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Percassa Motor Torpedo Boat 1/24 scale by neptune

neptune

neptune

Joined
May 25, 2017
Messages
3,531
Points
688

Location
Australia.
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I was'nt going to start any more builds, but I saw this Percass MTB on Face book market place for a really good price and I could'nt resist, she is 49 1/2 inches long,


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view under the hull,


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and inside,


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and a look at the bow,

thanks for looking in,

best regards John,



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The fibre glass hull was not too bad, but the superstructure build as i received it was,nt very good, the parts that were glued together were just coming apart, and what was glued was out of line, so i decided to scrap most of it , see pics below,



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So i managed to deconstruct and use the parts as templates,


best regards John,
 
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The Percassa was fitted with one 40mm bofors gun and a smaller gun on the transom, I wanted to fit two 40mm bofors guns so i did a search on the net and came up with HMS Brave Borderer which was a variant of the Percassa and she had two bofor guns and also the cabin at the front of the bridge had been removed, which suited me,

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I cut off the cabin at the front and also cut away some of the frame work, I cut and glued a new deck to the top back of the bridge and added some 1/4 round to the top edge for supporting the outer covering which is a very thin plywood, I also added sides of a thicker plywood, not shown in the pic,



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To glue the thin plywood skin I first glued it across the top of the superstructure and let it dry overnight with a heavy weight on it, ( 4 inch vise )



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next day after removing the vise, the plywood skin has to be folded down the sides and glued in place, I was lucky that I was able to remove all the glue that was on the thin plywood,


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another view from the side, and you can see where I have cut the front of the cabin off the superstructure,


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I folded the plywood down over the sides and glued it in place with the help of some wood strips and a few brass nails which I removed after the glue was dry,


best regards John,

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Next up was fitting a framework to support the deck and also the sides of the hull, the thick plywood framework that came with the hull was all cracked and broken,

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I cut and attached the timber strips around and across the the hull, I strung a piece of piano wire from bow to transom to act as a centre line,


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after gluing the strips around the hull I had to level them down, see between the X's,

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Just checking to see that all is level, from the research that i have done it looks like these boats had no camber or sheer,

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thats all the beams in place,


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and on this pic you can see the frame work added under the beams,

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and at the fransom I had to add a cross piece as the top edge of the fiber glass was cracking up a little bit,

best regards john,



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These are the bofor guns that came with the boat that the previous owner had built,


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another view,

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I wanted something a little bit better so went on line and found these, they are Printed and Photo etched, these are the floor plates, niceand thick,

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making up the framework, the piece at the rear is where the floor plates goes,

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the main parts of the gun body, very well printed,

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after gluing the floor pates, foot controls etc to the main body of the gun,


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looking down on top of the build,

best regards John,

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Last edited:
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the printed seats,


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and glued in position, they are supposed to be fixed with just one support but to make them more secure I used the sprues as an extra surrport, see the X,

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a better pic showing the winding gear,


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and a view looking down on top,

best regards John.

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I have seen double and quad bofor's before but this is first time to see a single barrel version.

The work and gun look great, this boat should look great when done, are you making it a RC model?
 
Kurt Konrath said:
I have seen double and quad bofor's before but this is first time to see a single barrel version.

The work and gun look great, this boat should look great when done, are you making it a RC model?
Click to expand...
G'day Kurt, thank you for the nice comments, and yes she will be RC model, I have the the tubes and prop shafts, also the rudders, just waiting for the 55mm twin props,

best regards John,
 
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Back to the superstructure, I used some blocks of Jelutong that i had for the corners of the bridge, Jelutong is nice and easy to carve and sand and it is a lot more solid than balsa,
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with the lower blocks in place and also the front of the bridge, the reason I used four blocks was that I had plenty of them and just wanted to use up stuff that I have available,


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another view from the front,


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and after a preliminary sanding, some filling and more sanding to do yet,


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Testing a figure for scale on the bridge,


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and a photo of the bridge with crew,

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and another view,

best regards John,

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The parts used to make the aft superstructure, I used the old parts as a template and cut it all out in one piece,


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a pic where I am at at, the moment, I have fitted the deck, the original deck was in good condition it had not been glued on the model so I used it, I've cut and lined the hatches for easy access, and I will cut one more access point under where the fore Bofor will go,

thanks for looking in,

best regards John,

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While the glue was drying on the other parts I decided to make the torpedo's, they are 300mm 12inches long and 25mm one inch in diameter, so i set up my Sherline long bed lathe with the steady rest, and mounted the dowell,

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I used a slow speed and a miniature Rasp to form the noses and finished off with sandpaper,

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a close up view,

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then while the dowell was still on the lathe I marked the taper for the after end and where the very end of the torpedo was I made a cut down into the torpedo, then i removed it from the lathe and using a craft knife I cut the taper to just over size, mounted it back in the lathe and did the final tapering and cut off the end piece,

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Two of the four torpedo's after filling and sanding, I'm now waiting for four 12mm propeller's to come, i could only get three bladed one's, they should be Ok, then I have to make the fins and the cowell part that covers the blades,

once again thanks for looking in,

best regards John,

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well thats both the Bofor guns completed apart from making the mounting and painting,


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another view,


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there were some tricky little suckers to glue, i think that these, the winders for the elevation were the fiddliest, but I enjoyed building the guns,


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they also give you ten shells with each gun to go in the magazine on the top of the gun,

best regards John,


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started building some of the lockers, this is after shaping to fit,


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in the kit they give a piece of ply to shape for the top,


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I had already bought some after market fittings that included locker tops, vents etc,


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So I used the smaller size top for the lockers on each side,

best regards John.


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