Revell PT Boat Kits in Plastic, A Review Book Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

This is Revell PT Boat Kits in Plastic, A Review which the author produced in 2012 and released a second edition (this one) in 2014. This title looks primarily at the venerable Revell PT boats and with the help of a number of talented builders, illustrates what can be done to render other versions of the Elco 80' Patrol Torpedo boat. Revell first released their 1/72 PT 109 kit in the early 1960s (which is periodically reissued) that represents the early Elco boats armed with the torpedo tubes and followed up with reissues as PT 167 and PT 117. This title covers these releases as well as another classic, the 'box scale' (1/96) PT 212 from the 1950s.

This title illustrates how the modeler can accurize the PT 109 or even convert the basic kit into virtually any Elco PT boat with the help of some good reference photos and a little scratch-building skills. This title examines a number of builds/conversions to render PT 174, PT 503, PT 556, PT 117, PT 330, and more. Each build looks at the conversions and materials used to render each boat and provides a wealth of period photos of the Elco boats in service.

One of the modelers not only shows what you can do with the old PT 212 kit, he also provides notes on his conversion of another kit to render PT 461.

The title is well-illustrated with period black and white photos of the Elco boats in action as well as color photos of the nice models produced from these Revell kits. The title wraps up its coverage with a look at the camouflage colors and patterns employed on some of these boats.

If you've been wanting to build a PT boat but do not have the room for one of the Italeri 1/35 boats, this title will show you how you can achieve some nice results from the inexpensive Revell kits.

My sincere thanks to T. Garth Connelly for this review sample!