Calling all Vosper 70' MTB fans

[coaster]

Morning all,
I'm working on a scratchbuilt Vosper 70'. Finally screwed up the courage to put it up on my website, comments welcome. I have no doubt, this being a first shot at scratchbuilding in plastic card, that I shall need some help along the way....
http://www.frasers-art.com/models/MTB/m-index.htm

Cheers and thanks for looking,
Fraser

[Francis Macnaughton]

Fraser,

Can only admire your dedication to getting the hull planking effect right. I did a 72' 6" Vosper sometime ago in 1/32nd for radio control and settled for a much less detailed finish.

What gun armament will your one have - twin 0.5" Vickers?


Francis Macnaughton

[coaster]

Hi Francis,
The planking was done as it was the easiest way I could think of to get plastic card to follow compund curves - this I know from wooden ships. As to armament - building a gun tub is a scary prospect.. I'm probably going to go for 20mm Oerlikons, single at the bow and twin amidships, a common conversion.
Cheers
Fraser

[coaster]

Morning all,
Just worked out how to actually post a pic...so:







At the moment I'm working on the bridge...problem solving.....such tiny bits, such big fingers!
Regards,
Fraser

[Bob Cicconi]

Wow! That's great! I think you have it backwards- you should be giving us tips! That's excellent so far. I could never acheive that result from scratch. I can't wait to see the completed result!

[coaster]

Thanks Bob,
I'm now working on the bridge, and finding that .3mm plastic card is a tad thick fotr doing things like the dividers in a flag locker...so I'm goig to have a shot using the paper/CA method that JB suggested to me.




Regards,
Fraser[/img]

[PT Dockyard]

Very sweet boat.

The early Vospers have hull lines to die for. What an excellent job! Keep us all posted!

[coaster]

Some more progress...
starting to furnish the bridge...

Torpedo tubes. I made these a couple of years ago in an earlier attempt at a 70footer. the bands could do with finessing somewhat...
It has occurred tp me that actually working out a sequence of construction and sticking to would rather decrease those annoying 'Oh bugger!' moments...
Fraser

[Edward Pinniger]

Looks good so far! (the hull looks great, and the torpedo tubes + stands are very nicely detailed). What scale is it?
Another question, did you scratchbuild the bridge wheel, if so how did you do it? I've always had trouble scratchbuilding ship's wheels, for the one on my Cerberus model I ended up using a kitbashed railway wagon wheel, although it is slightly undersized.

[coaster]

I' building it in 1/72nd - to match up with the Airfix 73 footer I have.
I'll have to asmit that the wheel is, until I can come up with a better solution that doesn't involve a lathe, nicked from a spare Airfix 73' I may well have to use it's ventilator cowls too. I've no idea how to scratch-build them! Scratch -building is a real stretch to the creativity...
F

[Guido]

Fraser-
This is awesome work!!! Bravo Zulu!
Probably the best "act of desparation" I have ever seen (quoting your homepage of course!)
Very encouriging to see that it can be done.
I could very much use your help: I'll send you a PM via the board. Please kindly check it and let me know.

Cheers,
Guido

[Edward Pinniger]

This is my build of the Tamiya 1/72 torpedo boat "Perkasa". This kit represents one of four torpedo boats built by Vosper for the Malaysian navy in the 1960s. The basic design is similar to the Brave- and Ferocity-class boats built for the Royal Navy.




The Perkasa-class boats were originally armed with four torpedoes on roll-off racks, a forward 40mm Bofors gun (remotely controlled from the bridge) and an aft twin 20mm Oerlikon gun. The torpedo tubes were later replaced with surface-to-surface missiles. The boats were (are? - not sure if any are still in service) diesel-powered and wooden-hulled.




Tamiya's kit dates back to the 1970s but has an unbelievable level of detail and fineness of moulding considering the kit's age - far superior to the Airfix and Revell 1/72 boats (though at about 4 times the price, it ought to be!) The 40mm gun alone has a couple of dozen parts. It even has a full interior for the enclosed bridge, though this is virtually impossible to see on the completed model.
The one disadvantage is the noticeable amount of flash and mould lines on some of the smaller parts, such as the torpedo racks, which are tricky to remove!
MHM's reissue/copy of the kit is not nearly as finely moulded, though it is a lot cheaper.




I built my kit more or less out of the box, the only additions being a gunsight for the 20mm, metal railing wires, anchor chain, and rigging thread. I also modified one of the crew figures as there are only 3 different poses although 5 figures are included. On a ship this small "clone" crewmen tend to stand out! It was painted with Tamiya and Revell acrylics and very lightly weathered with craft acrylics, with light vertical streaking on the hull and superstructure, grey soot around the exhausts and a small amount of rust on and around the anchor; some of the fittings were also lightly drybrushed to bring out detail. The model represents the boat "as built" so I didn't want to over-weather it!
My model has no hull markings as the "decals" in my kit (an original 1970s issue) were actually stickers, which I couldn't get to adhere to the model (they would probably have looked unconvincing in any case) - I'll try and make some hull numbers from cut-up aircraft serials later.




Reference material on the real boats is surprisingly hard to find (considering how popular it is as a modelling subject - there are also several larger-scale R/C kits of the Perkasa) so I relied mostly on the kit instructions and box art for painting, and did not add any extra detail other than the aforementioned PE gunsight.

[JIM BAUMANN]

tidy looking model Sir!!

I must dig mine out of the stash again some time...!

JIM B

[johndon]

A very neat build

John

[der_schwede]

Hi guys,

I'm from Germany and found this thread by using Google. Last summer I made a conversion of the old Tamiya "Perkasa" that I built in the early 90's as a static model for the showcase. That means I made the conversion when the model was already completed. The model is powerded by a SPEED 400 6V from Graupner in combination with 6-7 AAA-size cells with a capacity of 800mAh. Click the following link to see the result:

https://fotoalbum.web.de/gast/der_schwe ... ot_Perkasa

Greetings from Germany,

der_schwede

[JIM BAUMANN]

Hallo der schwede!

The on-the-water shot's looks very good!--great conversion!

to Modelwarships.com!

MFG

Jim Baumann

[Neptune]

Great build. I love the colours and details! These little fast boats (of all classes) always look appealing to me.

[Sean Hert]

Anyone ever seen a shot of a MTB or an MTG being raised or lowered into the water via a crane?

[Gibs]

G'Day All
I know this is an oldish thread and its not really for the Vosper that I'm doing but .......
I'm in the process of doing a Vosper Brave Borderer/Perkasa build in 1/24. I'm even prototyping the engine layout (3 x Proteus Gas Turbines [modeled on a Schubeler EDF] with reverse reduction Vbox). The problem I have is I wish to make the exterior of the Schubeler's LOOK more like a true gas turbine. I have hunted high an low for a plastic Jet engine detailed kit that I can retro bash onto the Schubeler's to make a close faxsimile of the Proteus turbines. Yes this is an RC model an even tho you wont see the turbines until the tops pulled, I still want to make the turbines look the part.
So if anyone knows of a kit for a jet engine (no matter the type) that I can use to kit bash from that be great.
Thanks.

[Sr. Gopher]

Hey, I know this is an old thread (The last post was 8 months ago), but does anyone know of Vosper MTBs that served in the Pacific?