dnl42

MicroScale Industries Micro Flat and Micro Satin, Mr Color C46 Clear gloss. The Micro Flat and Micro Satin are sprayed straight; Mr Color thinned to the usual 1% milk consistency with Mr Leveling Thinner. 1 ATM pressure with 0.5mm nozzle.

I'm building the Hobby Boss 1/48 LCM3 for a GB on another forum. I naively thought it would be a mostly OOB build when I started. But, I soon found myself pondering some of the parts, and that's when OOB left the building. As such, I thought this would be interesting to show, here, too. Here are the bits from the box As you can see, I added Eduard's PE for this kit. At first, this all looked OK. Since I would be building this for Overlord, I knew the Sherman wasn't a possibility, but I figured that a Jeep would be a fine accompaniment for the completed kit. The first steps are the hull. Turns out the very first pause came with the skeg and rudder The leading edge at the rudder hinge works out to about 4.3 inches thick! Also the rudder won't support any side loads, which I assumed would have been a strong consideration for a beaching boat... My Google-foo soon found an image with the needed detail. Turns out this enlargement showed an LCM aboard an M25, a.k.a., Dragon Wagon. Hm, if only Tamiya would release one of those in 1/48. But, I digress. Here's what I did to fix the kit. And the shot similar to my enlargement above That looks much better. Around this time, I found my subject vessel. Woohoo! A source of truth...and more questions... Details on LCMs are scant indeed. My best source of info have been videos on YouTube, which showed the next issue. I noticed that when the ramp dropped, there was some activity in that channel at the bow in the photo above. That guide is a C channel with the equalizing sheave shuttling from the aft end of the guide when the ramp is raised--as seen above--to the forward end of the guide when the ramp is lowered. HB was apparently clueless about that, as they just supplied a U channel for the part, with no other connection to the boat beside it being welded to the frames. As for ramp operations, HB guessed there were ramp winches port and starboard, and the cables ran from winch, along the deck to a sheave at the bow, and then up to a sheave at the top of the bow to padeyes on the ramp. Watching more videos and reading the contemporaneous Skill in the Surf: A Landing Boat Manual, led to a better understanding of the mechanism. There's a single ramp winch driven by the port engine, hauling on a cable connected to the eye on equalizing sheave. There's a single ramp cable (wire rope) running from a padeye on the port side of the ramp, over a sheave at the bow, down to a sheave leading into the equalizing sheave guide, around the equalizing sheave, forward to a 2nd sheave at the forward end of the sheave guide, around that sheave and aft above the deck to a sheave that transferred the ramp cable to the starboard side, around a sheave and forward above the deck to a pair of sheaves (bottom and then top) to the other padeye on the starboard side of the ramp. As the name suggests, this arrangement ensures that the tension on both sides of the ramp are equal, ensuring it moves freely. The green line in the image below runs from equalizing sheave to top of the ramp winch cover. The red line shows that port-side ramp cable. The yellow line shows what I believe is the ramp release cable mentioned in Skill in the Surf. I first made up a C channel from 2 strips of Evergreen C channel and strip material. Now that I had the equalizing sheave channel, I needed an equalizing sheave. This is a guess--the only part visible is the uppermost rectangular bar, which is what first caught my attention. With an equalizing sheave guide and equalizing sheave in hand, I turned my attention to the ramp sheaves. Here's HB's interpretation. I needed something more like this More searching led me to making these bits. The sheaves are disks cut from 0.01 in sheet punched using Waldron #6 and #4 punches. The rest of the bits are also 0.01 sheet. I used those bits to make these two assemblies. I first thought the winch cover was thinner than HB's part, so I thinned down the port winch cover. Turns out I was incorrect, and HB got the width about right. But the cable entered the winch cover at the top, not the bottom. I was able to refashion the unneeded starboard winch cover into a better shape. HB's winch drum looked more like a sheave. Also shown is the revised winch drum, which I corrected using my smallest square needle file, along with the mounting plate/box for the drum, which I thinned down considerably. Skill in the Surf indicated the LCM carried two 12 foot boat hooks. HB just had some unidentified hooks in the cargo hold. Eduard provided PE replacements for the hooks; they also indicated that plain 1mm rod, 95mm and 60mm long, were to be placed in the hooks. I made up two boat hooks from 0.04 rod, 3 inches long. I tapered the ends and mounted a hook fashioned from 0.026 brass wire into a hole drilled into the tapered end. I'm now working on the 50 cal mounts, shown in the enlargement below. I first noticed that the 50 cal Brownings are not mounted. Harrumph, and I just spent a couple of evenings tarting up the HB Brownings with the Eduard PE and Master barrels. Here's a before and after shot of the HB plastic. The remaining HB plastic, folded Eduard PE, and the marvelous Master barrels. And the assembled 50 cals Both HB and Eduard provide an armor plate shaped differently than shown in the photo above. This will be easy enough to fix. The hard bit, where I'm now stuck, is the elevation mechanism. My Google-foo has been unable to find anything like it.

I use thinned Mr Surfacer 1200 for all priming. But, even that is prone to some chipping on PE. I've tried pickling the metal in a warm vinegar bath, but it didn't have much impact.

A typical approach for a single thread is to coat the end of the thread in CA, let it dry so that it's stiff, then cut the thread at an acute angle to form a "needle." For this case, you might try this with both thread ends joined with CA.to form a single "needle."

Nice!!! I've got that boxing in the stash. Whose engine did you use?

Bravo! Very clean build and outstanding finish!

Ooh, this will be fun! Waaay too big for my display cabinet, so the pleasure will, by necessity, remain vicarious...

This is a rebuild post. Here's a photo of the control console built per HB's parts and instructions. Clearly, the phrasing indicates problems beyond the wheel that I previously fixed. The raised platform is inconsistent with photos of crew standing in and adjacent to the conning station (post 1). Also, the engine control handles are incorrectly shaped and the ramp winch control is missing (post 17). see After cutting off the raised platform from the deck, I carefully butchered the console so I could rebuild it. The height of the console was increased to match the photos. The engine control handles were made from scratch except for the kit's hand-hold, which I attached with an offset.The ramp clutch was made from bent PE sprue; not quite visible, but it's there. Et voilà, here's my new and improved console. If you look at the photos from the Salvage Boat training film, you'll see the instruments don't occupy the full console top as they do here. I just now--after rebuilding the console--figured out that it's not (only?) because HB made the instruments too large. Most importantly, HB made the console top too small. Dang! I could have fixed that had I noticed it before I rebuilt it. But, I don't think the console will survive a yet another rebuild, so I'll live with this. The Salvage Boat training film also showed the boat hook. Not sure what's going on near the end of the boat hook, next to the white hook, perhaps it's unpainted metal? The boat hooks I showed in an earlier post don't look like this. So, I remade my boat hooks. I glued a small Evergreen strip at an angle at the handle end. The strip was then shaped with needle files and a nubbin was formed at the end by dipping the tip in medium thickness CA. I also filled in the gaping hole in the deck where the raised platform used to sit.

I primarily use Mr Color lacquers, and they're without peer IMHO. If I can't find colors locally, I purchase them from an ebay store called animetropolis, they're in Taiwan. I just checked, and they do list Gunze Acqueous paints. They have fast service; I usually receive my orders in just over a week.

I'm pretty sure he used meatware to produce that chart. FWIW, I came up with essentially the same tree...

Dang, that looks great!

I just built one. There were some issues, especially with the canopy fit and the older decals. I replaced the kit canopy with a vac canopy that fit and would properly stack, replaced the seats with Lion's Roar PE, and made seat belts from flattened solder. Overall it's a good kit and I'll enjoy building the other 2 in my stash with Caracal decals and vac canopies.

I will always prefer a lacquer paint over any other paint. They provide the thinnest costs and are fast drying. I have always found every acrylic paint to be too thick. I use Mr Color, another lacquer paint. When used with their Mr Leveling Thinner, this paint produces the best possible finish. Their gloss and semi-gloss paints do not need a clear coat before decals. Technique is very important to lacquers. Thin to consistency of 1% milk. Spray at 1 atmosphere. Spray between 0.25 and 2 inches. Light coats to build coverage. Only user a thicker coat for final gloss coat. Edit: Use a grazing light while painting to ensure paint hits wet.

Thanks @longshanks and @s.e.charles! This is indeed an interesting journey.

I've modified the wheel to better match the photo above. Here's my starting point. HB made the outer rim, spokes, and hub all uniform thickness. Here's my wheel, which has a larger diameter, but the same construction as the LCM wheel above. I expect that the handles are the same size. You'll notice the wheel's rim is thinner than the hub and the bosses into which the handles are mounted. Here's a handle I used my smallest crochet needle file to notch both sides of the rim next to each handle. I then used a new #11 blade to shave away both sides of the rim between the notches. I then cut some "washers" from Evergreen 0.093 tubing, which was a good match for the wheel's hub. I painted the metal parts brass (actually Warhammer "Greedy Gold") and the handles brown (Warhammer "Oak Brown"). Per the prototype, I left the tips of the handles brass colored. I'm pretty happy with this even though the spokes are too thick.

Oh ya, do a BT-67! Conversion kits are available, including this one from Alley Cat for your kit. Draw Decals has 1/72 BT-67 decals. I have Welsh Models' 1/144 BT-67 kit that includes Draw's US Forest Service markings.

I made my best guess at the release cable fairlead. I got a little carried away, and the future ramp release cable does indeed pass into the hull. I captured these pix from a USN training film, Amphibious Landing Operations Salvage Boat. Here's a closeup of the helm. HB missed lots of bits. Turns out I have a larger version of the wheel in my possession: Got a good shot at a fire extinguisher, which is not red. An LCVP training film identified an item visible in my subject shot. It's a water barrel

Another vote for only 1/48, to match my aircraft. BTW, HB's LCM can be corrected, with some more work.

See if the Troubleshooting page on Don's Airbrush Tips helps...

I use Inkscape to create the masks and Robocut to drive the silhouette portrait from my Linux computer. I usually cut Frisket, but also have cut Tamiya sheet masking paper as well as plain bond paper. I use silhouette's "Light Hold Cutting Mat" to hold the Frisket/tape/paper. There is a learning curve for Inkscape, but I'm getting pretty good with the tools I need. While I usually start from scratch, I've also imported bitmap images and trace the outline as a starting point. I'm quite happy with this setup and the tool!

Looking forward to this one!

I use a medium CA for edge bonds and small surfaces, e.g., building all the PE parts as well as attaching the brass barrel to these 1/48 Brownings Future is good for PE attached to a canopy or other clear part. I don't use CA for larger surface joints, like a PE plate that will lay atop plastic or resin. PE metal and the other model material have different thermal expansion properties that can stress a surface bond. CA bonds have a lower shear strength, which can cause a bond to fail in this situation. In these situations, I prefer a flexible glue, like Gator's Grip Hobby Glue, Formula 560 Canopy Glue, Microscale Industries Micro Kristal Klear, or PVA glues. Their flexibility enables the bond to survive bending and thermally driven flexure. These glues also dry clear and can fill gaps.

Just finished Pacific Thunder by Thomas Cleaver.

Leaving sunny La La Land, where it will be +18C today, for Minneapolis, where it will get down to -18C. On the one hand, I'm amused by the symmetry. On the other hand, that's cccccccold!

He ditched in the Hudson River, which at that point, separates New York and New Jersey. The Delaware River runs most of its course separating Pennsylvania from New Jersey.