I've always wondered why, since because there were a number of 77 footers on the East Coast in 1945, why none of them were used in THEY WERE EXPENDABLE.

i think in my opinion at that time, the message of a movie was much more important than accuracy. especially when it came to the equipment shown. i think as far as the general movie going public was concerned, a PT boat was a PT boat. it may be that it was much easier to acquire use of the 80' elcos so the filmakers figured it was close enough. i for one am glad it was inaccurate as it gives me a chance to see good footage of the 80' ones.

anyway, an update. i hope to post pics this afternoon. i've started building the viewable areas inside the hatches such as the foreward crews head, the lazerrette, and i'll start on part of the galley. i'm just doing a simple rendering of whatever can be seen through the limited view of the open hatches. it's getting pretty fun. thanks again for everybody's help.

BIll

finally i have an update with pics to post. these are a little blurry since i didn't have my tripod set up and the white balance is a little off but you can get the jest of where i am. i have done a little in the crews head and lazerette (sp?)
Head:



Lazerette:

Here is some overall shots with the deck sitting on. i think i'll leave the deck unglued for a while just in case i decided to go back and add more or maybe even light it up..hmmm....



some wear and tear on the bow. i still need to add a little bit weathering to help tone this down, but i like the effect so far.

starting to work on a couple of depth charge racks. think i may redo this though, it's a little warped

my feable attempt at figure modification. he's looking a little chicken legged, but he may come out.

and a last few shots

first up the foreward 50 cal. with the kit belts thinned down, painted and twisted. not perfect by any means but better than just straight belts i think

i sculpted some life vest with some miliput. i however forget to sculp the tops curved in so they won't sit right on the day room sides. i'll either hang them elsewhere or remake some more.


and in the last shot you can sort of see what can be seen through the aft hatch. the exaust pipes in the lazerette can just barely be made out when you see it in person. in this pic you can just make out the ladder.


well that's all i have for now. comments, critiques and suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks,
Bill

Very nice work Bill. What boat are you building again?

Garth

Thanks Garth. i haven't really settled on one particular boat. i've mainly just added things that i thought would add interest to the build yet still maintain the spirit of a real boat. i'm not doing a camo scheme so i may be totally inaccurate right off the bat for a mid to late war boat. also the green is probably not right, but i hope by the time i add some oil washes and weathering it will be close enough and could be considered a field paint job. i'm going to add the SO radar because i like the look of it better. i'm not going to put on the rocket launchers because, well i don't care for the looks of them. so either i will come up with a boat number and hope i don't offend anyone by being wrong, or i'll ask you guys when i'm done if it happens to match a real boat and use those numbers. another option would be to find a number that didn't exist and go with that. that way i'm not commiting real blasphamy by messing up someones boat. i may do that since i'd like to possibly add my own personal name and "nose art". that's the beauty of modeling, you can pretty do what you want.

Bill

Looking very good Billy.

Hello Bill, your boat is really looking very good. I like what you did with the interior areas, the open hatches add a lot of interest and a little color. In some photos of PT's, the interior side of the hatch located just in front of the forward cabin is not painted white. But it is painted to match the cabin. I don't know if this is peculiar to that particular hatch. Because when open, it rests in a vertical position against the cabin front and would be highly visible. I also am working on a "generic" PT boat. I didn't model any particular boat, but tried to capture the field modified look of a lot of the boats. I numbered my boat 328 for two reasons, one because it was a veteran boat and two, also happened to be my wife's birthday. I discovered later that the actual 328 could have been a dead ringer for Italeri's kit, right out of the box. Like you I also did not care for the look of the rocket launchers and did not use them. I opted for an extra 20mm starboard, and a dual fifty mount to port instead. Some purists may consider this "blasphemous", but I m not building for a museum, just my shelf. I also added a few .30 cal machine guns here and there. I like your figure on top of the day room. I don't think he looks too scrawny, nutritious meals were hard to come by in the war. I am looking forward to seeing more in-progress pictures. Al

thanks Al. i hadn't really thought about that hatch but man once you mentioned it it does stick out like a sore thumb. i think i will paint that one back to the hull color. i like little things that are slightly different, it brings up questions and conversations.

i thought about putting dual 20s flanking the charthouse and i may still, i just don't know if i want to try to resin copy what i have or maybe try to scratch one. one thing i thought about doing was to scratch build the general shape of one and then put a tarp covering on it. i don't want to cover all of the guns, but maybe having one or so covered like they are in the process of shoring down (i'm trying to use nautical terms, don't laugh i don't have my sea legs)
i'm going to try to scratch build some 40mm shell cases and have a crewman loading up the rack back by the bofors. you can kind of see the scratch built open rack in the pic of the aft end.

let me know how your build is going. maybe we can pass on information to each other as we go.

Thanks,
Bill

Hey, i just dug through a few images to see what i could find about the galley hatch and i found one interesting shot. it seems that on PT 557 that hatch was flipped around so it opened away from the charthouse and would lay flat on the deck like the others. i don't know if that was a crew modification or something that the manufacturer started doing. yet another example of how these boats really did evolve. i just thought i'd share that tid bit.

i have also seen some shots that show all of the hatches apparently painted the deck color and not white. again, i guess it just depended on the boat.

Bill

Glad to help Bill, that's the great thing about forums like this, being able to discuss and share ideas, information, and techniques with so many other people. I'll be glad to answer any questions whenever I can. I pretty much have my boat finished. I'm in the process of crewing it, using mostly Italeri crewmen, with Hornet heads, and a few crewmen from Warriors. I might still add a few odds and ends, like life-jackets, to the boat. By the way I like the way your life-jackets came out. I might have to give that a try. I'll post some pictures when finished. Al

Oh. So, you're going to be doing the 557 from that kit? Cool, that'll be an interesting model. I would love to see how an Elco Thunderbolt mount would look in 1:35. I do know how it looks in 1:72.

Good luck with the project Bill.

Garth

no sir, i think you misunderstood. i only mentioned 557 because we were discussing the different ways the interior of the hatches were painted and why. I noticed on that particular boat it looks like the galley hatch was modified to hinge away from the charthouse instead of leaning up against it when it was open. again, i'm not sure which boat i'm building. if you have some number suggestions based on what configuration i have so far, i'd love to get your input on it.

thanks,
Bill

Well,

Do you want a Pacific boat? A Med boat? An English Channel boat? Narrow that down a bit and I can help you more.

Garth

Hey Bill,

If you plan on adding some aditional detailing, here are a couple photos that might be of use. These are two different field mounts for twin .50s that were mounted on Pacific boats. The back view appears to be a couple of standard single pintle mounts welded to a cobbled together frame while the side view shows the normal MK9 cradle plugged into a pipe and sheet pedestal. These are from a coupule originals in a report made by Preston Sutphen of ELCO following a fact-finding mission to the Pacific in 1944.




Al

The Higgins HELLCAT experimented with two of those mounts on her fore-deck remotely fired from the cockpit. From what I read, they weren't that effective. Just my 2 cents.

Garth

While the mount Garth mentioned appears to be a unique experiment on the HELLCAT only, it's an interesting arrangement.


Al Ross

Wow! i could see where that might not be an ideal system. i mean just imagine shooting down one of your own planes that was attacking the same target you were shooting at because you caught a huge wave and the nose elevated about 60 degrees. that would suck!

thanks for posting those. man would i love to be able to go dig through all the photos you guys probably have accumulated. i really like the twin 50's. it seems like i've seen a shot of a boat with something similar only on a taller mount behind one of the fore torpedos. i may play with that if i can find a couple of more 50's. keep the help coming guys. i'm learning a lot here!

Thanks,
Bill

Hello Al, thanks very much for posting that picture, I never saw it before (gotta love this forum). It does look interesting, reminds me of the B-25 bombers that were modified into gunships by mounting as many .50's as possible in the nose. I guess they thought it would have been useful for fire suppression during a torpedo attack, but so could all those guns that were swivel mounted and could be fired in other directions as well. That's why the forward gun mounts were staggered on the PT's. Two guns that can be fired in any direction can be more valuable than ten guns that can only be aimed by turning the ship (see USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia). Al

Hello Bill,

very nice model, wheathering and all. I am buidling my second version of the PT 596 in RC. The first one [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgtppyTglCc[/url] lies very deep in the water due to 3 Brush motors, the new version should run with 3 brushless, which gives me also the oportunity to rollof a tored, Waterbomb (deth charge) and turn the Bofors gun lets see what the weight imrovement will allow me.

However, I saw on you boat a roll-off rack for a deth charge, is this done hand made or is that from the aftermarket. If Aftermarket, can you guide me to the shop?, If self made; which reference have you taken (I have currently only PT Boats in action) for size and building?

Thanks for your help - kind regards

Christian

These are drawings from a 1943 manual on the MIAMI aviation rescue boats. This is the standard Type C rack for the MK6 depth charge. For scaling purposes, the MK6 is 17.625" x 27.625".

Al Ross

That's great, Thanks for the help.

kind regards

Christian

Hello Christian, U-models makes a resin Depth Charge for the Elco. They come two to a package for around 11 EURO's. Blast models carries them, look under resin kits on their website. I used them on my boat (click on my photos) and was very happy with the quality and detail. You just have to be careful when assembling the racks to keep everything square. They provide the ends for the bridle that holds the depth charge in the rack, but you have to use wire for the cable. U-models also have some US Navy crew figures available. I hope this helps you out. Al

Al, the boat is excellent, the figure painting is beyond my capabilities, but I am improving. Thanks for the link, I will definitly buy those and will make them "dropable" from the pt boat. That will be a nice effect at the next RC boat meeting where we drive in a pool ( I will re obtain my charges using a magnet)

Excellent work: have you used anything from eduard or lion roar?

Chris