weekend.