I have found an easy way to support ship hulls during construction. Most hulls are rounded on the bottom, making then unstable when adding the superstructure and associated parts.
I bought a kit (No. 85819) from Micro-Mark (www.micromark.com) called the Triple Duty Foam Cradle for Model Ships. It has cutout foam sections that are perfect for wider ship hulls. Unfortunately, smaller and narrower hulls don’t fit the foam molds.
However, I noticed a makeup product my wife uses that can provide a feasible solution to the modeling problem. These are latex-free flexible, soft foam wedges called Wonder Wedges.
Their shape allows them to be positioned along the sides of any size hull that is placed in the foam cradle. Since the wedges contain no lotion or makeup additives, they are stain-free. Two sizes are available at www.wondercloth.com.
Better news? A bag containing 50 large or 100 small wedges costs less than $10. They’re soft, clean, flexible, cost-efficient, and reusable.
The accompanying photos show the wedges used with a couple of different hull shapes: the Glencoe World War I subchaser kit in 1/74 scale, and the Trumpeter HMS Westminster kit in 1/350 scale.
Tip submitted by:
Robert C. Jones
Alameda, Calif.