Revell P.T. 109 Accuracy shot

Evan Dwyer
for my own good more than anything, progress so far is the hull, rudders, and shafts. Props saved for painting. Deck isn't mated to the hull yet, cut and sanded off lifeboat brackets, drilled out vents, added armor plating around the cockpit and installed the engine room cover, 20 mm ammo cans, and gas canister.

Next step is to hit some details. Cut off the horn, trim the shaft of it and strech sprue with some added milliput to get a more realistically proportioned horn. If I mess it up, I'll toss it, since no photos of it exist.... I also want to figure out an anchor early. Can't have a ship without an anchor, even if it is a motorboat. Filling in under the aft spray shield on top of the day cabin is a priority, so probably milliput for that unless I have a piece of flat sprue somewhere I haven't seen yet. Then sanding. I need to examine the mast and decide how to leave that off and not make it look missing. Then sanding off the windshield frames on the cockpit, adding lights and vents to the sides of the chart house, and deciding what to do with the raft. Probably paint it black rubber and toss some rolled and painted gauze in it. Next is making a depth charge to scale and carving out a mount for it. Once that's done, I'll attach it with tape for straps and tackle the windows on the day cabin. Maybe pre-mask some clear sprue from a helicopter windshield. Once that's done, attach the hull and deck, and prime. Once primed, green on everything. Olive drab mixed with a good bit of white to yellow it "tropically", I hope. Then the hull, then the boot stripe. Then on to details.

From there, I hope to finish up window detailing by hand and finish deck assembly. Hopefully I follow the plan above!

Other goals:
- create draft markers for the bow
- de-ugly the .50's
- assemble and add the WEM 37 mm with balsa planks and rope
- create an anchor and line
- "new" or darken the area where the deck was repaired from the depth charge
- Remove toe line from the area and melt the edges of the remainder
- handpaint the cockpit and wood areas
- black out and clear gloss coat the windows
- rust weather the armor areas
- oil the boot stripe
- add 'canvas' spray shields to turrets
- create gun belts for .50's
- create casing bags for .50's out of tissue

Evan Dwyer
Other notes:
- the depth charge should be installed nearer to the middle of the deck, no rail extension.
- The spot light should be moved and modified to have a clear lens and wiring.
- turret swivel mounts need to go on before painting. Torpedo tubes can be done separately at the same time with railings
-countershaded deck metal and silvered weathering on hatches would work well
- Crew will require a good wash.
- with the amount of flash and sanding required, all parts need to be wiped down prior to painting.

This kit kinda sucks but it is what it is

Dave Flitton
Pictures?

Evan Dwyer
Dave,

Mostly mental organizing at the moment, typed it out as a self-guide. Pics will follow in small doses, I don't particularly like taking the time to photograph things mid-build.

Hanno Kleinecke
Is White Ensign still inoperational ? I used their P. E. fret, which was very helpful in some of the pionts you mentioned. There are pictures of the horn and alot of closeups of almost every part of the Elco 80 footers
in Warship pictorials" PT Boats in action", as well as in a book called " PT Boats at War" by an author I can`t remember. T. Garth Connely`s book about this ancient Kit is also recommendable, as it contains a couple of photographic references as well.

Evan Dwyer
Thanks for the info Hanno, I'll look into those books. WEM is not operational anymore, although I believe their paints have been bought for production under license by another company. I searched high and low for the PE set and couldn't find it, but I did get the 37 mm deck gun from them in November. Thankfully that was good timing!

Hanno Kleinecke
Oh pity, they're offline for so long now, I thought it wouldn't take so long for the new owner to take over.

Evan Dwyer
Should be uploading pictures in a moment. The base is primed, Everything I wanted on the boat before priming and first coat is installed, built a depth charge and rack out of milliput and sprue, quite crudely I might add. Wrapped it around sprue to give it shape, went with indentions instead of protrusions for the details on the front and back of the charge. Added a rudimentary lever too. This is only the second time I've scratch built any thing so I'm pretty pleased, but I know at the same time I have muchhhhh to learn! I also used Milliput to add missing vents, 'window' and frame, and lights to the sides of the chart house. Sanded off the windshield ribbing, did my best to trim down the turret rails and join those in a mostly circular fashion, filled in the back of the day cabin, installed the deck fittings, and most importantly, joined the deck and hull. In the future, I'd like to figure out how to replace railings with those unique curves in a scale this big. I also assembled the anti-tank gun for the foredeck, although I lost a PE grab handle and left them both off since my scrap detailing is crude and my CA bottle is a mess so why bother this time?

Tomorrow I'll double check my deck details and probably install the searchlight mast, but leave off the light. Most references seem to agree it wasn't there at time of sinking, so I'm going with that. Then I'll prime the boat and the topredo tubes and start airbrushing guns and guys. And probably handpaint the life rings and propellers. Hopefully I'll have a mixed first coat of my version of tropical green ready to hit the tubes, mounts, and boat by evening!

Still have to make an anchor, I think I'm going to use bits of the mast for that...

Evan Dwyer
Made a lot of progress, some more assembly and detail painting before I hit the first clear coat and do decals and overall weathering. Quite happy so far, this has moved very quickly despite how much work I've been putting into it. Also a lot of steps I consciously skipped, like adding a casing bag for the 20 mm and scale planking the deck, and re-doing the toe rails. I put the 'damage' from the depth charge plunging through the foredeck in the wrong place on purpose, reason mostly being that I didn't re-do the planking and toe rails! But really I just wanted it to be noticeable enough that it would prompt whoever looks at it to ask why the paint's different there, then I can tell them, and maybe they'll find it interesting. Who knows, but I'm excited about that part. I also need to do something to highlight the front three windows on the charthouse, I just haven't decided which approach to take. The crew is a whole different story, I can't decide where to put them. I also built an anchor based off the kit part from the Italeri 80' model, I have a feeling that kit didn't have it 100 % right either, but once it's sanded it'll be a nice addition. If anyone has any knowledge about the deck features, there are some circular items coming out of the deck on both sides of the cockpit and two further ones behind the wheel house. One is indented in that area. On another manufacturers plans they're red, I assumed they were mushroom vents. Does anyone know?

Anyways, more tomorrow. Any and all comments welcome! First time I've ever posted much on here, and definitely first time I've posted throughout a build instead of just the finished product. I type a lot, I bet that's annoying. But yeah, I'd love to hear thoughts about this!