I completely agree with Tracy about the benches. There would be no reason to maintain or even have varnished wood anywhere on the exterior of the boat. I doubt any of the boats ever came out of the factory with varnished wood on the exterior. Even down below it's a very black and white environment. Slap some paint on it sailor!
As for the tub interiors as with all PT's there could be a lot of answers. If the tubs needed painting I'm sure they painted with what was handy. I've seen a lot of photos where the tub is field painted but the turret itself is not and left the original factory color. There's really no benefit from painting the tub interior camouflaged except for maintenance purposes. From a modeling perspective I think painting the tub interiors dark grey would be a good choice. You're not going to have any reflective light coming out of it and if you were looking at the real thing from above that's what you would see. There's no interior light in the tubs unless the ammo feed doors are opened.
View looking down on PT's illustrates my point on the tubs not reflecting any light back.
Has anyone heard of any news for any sort of after-market ( PE and/or resin) for Merit's 1/48 PT boat? I know there are resin .50 cals and turned barrels for the .50; 20mm; and 40mm, by Hauler, RB, etc., but anything PT specific?
Gentlemen,
Thanks again for the quick reply re my earlier PT boat questions. Another question if I may: What color were the deck guns (20mm, 37mm, 40mm) and mounts painted on late war PT boats? I saw a photo of a very nice build of the big Italeri 596 boat which was in the Measure 31/20 scheme, but had the rear Bofors gun and mount painted in what appears to be a shade of Navy gray.
biggles2 wrote:Has anyone heard of any news for any sort of after-market ( PE and/or resin) for Merit's 1/48 PT boat? I know there are resin .50 cals and turned barrels for the .50; 20mm; and 40mm, by Hauler, RB, etc., but anything PT specific?
I think you've really hit on everything aftermarket that's out there that would help the kit. There are scratch build opportunities for sure. Things like correcting the hull shape and other details depending on reference. Nothing PT specific yet like we saw with the Italeri kit.
I haven't seen anyone posting progress pictures on this kit. I'm sure there are some out there. Would love to see your work and hear your thoughts about the kit.
I'm still dabbling at mine. From my standpoint, it continues to go together well, but I advise test fitting and thinking out construction of some pieces. For example, the starboard cockpit area has about six pieces to pull it off. The instructions have a pretty good assembly order for these pieces, but I placed mine down on the deck and carefully tacked things in place to make sure that I was working to minimize joint and seam filling. Only two places needed any sort of filler; the inner cockpit wall's (piece C-8) exterior joint, and the inner most joint of the gun tub to charthouse joint (which is really hard to see, but was easy to fill and "sand" with Mr. Surfacer and Q-tips wetted with Mr. Color Thinner).
Torpedoes went together well enough, only gripe is that some of the holes are shallow due to the molding - might have been better to have these as a slightly smaller diameter covered by PE pieces. Could be minimized by rotating them so that the shallower holes are more away from the viewer, but I haven't checked to see how the things were oriented on the boat yet.
Essentially, I have the charthouse/cockpit and day cabin structures built up and am starting on the next structure aft. I've been slowed somewhat by missing paint - the cockpit instrument panel piece and deck under the 40mm gun base could stand some paint before assembly to make for better and easier paint application. That bottle's hiding around here somewhere.....
Maybe it's so good that it doesn't need any aftermarket (hopefully)! But, being aTrumpeter Inc. product I have some misgivings as I have several Trumpeter ship kits and all of them have some kind of issue, usually with fit, and sometimes with accuracy - at least PT boats don't have bilge keels ( ). The straight sheer line is something I won't try to fix, but I am staying tuned to current builds to watch out for potential difficulties. I know as soon as I start building some AM parts will become available, and I'm still waiting for someone to produce some crew figs.
Bidding has ended on that item and it's no longer visible. Not trying to jump on you, but that's not what I would consider a good fit for a thread meant to last decades.....
I don't mean to jump on you put it's REAL easy to save as any pic you find as long as it's for personal use. the pic IS different than the ones in the links you put up and therefore might be of interest to someone other than YOU.
steviecee wrote:REAL easy to save as any pic you find as long as it's for personal use.
You missed my point. You provided a link that was dead by the next morning. I can't save the picture if it's not there. The "Calling all Ship Fans" thread is meant to be a PERMANENT location, but ebay photos are pretty transitory in nature.
But, rather than just say negative things, I also tried to find other photos to post so that there might be something of interest.
That's why I said I wasn't trying to jump on you - I didn't want to seem like all I was doing was criticizing and make it less likely you'd post in the future.
I hope this isn't an old question but in case it hasn't been asked before:
Are there any discrepancies between the Eduard p.e. set, the Royal Model bofors set and the big, all-singing-all-dancing RM set, used to upgrade the Italeri Elco 80 596 kit?
I'm just wondering if there are omissions of any kind, that people think should be there; what overlaps there are, if any; and which, if any, is the best to get. Admittedly I have already bought the Eduard set, but that's mainly so I can have a look at what detail is supplied and to compare it to ref photos and what's in the boat kit itself. As funds for the hobby are somewhat intermittent at the moment, shelling out nearly �80.00 on a set of after-market stuff is not something I want to do without some in-put from anyone who may have already done this. Please help. Any thoughts most welcome.
Ah! Sorry, Tracy. I meant the other Royal Model set, the large one that includes the resin parts as well as the p.e. There's only one on Evilbay at the moment. Seems to have up-graded details for the Bofors, all torpedo racks, gun tubs and deck gear and raft/dinghey etc. Resin includes a new smoke generator, Bofors ammo clips and the like.
On the plus side I got hold of a copy of the Elco PT parts manual last week. Also a hb copy of the 'U.S. Forces in the Pacific: 1st Marine Division and PT Boat Squadrons (Elite Attack Forces)' for only �7.38, including the postage, from the U.S. earlier today. So every now and then I get lucky with the prices. Slowly getting the reference material together for this project..
Timmy, your first link took me to a big 'ol list of everything 1/35th. There's a number of items that might be nice (Pacific wharf set) that aren't labelled PT-596 specifically, but here are the direct links to the three products directly PT related that aren't the Bofors set: PT Sailors & Generator Elco 80' Torpedo Boat PT-596 Elco 80' PT-596 set and accessories (looks like extra crew gear)
i actually just ordered the PT Boat sets from Royal Model directly. They were a pleasure to deal with. Their prices are a better than what you can find them for on ebay.
to confuse you even more, there's an OOP detail kit from Lion Roar that's probably the best of the detail sets. You can still find it with a bit of searching in the usual places. A review of it can be found here: http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/r ... 35003.html
Tracy White wrote:Timmy, your first link took me to a big 'ol list of everything 1/35th. There's a number of items that might be nice (Pacific wharf set) that aren't labelled PT-596 specifically, but here are the direct links to the three products directly PT related that aren't the Bofors set: PT Sailors & Generator Elco 80' Torpedo Boat PT-596 Elco 80' PT-596 set and accessories (looks like extra crew gear)
I have the big set for PT-596, and it is pretty impressive. It does include everything in the smaller 40MM Bofors set as well.
I would also recommend the Royal Model product over the Eduard. I also purchased my set directly from Royal Model They have some nice figures as well. You might also take a look at U-Models. They have some nice accessories in 1/35 scale as well. Lion Roar made a nice set for the Italeri PT but they are rare rare rare.
Dave
Yes, I've been hunting around the sites for the Lion Roar set and all have 'out of stock' or 'oop', if they mention it at all. Will keep looking though as one may yet turn up. Haven't looked at U-models yet but will do so shortly. Thanks very much.
I had a good look at the Royal Model list of kits yesterday and it got me thinking about how I will display the model, once done. I have to say my thoughts on whether to do a diorama or not are changing. Quite tempted to do a jetty and some huts although it feels like a lifetime ago that I did water and what-have-you. May have to have a new garden shed just for display space.
But, being aTrumpeter Inc. product I have some misgivings as I have several Trumpeter ship kits and all of them have some kind of issue, usually with fit, and sometimes with accuracy - at least PT boats don't have bilge keels ( 
). The straight sheer line is something I won't try to fix, but I am staying tuned to current builds to watch out for potential difficulties. I know as soon as I start building some AM parts will become available, and I'm still waiting for someone to produce some crew figs. 
Please help. Any thoughts most welcome.
