by Edward Pinniger
1/130 USS Hartford (Aurora)
USS Hartford was a steam sloop-of-war built in 1858. With an overall length of 225' and displacement of 2900t, it was quite heavily armed for a sloop, with 20 9-inch Dahlgren guns in broadside mounts, a Parrott rifled gun in a pivoting mount at the stern and two smaller pivoting guns on the forecastle. Like all oceangoing steamships of its day, it retained masts and sails - in this case, ship-rigged (three square-rigged masts). Hartford is most famous for its role during the American Civil War as the flagship of Admiral Farragut. It survived into the 20th century as a training hulk, but by the 1950s was beyond restoration and was scrapped. Numerous parts and fittings - such as the ship's wheel, fife rail, bell, cannons and steam whistle - were preserved and can now be seen at various locations in the USA.
My model is built from the ancient and rather scarce Aurora plastic kit. At 27cm/65" long it scales out at around 1/130, and (more or less) represents the ship in pre-Civil War fit. Aurora's kit is surprisingly detailed for its 50+ years of age, but there are many areas in need of improvement as well as some minor accuracy issues. Changes I made included scratchbuilding the stern windows and nameplate, forecastle guns and traversing rails, funnel whistle and steam pipe, along with new boat davits, yards, pin rails, metal eyebolts and other small details taken from the spares box. The rigging pattern is somewhat simplified, as I couldn't find any wood rigging blocks small enough to look in-scale.
I built my model to represent the ship in its pre-Civil War appearance and paint scheme, with the traditional white stripe following the line of the gun ports.
