A nice surprise!!

As Bill and I returned from lunch today, we found this package waiting for us on our doorstep.





It is the Masterpiece Models 1/35 scale "Tango" boat a modified WWII LCM designed and used in Vietnam during the 1960's and 1970's. John Geigle, the owner of Masterpiece Models, is a long time friend of Bill Chilstrom and myself from our days of living in Portland, Oregon.

John has commissioned us to sculpt a series of figures for his whole line of Vietnam 1/35 scale "Brown Water Navy" craft.





Here's the kit sitting on my desk with a few of the major components test fitted.




As you can see, the kit is a fairly large model when finished.


Here are a couple of photos of the assembled and unpainted models that John sent us from his masterpiece models.com website.






All and all a pretty cool kit, that will build up into a killer representation of the real thing. The kit comes with a very nicely illustrated instruction sheet and the guy who made the masters has set up a great step by step assembly blog on his website located here: http://brownwater.net/Tutorials/Tango.asp

There is also a blog on Track-Link by Jim Wechsler on the Tango which I sent to him. I rather that Jim started the blog than my wasting precious time on a review

http://www.track-link.net/forum/site_blogs/10689

I am buying Jim the Huey with the Big Ed set so it is complete. Jim's neighbor flew in one of the Huey's depicted in the Academy special markings release. It will be a great presentation to honor his service.

Please let me know when the figures get released.

Regards,
Saúl García

I heard that Jim was going to build one, I'll have to keep an eye on his project.

Thanks for the link.

Dman

Wow David , that looks really nice ! Are you going to do a Huey with your one ? I hope Bill does a decent Huey crew with a couple of door gunners ! I will get them for sure if he does .

Will you do a build & review of it for us all ?

Hey David , where is your picture of me ?

Looks like you need a bigger desk

Maybe Bill will do a step by step of how he sculpts figures in our new Master Class when it is up and Running ?

Jenny

Dave,
Excellent looking kit and would look good in a diorama.

Don't get sidetracked and forget the Mk 4 Droid
I'm really looking forward to seeing this.

cheers
Kev

This kit could be the trigger for us to build our long planned Nam diorama with lot of jungle and muddy water.

Coool model my friend.

Wow Dave that looks amazing, I got to get my hands on one of these! I always thought about trying to convert the Italeri LCM, but now ive seen this......cant wait to see what figures Bill comes up with as well.

I see some work on the Merk droid in the background, hows that coming along..?

Jenny Croft wrote:Wow David , that looks really nice ! Are you going to do a Huey with your one ? I hope Bill does a decent Huey crew with a couple of door gunners ! I will get them for sure if he does .

Will you do a build & review of it for us all ?

Hey David , where is your picture of me ?

Looks like you need a bigger desk

Maybe Bill will do a step by step of how he sculpts figures in our new Master Class when it is up and Running ?

Jenny

Hi J-gal,

Your question about the photo of you confused me at first, but now I understand.

I actually have three modeling work benches in my home. it's a big house with lots of room!!

My Jenny and Friends display is actually at my computer graphics station (where I seem to be spending most of my time).

As you can see, I temporarily removed that string bikini shot of you that Richie was so kind to send me.

afv_rob wrote:Wow Dave that looks amazing, I got to get my hands on one of these! I always thought about trying to convert the Italeri LCM, but now ive seen this......cant wait to see what figures Bill comes up with as well.

I see some work on the Merk droid in the background, hows that coming along..?

All of the design work is finished, I was able to come up with some close-up photos and measurements to finalize the design from. Apparently there are at least three different set-ups for this system. Different boxes, cabling and such and at least two different mounting arms.

I am working on a Merkava Mk. IV article for Ampersand Publishing right now (MMIR) and we are considering offering a limited number of 100 castings of this droid exclusively to MMIR subscribers, a kind of reward to subscribers of the mag. I have been contracted to do a whole series of articles for MMIR in the next 24 months and we may offer a whole series of exclusive limited release (100 to 200 of each) products like this through the magazine from time to time.

It's a great way to build up loyal following of like minded modelers and get some of these products into the modelers hands without having to spend all of our time cranking out the same old products again and again, with no time to develop new ones.

Well it is nice to see you have the picture of me & my sisters there ! Good to see you are on the right website too ! Now Dave who is the brunette girlie you seem very friendly with ? I have the same photo of Cagney & Star , they are soooo cute .

Jenny

I dig that brown water Navy stuff. Looks cool.

D-Man
Neat looking water target! how's the kit?
Panzer

Panzer wrote:D-Man
Neat looking water target! how's the kit?
Panzer

I was quite impressed to be honest. The kit is very well engineered and well thought out and includes a small fret of photo-etch parts. It will build-up nice right out of the box, or if one wished you could really go to town and super detail the heck out of it. The instructions are very well illustrated and if you pick up a copy of the pattern makers book on the subject, all the better.




This book (which the author was kind enough to send me for the build), is an amazing piece of reference for Vietnam monitors. Lots of color photos and valuable illustrations of the subject craft. John at Masterpiece was kind enough to send me freebie samples of all of the Brown Water Navy craft that he has released so far and I will be building them all. We have been commissioned to sculpt a whole series of crew figures for these kits and look forward to the projects.

Here is their latest release:

Dave,
Is there any scratch building to be done on this boat? The white grating on the sides, are those one piece parts or do you have to put them together?
Mike

Dave
What is the MSRP on this bad mutha?
And where can one find it as well?
Panzer