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Building a USN Port Around a HogIslander

The Hog Islanders were festooned all over with cowl ventilators. The kit supplied cast items had their mouths reduced in size, depth, and were extensively drilled out to make the edges thinner. Additional vents needed to be made...I used lead solder for this, an ideal material, having a soft flux core, making it very easy to bend, shape and drill out the mouth of each vent. The photo illustrates the sequence.




These solder vents were also used on all the smaller vessels..more later! The build became pretty straight-forward thereafter. I had previously screwed some countersunk screws into the underside, to allow me to use a powerful spring-loaded clamp to hold the model by whilst work progresses. But, I was still undecided as to how to present the model.


I then removed the cast-on resin square mast mounting blocks; these were actually thick plate steel derrick brackets, as I discovered whilst looking at photos. The Misson models micro-chisel was perfect for this purpose!! I then added some much needed bulkhead detail, as well as the fore and aft deck overhangs, using styrene strip.
The topside supports on the inboard of the gunwhales were made of stretched sprue.