I have just found this forum and could stay on it all day. The thread about old Pyro kits was expecially interesting. I have built their Harriet Lane/Blockade Runner kit 6 times over 40 years and it is my favourite sailing ship kit of all. I remember this kit appearing here (in Australia) in the early 60s as a Heller kit called “Le Sphinx.” The Roger B Taney kit was called “Belle Isle” and the Gertude L Thebaud kit was called “Duchesse Anne.” I managed to find all three in a newsagency and the sailing ship bug bit and has never left. But these kits turn up in no old Heller catalogues and I have never seen the Heller versions since 1966. They were molded in far more sensible colours than their Pyro/Lindberg counterparts, eg white instead of blue grey for the deck, sail and paddle boxes of the paddle steamer. Does anyone recall the Heller versions? Also, regarding the Imai kits, I agree that they were the best manufactured of any, with parts fitting together perfectly without any trimming or force. Their Susquehanna was a joy to build and display. I love the old steam/sail kits and will soon start on my third Revell Kearsarge and my second Corsair II. The Zvezda Sirius is going to be a lot of very hard work. Any tips for cleaning out those decorations on the paddle boxes?
Robert
Welcome.We have a great bunch of guys here.I myself really like the Imai kits.Fact I just finished my third Santa Maria.I cut it to the waterline and put it full sail.My next two project are going to be the Imai 1/200 USCG Eagle,and a two year project the Revell 1/96 USS United States.Both will be cut to the water line.I’ve got the Sirius but have never built her.Again welcome.
Rod
Have seen a wood kit of a French paddle warship Le Sphinx. Plans are availabe from the Musee Marine.
I suppose the Harriet Lane is fairly close to many paddle warships of her day.
In fact the seagoing ships in the first years of steam age were constructively not much distinct as “mercantile” or “naval”. This was especially true for paddlewheelers for they were really costly to operate in merchant service and it was virtually impossible to reap some profit from them without substantial government subsidies. On the other part, as largely known, paddles were rendering steamers unsuited for first line naval service, though they were indispensable as auxiliaries, tugs etc. So, there was not much need nor logic in structurally differentiating mercantile and naval paddle steamer except for some over-specialised hulls like those of transatlantic packets. Perhaps the finest case that shows this blurred line between merchant and naval paddle steamer is the experience of british east india company with paddlewheelers. HEIC used his paddlers as normal packets in times of peace and armed them as gunboats for expeditions. Company’s steamers were built in merchant yards but were virtually same to those built according to admiralty specifications. Same was true for elsewhere, Sphinx class french avisos were modeled on a british merchant hull; later, bigger paddle frigates were heavliy influenced by atlantic packets. Harriet Lane itself was built by William Webb and her hull was shaped like a sail packet that her builder get famous for designing. Indeed, after the war between the states, Harriet Lane became the three mast bark Elliot Richie. I heartily share the opinion that Pyro’s model of her, along with Roger B. Taney, are indeed among the finest plastic ship kits ever produced.
I’m a big fan of the Pyro Harriet Lane and Roger B. Taney kits (currently being sold by Lindberg under the confusing labels “Independence War Schooner” and “Civil War Blockade Runner,” respectively). But I do think we ought to temper our enthusiasm about them with an acknowledgment that they’re mighty old, and don’t represent the current state of the art.
Both of them originated in the early to mid-1950s, and were based on solid-hull wood kits from Model Shipways. (The owners of MS were still bitter about that thirty years later. They referred to Pyro as “Pirate Plastics.”) The Pyro designers apparently followed the Model Shipways plans pretty closely. What the modeler got in a Pyro box was quite similar to a wood kit - except that the pieces were made of styrene, rather than wood and lead. The levels of detail were quite similar. (At least one of them, the fisherman Gertrude L. Thebaud, required the modeler to drill 1/16" holes in the hull for eyebolts.) On those old kits you won’t find such things as countersunk planking seams or copper sheathing. (In fact, if I remember correctly neither of the revenue cutters offers any indication of the hull planking at all - though there are raised lines to represent the edges of the deck planks.) The rigging blocks are grossly oversized - though I must say I always thought the “combo units” that Pyro used to represent deadeyes and lanyards were slightly preferable to what Revell was using for the same purpose at that time. And Pyro, unlike Revell, Aurora, or Airfix, made no effort to deal with the Great Ratline Problem. The modeler who wanted to rig ratlines on a Pyro kit was on his own.
What you will find in one of those boxes is a sound basis for a scale model - one that invites you to add as much rigging and other detail as you like. Another thing I like about them: they’re simple enough in rig that they make excellent kits for newcomers to the hobby. Nowadays few plastic sailing ship kits meet that description. Too many modelers insist on starting out with a Heller Victory or a Revell Constitution. It makes far more sense to get one’s feet wet with one of those old Pyro/Lindberg kits. A month or so spent on one of them will provide a first-rate introduction to most of the skills and vocabulary associated with ship modeling - and in the process will produce a fine-looking model for the mantle.
One small point that I mentioned recently in another thread. Pyro based the Roger B. Taney kit on the Model Shipways plans, which were in turn based on the plans for the *Morris-*class cutters drawn by Howard I. Chapelle in his History of American Sailing Ships. That book was published in the 1930s, and the Model Shipways kit appeared in the late forties. Shortly thereafter, Chapelle found another set of old plans for the Taney in the National Archives. He published a redrawn version of those plans in his next book, The History of the American Sailing Navy. That second set of plans establishes that the Taney looked somewhat different than the other members of the class. If I were building the Pyro/Lindberg kit today I’d put the name of one of the other *Morris-*class cutters on it.
Good to see another fan of early steam ships! I also find ships from this “transitional” period fascinating, and very interesting models to build.
Do you have a digital camera? I’d be very interested to see some pictures of your builds (and other members probably would too). There don’t seem to be many pictures of built-up examples of these models on the Internet.
I’m currently in the final stages of building the Revell Kearsarge (just a few bits of rigging and paint retouching to do now), and also have the Susquehanna, Harriet Lane and Corsair II kits (the latter I’ll probably convert to the gunboat USS Gloucester), as well as the civil ships PS Great Western and RRS Discovery (both Airfix kits), and am still looking out for the Alabama (though it will need a lot of “accurisation” and scratchbuilding work) and the Hartford (the latter is very hard to find).
In the near future I’m intending to build a semi-scratchbuilt model of HMS Warrior (I’ve almost finished a 1/700 model which I’ll post some photos of soon) and am also planning to build a 19th century RN steam sloop using a heavily modified clipper hull, but unfortunately I haven’t yet managed to find any plans for a ship of this type.
One question I have - Are the Lindberg “Blockade Runner” and “Independence War Schooner” kits still in production? It took me quite a while to find a Blockade Runner/Harriet Lane kit - I eventually ended up paying nearly £20 (inc. postage) for a part-built example from a US eBay seller. It was in a Pyro box from the 70s but was still labeled “Civil War Blockade Runner”.
Unfortunately a lot of old and interesting ship kits are near-impossible to find this side of the Atlantic and the only way to obtain them seems to be eBay, where you’re always bidding at a disadvantage due to postage costs.
I honestly don’t know what Lindberg’s current status is. The company’s kits seem to be available all over the place here in the U.S., but I haven’t seen a current Lindberg catalog for years and so far as I know the company doesn’t have a website. I suppose it’s possible that Lindberg has gone out of business.
As I understand it, Lindberg kits have always been rather hard to track down in the U.K. I’m afraid I don’t know what the company’s U.K. distributor - if any - is.
Those silly labels (“Independence War Schooner” for the Taney, “Blockade Runner” for the Harriet Lane, “American Cup Racer” for the Thebaud, etc.) appeared on Pyro boxes long before Pyro went out of business. The first Harriet Lane I bought, sometime in the early sixties, had a “blockade runner” box. I think we can blame Lindberg for the “pirate ship” labels on some of the other old Pyro kits - and, of course, for those of the former Wappen von Hamburg and La Flore.
It looks like Lindberg is still alive as a division of a company called “Craft House” - but I don’t know anything about them. They continue to ship kits but production seems to be limited to what is currently selling well so we’re seeing the Blue Devil, the LST, etc. and some of the other kits such as their Cape Class Coast Guard Cutter and the U.S.S. Carronade (“Bobtail Cruiser”) haven’t been seen in a while. They did re-issue the HMS Hood a couple of years ago and I bought it out of nostalgia rather than as a scale model. To their credit, they invested some money to clean up the mold but took out the “motorized” features including the propeller and the cam arms to turn the turrets.
The Harriet Lane has also been a favorite of mine. I bought a couple of the Lindberg re-issues back in the late 80’s and built one in her stock apperance before the Civil War using scale 32 pounders and the second kit in her post 1861 rig using scale 9" Dahlgrens and a 100 pounder Parrott. Ironically, the scale guns were Model Shipways fittings that I had purchased to update the Imai kit of the U.S.S. Susquehana, so it looks like MS at least got some indirect revenue return from “Pirate Plastics.” I still have the Civil War version, but I wish that they had used a better quality / harder plastic (although that may be a mold limitation) since the masts and spars tend to bend under strain from the rigging.
I also purchased the Harriet Lane Plan kit from MS. With MS (sadly) out of business these days, I think I’m OK in scanning the plans and sending the PDF to anyone in the forum who would like them.
MS out of business? Are You sure? Then who are these folks www.modelexpo-online.com ?
The company that purchased Model Shipways when the owners retired. I don’t think that they’re offering the entire Model Shipways line of kits, plans and fittings which was very extensive for a small company in Bogota, NJ.
Carmike:
Marc Mosko at Model Expo is in the process of bringing back the entire line of Model Shipways kits. Take a look at their website and you will see they have already got many more of them back into production. Marc has said on the Yahoo SSL list that they will be bringing back even more of the old kits in the next couple of years.
Russ
Speaking of transition era ships, I think that the coolest members of the first generation ironclads are the french two decked ironclad frigates Magénta and Solferino. With their spur rams, two decks of gunports and mighty napoleonic eagle figureheads, they look like futuristically updated imperial roman flagship galleys [:)] If I can find a plan, I may try to scratchbuilt one in 1/250 scale.
This clears up a question I had about the armament of the Pyro kit. (I wasn’t sure if it was accurate as I thought the armament was 4 32pdr guns and two 24pdr mortars - presumably this is the pre-war fit).
I still have one question though - what was the ship’s paint scheme during/after the Civil War? Was it actually green and white as indicated by the kit?
Do you have any plans for the Susquehanna in its Civil War configuration? I’m intending to modify the Imai kit to represent this, but wasn’t sure of the exact location and appearance of the new armament and whether there were any other changes to the deck fittings, rig, etc.
I did some digging about the Harriet Lane a few years ago, when I was working on a series of line drawings of ships of the Coast Guard and its predecessor institutions for the Coast Guard Historian’s Office. That was quite a while ago, but I am not aware of any information about her that’s turned up since.
The first thing anybody learns when researching nineteenth-century American revenue cutters is that the records are horribly inadequate. The old U.S. Revenue Cutter Service did a wretched job of record-keeping - at least where its ships were concerned. Back in the 1930s, as part of a New Deal WPA program, some anonymous researchers dug through what they could find in the National Archives and the records at Coast Guard Headquarters, in an effort to write a definitive history of all the ships that had served in the CG and its predecessor organizations. The outcome of that project was a fat, typewritten book called the “Record of Movements,” which is the nearest thing that exists to a primary documentary source on the history of American revenue cutters. It’s an infuriating volume. It’s organized by ship name; one ship gets ten pages of documents, while another gets less than a page. It’s entirely possible that some revenue cutters aren’t in that book at all - i.e., that the U.S. government has officially forgotten that they existed.
I’ll try to remember to dig out the “Record of Movements” and refresh my memory regarding what it says about the Harriet Lane. My recollection is - not much. Here’s what I do know about her. It won’t take long.
James Buchanan, fifteenth president of the U.S., was a bachelor. His niece, Harriet Lane, served as hostess at White House parties during his administration. Somebody invented the term “First Lady” to describe her position, and apparently somebody in the Treasury Department thought it would be a good idea to name a revenue cutter after her.
A few years earlier the Treasury Department had been through a bruising scandal, when it built several extremely unsuccessful revenue cutters based on the concept of the “Hunter Wheel.” (We took that one up a few weeks ago here in the Forum. The Hunter Wheel was a crazy idea involving paddlewheels set on vertical shafts below the ship’s waterline.) The Hunter Wheel was such a flop that Congress revoked the Treasury Department’s authority to build ships for several years. The Harriet Lane marked the Department’s return to shipbuilding. Somebody had the good sense this time to hire William H. Webb, one of the most brilliant designers of clipper ships, packet ships, and various other vessel types, to design and build her.
There’s a decent, but basic, set of plans for the Harriet Lane in Webb’s Plans of Wooden Ships. Those plans, I’m reasonably certain, were the basis for the ones in the Model Shipways kit. Sometime in the mid-twentieth century, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned Merritt Edson to draw a more detailed set, with enough additional details to allow the construction of a detailed model. (I don’t know whether the Smithsonian ever actually commissioned such a model or not; if so, I haven’t seen it.)
I am aware of two other contemporary images of the Harriet Lane. There’s a photo of Britain’s Prince Albert coming ashore for a visit to New York sometime before the Civil War. The contemporary caption indicates that one of the ships in the background of the photo is the Harriet Lane. The background of the photo is out of focus, and there apparently was a good deal of mist on New York harbor that day; the Harriet Lane shows up as a vague, dark grey smear, a fraction of an inch long. Then there’s a pencil sketch by a war artist for Century Magazine, showing the capture of the Harriet Lane by Confederate forces at Galveston. It was published in The American Heritage Century Collection of Civil War Art. The artist was mainly interested in the human figures in the scene; it shows scarcely anything of the ship. I’m not at all certain he ever actually saw her; the drawing probably was done after the fact.
To my knowledge, the small-scale plan in the Webb book, the useless photo, and the useless pencil sketch are the only contemporary visual depictions of the Harriet Lane. If you do much research in U.S. Coast Guard sources you quickly cease to be surprised by such things.
None of those materials gives even the slightest hint about the ship’s color scheme. I have no idea why Pyro molded the hull in green. (Actually I’ve never seen one of those kits in its original box - with the name Harriet Lane on it. By the time I first bought it, it was being called a “Civil War Blockade Runner.” Maybe the initial release had a black hull - which would make more sense. The instructions in the Model Shipways kit, from which the Pyro one was pirated, called for a black hull.) A few months ago the CG Historian’s Office hired me to do a revised version of my earlier line drawing of her, this time in color. The CG Historian, Dr. Bob Browning, and I talked it over at some length. On the basis of photos of other revenue cutters of the period, we concluded she probably had a black hull, white superstructure, white paddle boxes, copper-sheathed hull, white lower masts, black yards, unpainted upper masts, white gaff and boom, white bowsprit, varnished wood deck furniture, and white boats. But that’s just a more-or-less educated guess.
When it comes to the Susqehanna, I’ll have to yield to somebody else. The Navy Department’s records are better than those of the Coast Guard, but information on Civil War warships tends to be extremely variable.
LATER ADDENDUM: I looked up the Harriet Lane in the “Record of Movements.” She gets three pages, most of which consist of quotations from orders and other official documents. They do no more than establish where she was ordered to go on particular dates. There’s nothing in them about the ship’s appearance. The coverage of her in that volume stops in 1861, when she was officially transferred from the Treasury Department to the Navy.
Green hull to represent corroding copper sheathing perhaps?
Well, I suppose that’s as reasonable an explanation as any. But the copper sheathing, of course, would only be applied below the waterline.
It’s funny how things like that get started - and accepted. Back in 1962 MGM made a new version of the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty,” with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard. The moviemakers spent a great deal of money building a near-replica (twenty feet longer than the original, to accommodate the Cinemascope cameras and Mr. Brando’s ego) of H.M.S. Bounty. For some reason, for which I’ve never seen any explanation, they painted the hull bright blue. (I rather suspect they simply figured that color would look nice on camera.) For quite a few years after that, pictures of the Bounty with a blue hull showed up all over the place. To my knowledge there is no reason whatever to think the original ship was painted that way.
My latest model of the Harriet Lane is an original Pyro version I found in 2000 at a site called “Gasoline Alley” and it has a hull molded in black and “Harriet Lane” on the box. Unfortunately they molded the other parts in disgusting blue-grey and an awful tan. I also found an original Pyro Roger B Taney at the same time, plus a VERY old ITC Corsair II. I was scared to build the Corsair because I thought if I mucked it up I could never get another one. Well it turned out not too bad and now I have a new Glencoe version to build. When I figure out how to do it I will post some photos of the finished products. My 1971 Kearsarge still looks OK except for the wretched deck joins.
Robert,
Heller Albatros and Epervier were ex-Pyro kits.
Do you know their “Pyro names”?
Michel
The Epervier is the Pyro/Aurora 1/200ish Cutty Sark kit, which has more recently re-surfaced in a SMER (Czech company) box.
No idea about the Albatross however.
EP:
Good luck with the Susquehana - it’s a great kit and I enjoyed working on it. I had the same problem regarding the armament since I wanted to model the Susquehana as she appeared in 1862 during the Peninsula campaign. I ordered re-prints of plans from the National Archives but these were for a proposed post-war refit that would have converted her to screw propulsion and given her an armament roughly comparable to the Hartford class sloops with 9" Dahlgrens in broadside.
As built, the Susquehana had two 10" pivot guns on the foc’sl (port and starboard), one 10" pivot on the poop, and six 8" guns on broadside (3 each side). By 1861, the pivots were gone and the Susquehana mounted fifteen 8" guns and some 12 lbr rifles (probably the fit that was the basis for the Imai kit). The 1863 fit was two 150 lbr Parrots and twelve 9" Dahlgrens - by 1865 this was greatly increased. I bought the kit in 1981 but did not build it until 1992, and at that time the only fittings in 1:144 that I could find were from Model Shipways and included the 9" Dahlgrens and 100 lbr Parrots from the Harriet Lane. So I “fudged” the armament and fitted her with fourteen 9" Dahlgrens in the existing kit gunports on broadside, two Parrots in the forward gun ports on each side, and a Parrot on a pivot on the poop - making a close approximation (although with fewer broadside guns) for the Hartford early in the war. Other than the armament, the only mod to the kit was to lower the smokestack by one section.
As for the Harriet Lane, the only basis I could ever find to justify the green hull was from the report of her grounding in 1861- among the items jettissioned to lighten the ship were the 32 pounders and cans of green paint. According to Virgil Carrington Jones (The Civil Wat at Sea, Vol 1: The Blockaders), “Over the side went an assortment of thirty-nine items, including…seventy-five pounds of green paint, two hundred and sixty-seven cylinders of powder, four rifled [?] thirty-two pounders…”
You’re welcome to any of my reference notes for the Susquehana - I went to the New York to the Public Library to look at an 1850 edition of the “Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States” by Charles Stuart (who was the Naval Constructor for the Susquehana). All black and white, but a fascinating book nonetheless.