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HB 1/48 LCM-3 in D-Day Markings - Finished


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@Dotcom, thanks!

 

I've got the mounts painted. Counting down the remaining scratch building: bulkhead-mounted instruments and wiring in the conning station, bilge pump, lifting eyes and sling. Not sure what I'll I'll do about those vents. The HB parts are smooth, but the actual vents are developable surfaces.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, the RV trip ended early. :crying:

 

Worked on the bilge pump. Basically, a tube, a cylindrical frustum, and the pump handle. Here's a screen shot of the frustum pattern that I made in Inkscape and cut onto 5 mil aluminum sheet salvaged from the vacuum seal of a Costco coffee can. I rolled the pattern around a pencil point to form the frustum.

lcm-frustum.png

The tube is 0.125 evergreen tubing with a 5 mil inset cut into one end so the frustum base outer diameter was flush with the tubing outer diameter. The other end of the tube was drilled out so the tubing material was thinner. The handle is 0.045 Evergreen rod with a 0.019 brass rod shaft.

 

And here's the completed bilge pump

lcm-bilgepump1.jpg

Edited by dnl42
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The water barrel is done. Here's the prototype from an LCVP training film on youtube.

lcm-barrel3.jpg

 

I made up the barrel from 1/4, 3/16, and 1/8 Evergreen tubing and 1/16 Evergreen rod.  The bands are 5 mil Al cut into 0.03 wide strips. The handle is .018 wire with Albion tubing. The legs are 1/32 Evergreen strip. 

lcm-barrel1.jpg

The 1/4 and 3/16 tubing was cut to length and then chucked on my Dremel tool using a suitably tight machine screw. The Dremel was run at the slowest speed to prevent the plastic from melting so that I could shape the barrel using 0 cut, 2, cut, 4 cut and 6 cut equaling files. The max diameter is 1/4 while the ends are just over 3/16. Once shaped and smoothed, I cut the 1/8 tubing and 1/16 rod a wee bit shorter than the body, formed a rod, and then glued it in to form the barrel ends.  The leg tops were shaped with a crossing file.

 

I painted the barrel with Mr Color C45, Sail Color, formed the bands around the barrel, added the legs, and finally attached the handles.

lcm-barrel2.jpg

 

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Thanks @Hajo L.!

 

To be honest, I left this to the end because I thought it would be very hard. Well, I suppose all that fretting did some good, as once I figured out how to do make it, the job was relatively simple.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got Mr Color SC-14, Navy Blue 5-N. and SC11. Haze Gray 5-H, from Sprue Bros. My original plan was to use Colourcoats, but the US distributor was out of 5-N, with no mention of any restocking.

lcm-paint.jpg

 

I primed everything using thinned Mr Surfacer 1200 last weekend. This weekend the plan is to get to the filling and filing identified in the priming session and then get some color on the hull.

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She's Navy Blue! I just placed the conning station and Mk 21-1 mounts on the hull for visualization. I meant to add the lifting eyes before I painted the hull, but, oh well. I'll add them and touch them up... 

lcm-5-n.jpg

 

 

I finished the conning station. I added the magnetic and gyro compass bits out of Evergreen plastic; the cables are lead wire. I also repainted the wheel with Humbrol #54, which is a brass color v. the copper color of Game Color's "Brassy Brass".

lcm-conning4.jpg

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The conning station is truly done, now!

 

Staring at pictures of the mast, I eventually figured out it had 4 legs and a light. One picture showed the shape at the top. I made my version from a couple of short lengths of Evergreen tube and a rod so it was solid at the top and hollow on the bottom. I then chucked it in a drill and used sanding blocks and files to shape it. The light lens is a bit of clear sprue from another kit. Another photo showed a wire wrapped around the forward-port leg running top to bottom; I used 0.2mm lead wire for that.  I decided to go with an orange life preserver ring as it's clearly not the hull color in the image, and looks similar to the lower hull, which I assume is red (it's neither hull color or black). I cleaned up the kit's version of the ring by removing the molded-on hand hold ropes and then painted the ring and some paper strip with Humbrol #18. I used some tan rigging thread in my stash. To eliminate the thread's stray hairs, I rubbed the thread across beeswax and then used a heat gun to singe off the hairs and melt the beeswax into the thread. Some CA attached the paper bands and thread to the life ring. I made the life preserver rack with strips from PE fret and 5 mil Al sheet.

lcm-conning5.jpg

 

A training film showed the fire extinguisher was shiny, so I went with Alclad White Aluminum  Some color photos had a brass valve atop, so I went with Humbrol #54.

lcm-conning6.jpg

 

I also added dial faces for the gyro repeater and magnetic compass.

lcm-conning7.jpg

 

 

Edited by dnl42
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Fantastic!

 

With all the research and the skillful scratchbuilding that you've put into this, it is a world-class model of an LCM-3.

I've seen some amazing naval models at shows and maybe some builders like that have also built LCM-3's, but there can't be many. 

 

Cheers, Stefan.

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Just as I was about to put on decals and the clear coat, I realized I forgot the bow fairleads. I fashioned each of the upright parts out of strip stock by drilling a hole in in the strip a little below centerline, cutting at the right or left edge of the hole on one side and further away on the other. After gluing each upright to the bottom strip, some shaping with needle files finished the parts off.

lcm-fairlead.jpg

 

With that, it was time for decals, flat coat, rigging the ramp cables, and then final assembly. I went with a red hull based on the prototype image. It's clearly not black or hull color, so I went with red.

lcm-done03.jpg

 

The port bow, with ramp lock release cable above, ramp cable below, equalizing sheave and track, and the excellent hand-woven fender from Thachweave Products.

lcm-done05.jpg

 

One of the boat hooks, Mark 21-1 mounts, conning station, water barrel, life preserver ring, and vents.

lcm-done04.jpg

 

Bilge pump and a better view of the ramp cable run athwartship. The other boat hook is forward of the bilge pump, just barely in this view.

lcm-done08.jpg

 

And again the conning station.

lcm-done11.jpg

 

Just in time for the D-Day 75th Anniversary theme at IPMSOC tomorrow night.

 

 

Edited by dnl42
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  • 3 weeks later...

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