Thinking of getting a second boat after my Midwest Lobster Boat. I've always like Navy ships and was thinking of a PT 109 type, and I'd like some opinions of the pros of cons of wood verses a plastic model. I've been looking at some Lindberg Pt109s on Ebay, those plastic models have been selling for over $70 plus about $20 postage. That's $90 for a plastic kit. Is that a bad deal as compared to say a Dumas Pt109 or another brand. I know there are some very expensive ones out there, but I just want to jump up to an 2 engine boat without having to morgage the house if you know what I mean. Someday maybe I'll get into the real expensive ones. Stand off scale is good for me too, I don't have to have exact scale to have fun. So I'm looking at the plastic verses wood deal, for say about a 30" boat. Thanks in advance....

Take a look at tne newItaleri 28 " plastic PT kit.
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.co...eri/it5602.htm

Comparing the Lindberg PT-109 to the new Italeri PT boat, I would say that "$70 Lindberg kit is about $65 overpriced. I have both so I can do a direct comparison. The Italeri is hands-down THE BEST plastic kit of a PT boat that has ever been produced. It is selling locally for $112 and, compared to the Lindberg, is worth every cent of the difference in price!

Advantages of plastic kit over wood:

Wood:
Cutting, sawing, sanding, fitting, carving, aligning, clamping parts together, surface preparation before painting, cuttings on the floor, sawdust and sanding dust everywhere, usually far less scale detail (especially when compared to the Italeri kit), more sanding, more surface prep, ......................................

Plastic:
None of the above.

Steve, little more info. I'm assuming the Italian boat has more details, or does it go together better, or whats the difference in the water, any? Whats the big problem with the Lindberg kit as you say its worth about $5?

LOL....


The Lindberg kit is known to be far from accurate. The new Italeri kit is spot on.

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.co...eri/it5602.htm

It is very non-scale in almost everything on it. The Lindberg kit is rather crude compared to the precision of the Italeri. The sweep of the deck is all wrong, the shape of the forward hull is way, way off, details on the Lindberg are very crude (example: molded on handrails, molded on navigation lights, and on-and-on).

Did you follow the link provided in Post #2? Check out the quality of all the parts for the Italeri. The Lindberg moldings are just crude by comparison and probably has maybe 1/5th of the parts count you will find in the Italeri.

As far as plastic kits (of any kind) go, Lindberg has always been at the bottom of the heap, quality and fidelity to scale wise. When I bought my Lindberg PT-109, I bought it because there was nothing else like it available at that time. If it was still the only one available, then it will serve the purpose. If, on the other hand, you want one to be really proud of, the Lindberg one doesn't fill the bill.

Do you remember the days of black and white, vacuum tube televisions? Compare that to the 52" flat screen high definition televisions available today. That is what the difference is like between the Lindberg and the Italeri kits. Anyone who has ever built a Lindberg kit (no matter what it is) and has subsequently built a really nice kit of the same thing, knows exactly what I am talking about.

Just bought a Italeri PT boat on ebay, $99.99 + $9.75 shipping.

Gonna do a build thread?

Can someone in this "thread" shed some more light on the powering and RCing of the Italia PT Boat. What are the powering possiblities?

Thanks,

AZCAPTAIN

Several of the Lindberg PT's in the WSBA(Milwaukee Club) are powered with Graupner 400 geared drives and run very well.
I am building the Italeri with the Astro Planetary 02 geared brushless motor(about 200 watts power) and using Lithium battery due to smaller size of hull than Lindberg. I will post pictures as I do it. Right now I am just mounting stuffing box.
This brushless is equivalent to 400 motor only lighter in weight.

azcaptain,

I go into a lot of detail on how I will be powering my Italeri PT in post #7 of this thread:

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_5454426/tm.htm

Maybe later, have to remodel the kitchen and spring cleaning first.

The Italeri kit is definitely the way to go. e-hobbyland $99.00 + frt. The Lindberg kit is out of production but as you stated they do show up on E-Bay for about $60 - $70. I just sold two of the Lindbergh kits on E-Bay last month. It definitely is not as detailed or as accurate as the Italeri kit but it has the running gear you need for the RC conversion. Lindberg also produced an RC conversion power drive kit that goes for about $120.00(very hard to find) that has the motor controller two electric motors with mounting brackets and instructions for installing the radio equipment. Once done these boats are very fast and a blast to operate. I’ve built three. The attached photos are of the first one I built 20 years ago. I still run it when there’s no ice on the lakes here in Wisconsin. I am currently building the new Italeri kit and will be installing the Lindbergh drive system in it. Should be done by early to mid May.

BJL

Keep us updated..about a build thread?

For you rivet counters out there, I recently saw the makings of a brass photo etch set for Italeri's Elco kit that will be considerably larger than what is included. I don't know when it may arrive to market, but do know that based on other PE sets from this supplier, it will be first rate.

Chuck

Someone also needs to do 1/35th scale figures for the Italeri PT. Has anyone seen any?

A friend of mine has used 1/35 Tamiya German military figures for several of his boats - period sailing vessels - but has to to do a lot of work to make them look the part. I have been trying to locate figures for my TJ S-100 build & will probably have to kit bash several together.

Here's a European site that caters heavily to 1/32-1/35 military figures that a fellow modeler on another site passed along:

http://www.moduni.de/index.php/cPath...sort/2a/page/1

Wedico makes several different scale marine figures. You may want to check Westbourne Marine to see what is available:

http://www.westbourne-model.co.uk/Mo...at-figures.htm

Considering the possibilities to display this model, you would have thought figures would have been included in the kit.

Chuck

BINGO! Found one USN 1/35 scale set. It ain't perfect but at least can assist in your kit bashing needs:

http://www.moduni.de/product_info.ph...cts_id/6360408

A better source & much closer to home is Great Models. They carry a 12 figure assortment for the S-100:

http://www.greatmodels.com

Chuck

dont be lazy build your own from scratch!!!plans available if you wish!!