Lindberg MOTORIZED Air Force Rescue Boat Part II: The Build By Thomas Solinski

And now for the build of the boat that fought me from beginning to end! Wow, I thought this was going to be a nice easy flashback to my childhood that I’d really enjoy. Due to the age of this kit, there were several times that I just had to walk away to keep from slamming it up against the wall!

Before we get into the build I have a couple of follow up notes to the history of this 95-foot rescue boat, courtesy of some good folks out there in the Ethernet.

A little more on accuracy: if you’ll look closely at the one B&W photo I linked above from the in-box article, you’ll note that the ammo locker covers do not overhang the ammo lockers as much as they do in this kit, so those lids found in the kit can either be trimmed down or replaced with scratch built units. Two of the folks that contacted me online pointed out the USAF didn’t use the 20MM guns depicted on the kit at this point, and that the actual armament under the canvas covers you see is the “quad 5”0 AA gun mount as found on the M-16 anti-aircraft halftrack. The good news if you’re up to building a more accurate model, Revell of Germany is just about to re-release the old Matchbox 1/76 scale model of this light piece of armor.

So you can come closer to accurately arming your rescue boat for a reasonably small investment.

And as always, the controversy over a B&W picture; what were the final colors used on this boat? Mr. Chip Marshall said a discussion with rescue boat crewmen said they called the white/yellow/ red scheme I’ve settled on for this build the “clown colors”. Mr Charlie Troutman said from a discussion with another USAF Rescue crewman, who saw the Detroit built boat, stated he vaguely remembered the boat being white with a Navy like gray deck and light blue wheelhouse. My only confusion with this scheme is that in the B&W photo, the orange life rings on the side of the wheelhouse have the same gray tone as the rest of the wheelhouse, which infers they are the same color and shade. But who is to say that the boat in this photo isn’t the other boat, the one built in California, in the clown colors?

I started out by deciding to do a lot of pre-painting of all those large areas before I assembled anything. If I planned it right I thought I could actually get this thing together without masking a single one of the 25 windows, err umm portholes. I also chose to do this favoring the toy end of the kit, so it gets the motor and associated wiring. So, to do the large painted areas the hull was assembled. The partially completed hull and all the other items that were going to be white or yellow had any flash removed and the parts were cleaned up. Working from the stem to bow, Tenax XR7 did a fine job of joining these parts. Another surprise was how thin the plastic actually is. I had a picture showing the light from my work light shining through the plastic, but new camera plus new software equals wrongly deleted photos. First headache; I’ve done hundreds of models in my life, and I have virtually NEVER washed one as preparation for paint. To get all the large areas of white on this kit knocked out quickly, I took the hull and the parts I wanted white out the garage to hit them with some “quality” Krylon rattle can white I’d purchased at the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts store. One nice light fog coat for adherence then back for a cover coat. I got pooling!

Areas of plastic that looked like they had so much release agent that the paint would not adhere. Man that was frustrating. So before I repeated the mistake with the yellow paint I washed the decks and other components off. Let them dry for a day then tried to hit them with Krylon’s new acrylic spray. The paint puddled up and rolled off the decks, just like water-based paint on an oily surface! ARRRARRGGGHHHH!!! Back to the trusted Iwata brush and Testor’s Model Master enamel, but before the yellow decking was applied the tops to the ammo storage lockers were glued on.

While that paint was drying I started assembly with the stand, just to give myself something to set the work down on. The dies are old and I was a bit surprised to see not flash but just indistinct edges. Almost every edge to every part needed either a good scrap with the back edge of the #11 blade or a hit with a sanding stick. After the stand I assembled the wheelhouse. This is where the age of the kit really shows up, every seam and joint was very rough or deep and took a lot of scraping and sanding to attempt to make it disappear.

The battery tray was assembled. I used black flexible CA to hold the brass parts firmly attached to the plastic parts. I wonder what was in the styrene cement of the 60’s that allowed my dad to keep that one flat metal part attached to the switch arm. I attempted to install the motor and drive system, but quickly discovered that over the years the tolerances on some of the parts has changed. The propeller was an ideal light drive fit on to the drive shaft. But the two parts to the flexible coupling between the motor and the shaft just fell off both the drive shaft and the motor shaft. Either the molds have worn or the shafts have gotten much smaller. My fix was to wrap each shaft with clear tape till I got a snug fit, then secure the parts to the shafts with CA. I apparently did not get ideal alignment, because I did get hard starting on one battery and lots of vibration and noise.

Back to plastic building, the rudder was installed, which is an odd way to do things. There is a “button” that is inserted in the hole through the hull then the rudder is gently forced up through a hole in this button. The rudder shaft is molded with a slightly larger diameter at the top that keeps the rudder in place. After the rudder was installed I moved on to the transom wet well and its opening gate, Then the hull was finished by gluing in all of the clear portholes/windows, well actually 17 of the 19 clear rectangular window pieces needed to complete the kit, one of mine was missing so I left a pair out for “cooling” in the aft-most position on the sides of the wheelhouse.

Making one last check that the motor and battery connections were good for life, the gun pedestals were attached to the decks then aft and fore decks were attached and allowed a night to fully dry. This last check did reveal that the small hole next to the wheelhouse that allows the switch to work had been covered over, so a new hole was drilled.

Guns and other secondary items were assembled then the foredeck, wheelhouse and after deck were attached. Decals were applied using Solvaset. For their age they went down quite well.

The remaining stanchions and masts were glued on and the railing, made out of invisible thread was added.

All in all about 12 hours were spent on this kit. With Lindberg producing again this is an ideal starter for a young one to start building on then playing with.

This review courtesy my wallet.