Has anyone made a Dukw?

[Lct548]

I know it's not a tank but has anyone done a fully working Dukw in the standard scale?
These are the Amphibious trucks of WW11 made by GMC.

[tomhugill]

Frankie has.

[Lct548]

Frankie's looks good. I was thinking of giving it a go as it's a landing craft and truck in one. Doe anyone have some plans for one?

[AlwynTurner]

Hi Bryan, here you go


I think Mark (stug 85) is planning on doing one using HL truck components for the drive chain, I printed him off a set of blueprints for it. If you load the blueprint into pcpaint and print at about 80% of full size it should give you approx 1/16 scale to fit the WPL axles, although you will need a transfer box to get the motor inside the waterproof shell and above the water level.

Alwyn

[AlwynTurner]

Here's a transfer box from the hl truck thread
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172855501528?ul_noapp=true

Alwyn

[Lct548]

Thats really helpful Thanks

[bikerdude]

How about a 1/10th scale... http://deansmarine.co.uk/shop/product_i ... ts_id/2749

[frankie]

Yep...although mine doesn’t swim as she was built as a static for years and I only used the HL axles to get her moving and I didn’t think I’d ever have the oportunity to run her on water.

[hawkeye3guns]

Hi I designed and built the first prototype for the deans 1/10 scale DUKW, she is still a runner and swims very well and very manoeuvrable on the water but a bit ungainly on the land. They were very capable vehicles and during research for her came across photo's of them going out from the beach in 3-4 meter waves. The old girl at Hunstanton when she a swimmer a few years back actually went out and performed a rescue from a yacht in the wash when the lifeboat could not launch due to high seas. Their stability came from the rear drive axles that dropped down until the wheels almost touched when afloat giving a heavy deep keel as such The rear suspension is mounted to the chassis and the axles are on twin parallel links that when on land allow the axles to rest on the springs but when afloat allow the axles to drop free One of the members from my old boat club use to drive them. It took a 12 week course to learn to drive and maintain them, most important thing was to remember to remove the drain plugs at night and to replace them before going out the next day there was a total of 6 plugs and when not fitted was mounted in a rack opposite the driver so he could visually see them (or not if fitted) To get the most torque for the prop you drove into the water until afloat and then selected prop and reverse gear. To come ashore you used the power of the prop to drive you in until the wheels supported the weight and then disengaged the prop, reselected wheels and then drove out of the water. The early ones had a position to select wheels and props together but this caused numerous accidents and a few DUKW were sunk so the later ones had this position removed.