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Topic: Sort of review of Merit PT Boat in 1/48 |
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Tracy White
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Posted on: Sep 11, 2014 - 4:35pm
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First off, I want to say that I'm not here to start fights. I have exchanged correspondence with Al, David, I think Jeff and also Garth. I consider all of you more experts in these boats than I. Where you disagree, I generally just shrug and let the water flow on - I don't care to research every point and come up with my own truth. I've been in enough fights. When I read that this raised detail was wrong, I just accepted it because the experts said so and I'm happy to take people I trust and enjoy conversing with at their word.
This was just something I noticed when trying to figure out where the *#$%@ the day cabin dingy should go. BOTH kits have aspects of this wrong, and both kits have so let's not play favorites here. Regardless of the politics of either kit, if a detail is incorrect it should be honestly noted for others to fix it IF THEY CARE. I don't care enough to scratch build a new dingy and mount, so you know where I'm coming from in this case.
It looks like the Italeri 596 kit had it somewhat right, not the Merit kit which is an obvious ripoff of it.
Both kits have inaccuracies with this covering board. I fail to see, however, how Italeri can have it somewhat right and Merit not, if they did copy it. Was this a statement I'm miss-understanding?
The most obvious part being at the stern. They even duplicated the round screw covers from the Italeri kit. The reason that's amusing is that the Merit deck does not screw to the hull.
Rounded corners were present on PT-588 at least. Both appear to have the shapes wrong, for those that care to fix it. It appears to me that the aft cover plate was wider than depicted (by a couple of inches), the rounded portion should be a little further forward, and the cleat itself had a wide mounting flange.
The extra, wide cover here (port side, about 2/3 back) is much too small on both kits. The lower part is cut off as that's where the photo ended. Note that it is either a separate piece covering the main covering board, or the covering board in this area is much more substantial. Both kits have a small piece that mainly covers the area directly under the cleat itself and are short lengthwise by a carriage bolt or two and should extend further inboard.
We can see in both of these photos that the covering board does appear to stand proud of the deck on the inboard and outboard edges. Both kits depict this, but both kits have some minor shape issues that in actuality are easier to fix than sanding the whole thing off.
Back to the Day cabin dingy, as I've alluded to that a couple of times. I believe this was done in CAD by eyeball and not official drawings. Check out the overhangs on both the bow and starboard (Keeping in mind the boat is flipped, the side closest to the camera is the starboard side). If any of you can get these and the mounting rails in the kits to line up to the photo you're a better builder than I.
Note that these mounting rails differ significantly than what the kit parts supply. Note that the straps DO NOT line up with these rails on the real subject whereas they do on both kits. Doing this right would probably involve locating plans and scratch building the entire thing from scratch. Eh, I'll pass doing that on this kit.
Side question - anyone know if the paint on the day cabin windows was part of a temporary application of some sort, or were they just doing this as a standard late war? Starboard side is nearly identical with the exception of the forward window where the ladder to the hatch is.
Tracy White
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David Waples
TOP BOSS
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Posted on: Sep 11, 2014 - 10:11pm
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Hi Tracy,
Excellent research as we've come to expect from you. The raised boards on the perimeter of the late boats are well known. They're visible in Victor's first book which has several nice shots of late model PT's. I must admit that I had forgotten about the pads for the cleats on the stern which Italeri uses to hide the screws used to secure the deck to the hull. Your photos capture that very well.
I do still believe that the designers of this kit in China had the Italeri kit when they designed theirs. There are features which are duplicated in the Merit offering such as the cabling across the top of the day cabin and the forward starboard window on the same structure. The photos of the 596 boat don't reflect these features correctly. Wasn't it also curious that Merit announced these kits as the same hull numbers.
Again, I'm not surprised nor am I upset by it. The folks at Trumpeter are not the first to do this. Revell admitted to using another 1/72 Type IXC when they did their U-505 kit. They made the same error the other manufacturer made. So Trumpeter isn't the first or last to copy from other manufacturers products. I for one am not upset by it.
Thanks for sharing your research Tracy.
Dave
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David Waples
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 5:48am
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Quote:
I am not sure if there is any difference in Kits ( probably not ) but I was on Ebay the other night and I saw not only the Merit Kit but the Trumpeter Kit as well. Does anyone know if this is just the same Kit stamped with the Trumpeter name.
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Frank, I tried to find the kit on ebay you were referring to but couldn't. Trumpeter, Hobby Boss, and Merit International are all joined at the hip. It is very common for Trumpeter to release a kit in one scale and then one of the others to release the same subject in another with modifications of course. It's possible that Trumpeter is releasing this kit in other markets. I've seen that before as well. No doubt they would be the same though.
Dave
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David Waples
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 5:55am
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Here's a nice contrast shot of deck edging between a late model and earlier model PT Boat.
Dave
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Frank Andruss
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 Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 6:54am
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Thanks Dave, I kind of thought so but I needed to hear it from someone else.
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Jeff D
Moderator
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 6:55am
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Wow, nice closeups thanks Tracy. The Elco drawings are great but it's good to see photos back them up. Planked deck boats didn't have the higher covering board along the sheer, a detail Italeri didn't pick up on with their 109 kit.
I always wondered about the windows with their square corners. I'll see what I can find in the drawings, I'm not overly familiar with the later boats.
I didn't mean that Merit got it wrong Tracy, how could they? I wanted to point out that Italeri was the one to add this subtle detail to a model and that Merit just copied it. Thanks to a certain review of the Merit kit, there's confusion about the kit being original work that could affect a buyers decision to purchase it. With it now obvious it isn't, maybe the reviewer will change his review. Unless he has some reason to keep the now misleading text.
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Jeff D
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 8:51am
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Per your painted window question Tracy, nothing in the drawings but the build manual at hnsa (http://www.hnsa.org/doc/pt/specs/#pg23) mentions screens:
SECTION R-7.
AIRPORTS AND WINDOWS.
All ports shall be of special type with improved drain pans and scuppers, except in crew's dayroom and chart house sides which shall be fitted with hinged metal ports with integral black-out shutters and equipped with wire mesh insect screens satisfactory to the Supervisor of Shipbuilding. Eliminate windows from forward side of chart house.
The drawings show the boats had the normal fairly deep inset round cornered windows. The windows look like they might have painted screens over them to me going by the darker look of the paint.
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Tracy White
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 9:20am
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I honestly don't think the point of if work was copied or not will make much difference. It's the only plastic PT boat in 1/48th scale - if people want a kit (as opposed to being open to scratch building) it's their only option. The real question is if the amount of work the kit presents more than they want to deal with. For some, if you can't shake it and have a kit come out, it's too much work. Others are more nuanced and varied. So, for some the errors that are noted may make it more work than they want to do, but I don't think they'll care so much about the cause of those errors.
Also, for what it's worth, FSM, MSW, and even this board (unless there's a non-intuitive way I don't know about) don't let you edit posts after they're made.
With regards to the windows... The bottom is what intrigues me. It almost looks like the same effect I get with tape when I have applied it for masking and pressed it down on the various surfaces, but not cut it yet, leaving a slight slope from the raised step down. Light would be better blocked from the inside with some sort of curtain, I would think, but painted or otherwise externally covered windows would cut down on glint, if that was a concern.
Tracy White
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Jeff D
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 12:26pm
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Are you maybe seeing the actual window frame through a screen? It looks like you can see it in this zoom, and it looks like hinges and latches on the frame so the screen could be raised (lowered?):
Here's a section through the aft guard and deck doubler, again courtesy of Dick Washichek. The covering board ends at the stern and is overlapped by the doubler. The doubler along the stern is 11 wide and ends 30 to either side of the boat center line:
As to editing, I'm sure the webmaster could easily update a review and would appreciate it being as accurate as possible.
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Tracy White
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Posted on: Sep 12, 2014 - 2:11pm
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I think you might be on to something. Looking at it again, there is a hint of a bevel on the corners, which would explain why the one on the starboard side was rounded and these appear squared - the windows are still rounded, these are just squared off screens that extend further out than the windows and we're seeing some of the vertical surface and step "down" (inboard) to the glass through the screen.
So I guess the question now is... how to replicate this look in 1/35th and 48th? 
Tracy White
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