WIP PT596 backdate to PT495-Pics

Here are some photos of the project so far. I’m backdating the PT596 kit to PT495 in the Oct '44 time frame. The paint scheme will be 31/5p, Ocean Green, Navy Green and Deck Green. In the photos none of the superstructure or major pieces are glued in place because of how I will paint them.

So far I have mounted the 37 mm on a Mk10 mount I made and located it in a more forward location to match the original. PT495 only had one bow deck vent, of the late type, and it was located where the forward early type vent would have been. It did not have the raft mounts over the cabin so I had to remove them. It also had the early style lights so I removed the mounts from the kit and made some early stye units.

The biggest task was making the SO radar mast and dome.

The disks in front of the torpedoes are where 2 additional 20mm will be mounted.

Here is a link to more photos:

http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=1827174

Feedback appreciated.

Ed

Very nice work Ed.
Garth

Ed,

How did you go about building the radar dome section?

Thanks/Dave

Well you will probably laugh at this but I planned to use a lathe to turn it but my buddies lathe broke so I bought some wooden balls and a dowel are a craft store. I cut the ball in half and glued it to a piece of tthe dowel. The dowel was was a little smaller than the ball so I wrapped it in some .010 plastic sheet. Then I did a lot of smoothing and filling with CA.

Crazy, hey?

Ed

It might be crazy but it looks good. How do you like the kit so far? I’ve read that it has a lot of sinkholes that need filling.

Thanks. The Mast was almost as much trouble but in the end it came out OK.

I like the kit a lot but it does have some sink holes and ejector pin sinks too. Each torpedo roll-off rack, for example, has about 13 that I corrected with CA. It isn’t too bad though. If you factor in everything I’m cutting, scraping and fabbing to build the 495 boat, the sink holes are the least of my problems.

I added some more photos to the linked photo page. These are of the reworked 37mm mag and shortened barrel to back date it as well as the work on the torpedo roll-off racks to make them closer to mk1 style.

My RTV mod/cast kit has shipped frpm Micro-mark so i suspect I will be casting 20mms and mount soon so I can add them.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to back-date but it has been very educational to say the least.

I’ve also ordered 12 1/35 scale Navy LCM crewmen so Lord knows what it will take to make them fit in.

Well it keeps me off the streets I guess. If anybody sees me making a mistake, please jump in.

Thanks,

Ed