Lindberg's PT 109 kit Modified in 1/32 scale

[Spad57]

Greetings Guys,

Here's an oldie from way back in the 1980's. The donor kit is the less than ideal Lindberg PT 109 kit. I have no clue as to what Lindberg used as a reference for this kit but whatever it was it was way off. Nearly every detail needed correction from the basic hull shape,charthouse,day cabin. In other words it was a mess. These comments also would apply to their 1/64 scale PT as well.

 

The hull has been narrowed at the stern to fit my drawings from the PT Boat Museum ( drawn by Al Ross). Once this was completed I built a new deck from Door Skin. Actually two layers were used for her deck,each roughly 1/64 inch thick. Great stuff to work with very thin and very flexible for the deck curvature. With the basic hull to my satisfaction now it was time for the worse part of the entire project planking the hull and deck. Seemed like 1000's of hours cutting 3/16 inch planks from 1/32 inch balsa. Luckily my wife volunteered to help cut the majority of them. But I had the task of placing each plank required,oh joy of joys too.

 

Next was to scratch build a new charthouse. Including moving the forward gun tube forward to match the first series of the Elco 80 foot boat.  Following this the Day cabin was reworked a bit. Awful lot of work,oh yeah but worth it. That being said I did have a second kit to model a late series Elco but never repeated this project again. So here you have it a mid series Elco PT Boat in 1/32 scale.

[Spad57]

Edited November 5, 2018 by Spad57

[Spad57]

 I hope you all enjoy my ancient PT Boat project. As always any and all comments are welcomed and much appreciated. Thanks for looking.

Highest Regards,

Gregory Jouette

 

 

PS: All 328's guns are HR Products items. The forward rocket launchers are scratch built as are the roll off racks for the torpedos. These photos were taken in 2015 while this model and many others were on display at the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby.