Revenue Cutter USS Harriet Lane completed photos

Modeling Subjects Ships
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Here’s my model of the revenue cutter paddle steamer USS (or USRC?) Harriet Lane, built from the Pyro kit.

I don’t have time to do a full write-up on the build, and the ship it represents, but I’d be happy to answer any questions! As a brief summary - the ship was built for the US Revenue Service in the 1850s, used as a gunboat by the Union navy in the US Civil War, then captured and briefly used as a blockade runner by the Confederates. My model is built from the Pyro/Lindberg “Civil War Blockade Runner” kit, in 1/144 scale. I’ve added a lot of scratchbuilt and spares-box parts, including replacement blocks, but the basic kit parts of the hull, cabin, wheelhouse and spars are unmodified.

Most of the images are links, to save bandwidth - click on the links to see the photo.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlane2.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlane3.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlane4.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlane5.jpg

Close-up photos:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlcloseup2.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlcloseup3.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlcloseup4.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlcloseup5.jpg
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pinniger/models/ship/hlcloseup6.jpg

Apologies for not posting these photos earlier; the model was completed in May this year! I haven’t found the time to post on the FSM forums lately.

Finally, here’s a photo of my current project from the same era - USS Hartford built from the old Aurora kit with a lot of scratchbuilt and kitbashed modifications and additions. Since I took the photo, I’ve added the lower masts and a few more deck fittings.

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Beautiful work on both models.

What scale is the Hartford?

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Nice, clean build, with enough rigging to make it look “busy,” but not so much that it looks cluttered.

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I’m in no way a ship expert but i do know waht the eye likes and it really likes this ship great build[tup]

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Thanks for the kind comments. Regarding the rigging, I more or less just followed the instructions in the kit, I also used some photos of the Model Shipways wood model (which the Pyro kit was based on) as reference, along with a couple of contemporary drawings of the real ship.

One question to those with more knowledge of sailing ship rigging: What type of rig/mast arrangement is this? I think it’s a brigantine (two masts with the foremast square-rigged and the mainmast fore-and-aft rigged) - but I’m not totally sure.

From comparing the kit dimensions to those of the real ship, it’s roughly 1/120 scale. Definitely somewhere between 1/100 and 1/150, anyway!
Other than the moulded sails attached to the yards (fixable with a sharp knife + lots of filing/sanding) and a few other annoyances like the crude pin-rails moulded onto the bulwark interiors (luckily I had some replacement pin rails left over from a Heller kit) it isn’t a bad kit considering its age, though it is nowhere near the standard of the Kearsarge or other large Revell sailing ships. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to the casual modeller, but for anyone with an interest in early steam warships or US Civil War ships, it’s definitely worth building if you can find the kit at a reasonable price (not an easy task, though!)