Hello everyone,

I signed up the Small Craft build. PT Boats are not my expertise. I would like to please ask for assistance in locating color profiles or decent pictures that show camo finishes and colors. I don't even know if it's a Higgins or Elco boat. I purchased the 1/72 Revell PT-117.

Sincerely,
Brian

Hello Brian
What type of camo look are you after. Depends were you would like your boat to be serving as to what style of camo was applied. I'm painting & building my PT174 in the zebra scheme which is black & white stripes. There is a link to the build in the dockyard part of the forum section . There are a lot of other schemes about.
A site that is worth a look at ( very helpful ) is PT boats inc it's run by veterens .
Also there are a lot of people on here that are very helpful.
As for the kit that you have that is a Elco boat as far as my memory goes.
Good luck with the build. This is also my 1st boat build. usually build armour.

Ahoy Brian,
Welcome to the campaign, mate!

I did a search under "PT boat 117" and received a ton of great sites...give it a go...and we just happen to have a paint mask specialist on staff here at MSW to help you out with your camo scheme, as well, his name is Kenny (Gator) Loup, owner/operator of Gators Paint Mask...I'm sure he'll pick up on this thread...
Cheers,
~Gunny

Hey Brian,

As Gunny said, I do have the paint masks for the 3 color MS31-20L that you see on the 1/35 Italeri kit. I also have the more daunting "zebra" scheme that Shaun refered to. Both of these are available in 1/72.

Gator's Paint Masks

If you want to be particlar about using a camo pattern, the the 3 color was on late war boats which had the roll off racks, 37mm cannon and the 40mm bofors on the stern. White Ensign Models has all of those parts availble along with an awesome pe set. Another, less costly option is to get Airfix's 40mm bofor kit and scratch build the base.

Now, if you don't want to or can't afford to convert your boat but want a killer paint scheme, that's cool too. The main thing is to have fun building the kit.

Gator

Hello guys,

Thank you for the nice welcome and the information. I should have mentioned that I would like to do some form of camo from SW Pacific. The boat it does not have to be PT-117. It's my understanding this kit represents avery common PT Boat and could be modeled for any time or operational area.

With time being short before the end of the group build I don't want to get to overboard changing things but I wouldn't mind adding some extra firepower to it as the Revell kit seems kinda minimal.
What a great idea of using 40mm Bofors from Airfix. I did some looking around and I found several kits and I noticed two identical boxes except one said it was 1/72 and the other said 1/76. I assume the models are one and the same and it is just an ad gimmick?

If my math is right 1/72 is 6' for every inch of the model and 1/76 is 6'4" for evey inch of the model? It's not much of a difference which leads me to think the boxings have the same model. I guess. Another question I know there is plenty of nice aftermarket .50 machine guns in 1/35th. Does anyone make them in 1/72 or how about a 20mm Automatic Cannon?

Sincerely,
Brian