Gentlement I present for your approval my 1/72 Revell P.T. 109 built with WEM's PE set. The model is supposed to represent the 109 at the time of her loss. A good degree of artistic license was used, since hard evidence as to what she looked like, from the color of her paint to mast vs no mast is hard to come by and much of it is contradictory. I used WEM Colourcoats paints and elected to paint her Tropical Green. The .50 Cals. are WEM gunmetal and the Oerlikon is flat black. The torpedo tubes were stripped of all detail except for the very front and rear parts and all detail is either from the WEM PE set or scratch built. I elected to show her with her mast, as this is a disputed question and I like the look of the boat with the mast in place. I used the kit mast, depression rails for the twin .50's and for the Oerlikon since those parts in the PE set seemed too 2 dimensional in this scale.

This kit took me about three months off and on to complete. Some of this time was spent with the build on the shelf waiting for some items to come in from John R. Haynes. I finally got tired of waiting and finished her with the kit parts and the WEM PE. I'll use the Haynes items on another P.T. I'm considering. One of the biggest tasks was to sand off all that molded on deck detail. The 37 Millimeter is lashed down with actual hemp.

This build was a labor of love for me. I must have built this kit a half dozen times as a kid, though nothing like this turned out. My dad took me to see the movie "P.T. 109" when I was about six and I guess it marked me for life - I've never quite gotten over it and have been fascinated by the 109 and her story ever since. I recently had the treat of sitting down with my seven year old grandson to watch "P.T. 109" with him and he loved it! Maybe the bug has bitten him to!

Now, without futher ado:













I intentionally left the paint looking a bit rough to depict a battle scarred veteran operating with minimal maintenance in a hostile climate. I'm generally well pleased with the way she came out, except for the material standing in for the rope tieing down the 37 mm cannon. I used real hemp, but it frayed badly and I'm fetching around for a replacement material.

Thanks for looking,

Bob

Hello Bob, After all these years that kit still builds up into a respectable model, good job. The photo-etch adds a lot, especially to the torpedo tubes and guns. Al

Its still a great little kit, especially if you don't mind sanding off all that deck detail. The WEM PE set did add a lot, but I felt that some of it, particularly the depression railing for the MGs and the 20mm, as well as the mast, were just too two dimensional in that scale, so I elected to go with the kit parts instead of the PE. I'm glad you like the build. I'm still debating replacing the cord securing the 37mm. I used some actual hemp I found, which I thought would be a good duplicate for the hemp rope used at the time, but it tended to fray rather badly, though it doesn't look nearly as bad in person as it does in the pictures - the camera can be very unforgiving.

All in all, I really enjoyed building her. I must have built that kit a half dozen times as a kid, but nothing as detailed as this. The torpedo tubes were the kit tubes sanded down to just the bare tube except the very front and back. I then built the tubes back up with PE, and scratch built the retaining bands with wire and used some stock styrene to duplicate the access panels. On the whole, I'm very proud of her.

Bob