DUKW, Korea circa early 1951

Well i'm back on my main obsession, this being the Korean "Police Action", probably half my models throughout time have been associated with this era in some way or another.

One I've been wanting to do for some time.
A DUKW in 1/35th, circa '51 when they used them for cargo transportation ship to shore so loads of scratch building of boxes, containers etc

This will be a certain example, DUKW No. 19 named "Sue" by PFC Dispenziere,

The kit


Sprues...... its a fair old size as these were 30 odd foot long.

Looks interesting - don't see many of these built.

Interesting. First time I have seen that kit.

Nice subject Colin.

Thanks guys, going to try and do it justice as it's a really nice kit.

every time i have a spare few minutes i make up a few boxes or some rolled canvass, going to need a fair few more to fill the cargo area on this.

The stowage is looking good Colin. Nice work.

Got the cab sorted today, not following the destructions exactly, i'm needing to change things around a bit anyway ...






Wheels done


Not bad detail really.


Will be weathering and adding wear and tear nearer the end so as to be evenly applied

It's looking good Colin, particularly the dash.

Question: Is the drivers seat meant to be skew whif?

Yup Al, the steering wheel is offset to the left also, the seat position lines you up nicely.
I've seen this in the flesh, a friend had a dukw sitting in a field in Wymeswold

Thanks for the comments.

Nice work Colin, I've got a smaller Airfix one that I want to build soon. What is the story behind the dukw at Wymeswold?

coyote wrote:What is the story behind the dukw at Wymeswold?

Im not 100‰ sure, it was about 25 years ago, I'd take my mum and dad strawberry picking and it was sitting in a field next to the fence surrounding some old pig hangers. Obviously I climbed I and had a look around. A few visits later and I saw my friend messing around in the hangers, he was clearing them out to make them into pistol ranges as he owned the local gunshop. He said he'd got it for a decent price from a sale in Nottingham and was going to get it up and running (he was a damn good agricultural mechanic as well)
It stayed there for a year or so and then we stopped going to the fields, don't know what happened to it after that.

Ok, ive had a skulk around the tinterweb and found more info on the DUKW that my friend had.

Apparently up until 2009 there were approx 11 DUKW in a field next to a farm, a few fields down from what used to be the bomb dump for RAF Wymeswold. The farmer, at one stage, had about 30 of them.
in 2009 he placed a price on them of £600 (scrap value) and gave a time limit for people to buy and remove them before he got the welder in to cut them up and scrap them. they were in a sorry state at this time as you'd guess.
Many years earlier he sold a few through an auction in Nottinghamshire and this is where, i presume, my friend got a reasonably good condition example that could be got running.

Here's a couple of shots i found (credit goes to the photographer whose name i can't find)




And a Google Earth shot from that period





Back to my example .....

Made the wooden flooring for the cargo bay, just needs weathering and dustying up a tad.

Your added "luggage" is better than I could do. Lots on the "ducks" on the web, Y.T. They're still used on some tours in the Tourist area of the Wisconsin Dells. Thanx.

Nice!

Colin: Neat. This is an unusual vehicle to model. Looking forward to seeing how it comes out. SWMBO and I took a tour of Boston in one of these a few years ago. It was kind of, shall we say, interesting when the driver took us into the Charles River.

They still use them at the coast for fun trips here, there's a couple that go up and down the river Thames in London too if i recall correctly.

Had to make a canvas cover to replicate DUKW 19, using some tight weave camo from a pair of trousers, the back side is plain green so works perfectly.
Soaked the canvas in dilute PVA (elmers) and then draped it over the necessary area. clipped one edge around a wire rod i've used to simulate the rear "tent pole"
Have pressed the fabric along the edges of the windscreen top that the canvas will attach to so as to get a shape inlaid to cut to when it's dry.
The PVA when dry will hold the shape it.s in now and also stop the ends from fraying when its cut to shape.

This procedure is perfect for making tents and canvas roofing for prefabs, just soak, lay it over the frame, mould to shape, let it dry and cut off the excess.

The suspension assembly has a nice amount of detail in it.




Fitted and painted. Am going to highlight, drybrush and weather it in situ




Added some equipment, hook, hand pump, lights etc.
also cut the canvass cover down to size and glued into place, needs some fixing plates and rope tethers adding yet.




The rear winch was lacking in detail so i chopped off the hook and added some twisted wire to form a cable and wound it around the winch, tethered it with some shirring elastic which is perfect for 1/35 rope.

Made the plate and clips for holding the front of the additional canvass cover.
Just flattened solder wire and some cross sections of thinner solder for the "rivets"



Replaced the rope that attached the sand bags together as it was slightly mis-moulded and when cleaned up lost all the detail, have replaced it with some thin wire, twisted to shape (from the inside of an old computer cable), this will be a bit more flexible to position on the vehicle and hopefully look more natural when painted up.

Well I got it all basically together and painted.
Now the detailing and weathering is underway
I'm going for the "just come up a river, onto dry land and have dried out" look







Started adding the cargo....

thats really coming together

It's looking brilliant Colin. The stowage is terrific.

May I suggest a few dowwnward water marks:



How about a conversion to this post war experimental version?? LOL

Looking good Colin. I think your stowage is absolutely outstanding.