Neil's Italeri 1/35 LCVP Landing Craft

[Waspie]

Most excellent work Neil. I have just had a very good catch up as I'm so far behind with everyone's builds.
Fenders, ropes and detritus!! Is there no stopping the mans talents??

[scottie3158]

looking superb mate

[Jim R]

Brilliant Neil. You really are being inventive with this. I reckon those life belts look spot on.

[Steve Ski]

You are catching all the minute details, Neil. Excellent ref pics too, I've never seen any of these before. Ruck On!

[Neil Merryweather]

Most excellent work Neil. I have just had a very good catch up as I'm so far behind with everyone's builds.
Fenders, ropes and detritus!! Is there no stopping the mans talents??

Glad to have you back Doug

[Neil Merryweather]

looking superb mate

Cheers Paul, you're part of the inspiration!

[Neil Merryweather]

Brilliant Neil. You really are being inventive with this. I reckon those life belts look spot on.

Thanks Jim, I'm happy so far, fingers crossed for the paint

[Neil Merryweather]

You are catching all the minute details, Neil. Excellent ref pics too, I've never seen any of these before. Ruck On!

Good to see you here Steve, glad you like it

[Neil Merryweather]

Ok, I have painted the life belts, and stuck them in, and a couple of other bits of CITF as well





The kit bag came from the Italeri PT Boat Crew set



There are also two lifebelt rings in the kit, with moulded ropes, which I was intending to just use OOB



I painted them but I just couldn’t bring myself to put them up against all the other actual rope, so I butchered them, and I feel a lot better for it.





I’m going to tone down the horizontal ‘scrapes’; the logic was damage by passing jeeps etc on previous trips, but it doesn’t look right yet.
So that’s me up to date.
The next challenge is the inflated life belt.

I have a cunning plan, master....
Cheers
Neil

[Andy T]

I can almost smell the sea air and feel myself pitching & rolling in the surf.

[Neil Merryweather]

As an interesting aside , with regard to research, I was trying to discover what colour to paint those life rings, and almost all colour photos around are of modern restorations and the life rings are orange, presumably because of current safety regulations. I was sure this was not correct for the period, but it took me quite a bit of trawling to figure out that they were mostly white at the time. Some were dark grey, but I wanted the contrast

[Steve Ski]

Good move changing out the ropes, much better. The rope colors are really good too, they give good contrast to the grey tones of the boat. Excellent progress, Neil!

P.S. Bright orange or red rings would be like, WOW, easy target, HA!

[Jim R]

So many wonderful, well considered details. Life belts look spot on painted up. Replacing the life ring ropes was a good move.

[Neil Merryweather]

Well I was supposed to make an inflated life belt, but I got distracted.
I have always intended to have a bucket kicking around (see what I did there ..) somewhere, as shown here



I have an old Tamiya one in the spares box, but it’s a bit knackered, and not in a good way,



and if I cleaned it up it would be too pristine, so I planned to 3D print one. But, as I say, I want it to be dented but I don’t know how to make that effect in the digital model I have; and denting rarely looks that convincing doing it to resin or plastic anyway. So remembering the front bump on the bow door, and inspired by scottie3158 and Scratchbuilder I decided to make one out of metal.
I used the Tamiya bucket to make a template from paper



I just impressed the shape with my fingernail into the paper and opened it out


Then I could cut it out with scissors



The pencil line is the join line. I then cut the shape from thin metal sheet-in this case it’s a tomato puree tube.
I put double-sided tape on the bucket to keep the metal in place while I trimmed the metal more precisely



I used my fingernail again to indent the metal into the detail of the rim and the base


Next I removed the metal by flooding it with lighter fuel to release the glue of the double-sided tape



And superglued the edges together. Using fine pliers I gradually bent the rim over in stages until it was folded flat.
For the base of the bucket I used leather punches to make a 7mm styrene disc and an 8mm metal disc, and I carefully folded the 0.5mm extra metal all round over the edge of the styrene disc.



And then ca’d it into place



Now I added the dents I want and the finally a handle from wire



It’s a shame one side of the metal is gold colour or I might leave it unpainted, but it would look a bit odd.
So sorry chaps , you’ll have to wait a bit longer for my cunning plan for the inflated life belt.
Thanks for looking in
N

[scottie3158]

Neil,
that is outstanding mate.