Can't say if there's anything you should watch out for, but I'll definitely be watching this build Karl. Good start so far.

I built the M107 kit (175mm gun on the same chasis) about 25 years ago or so, but I can not remember any pitfalls to watch for. But replacing the tracks is very very wise Karl. How much do those tracks run?

Built that for a friend 'bout 10 years ago.

   I'll be watching.

Great start my friend!

Regards!
Rodolfo

Well, Karl, I'm not going to let this one pass this time :-)) I plan to build an A-nothing and a cherry picker (M578) out of this kit and I also have the Eduard PE and PerfectScale tracks, so I'm watching you closely! Good luck with this build and have fun!

Paweł

Ohhhh.....artillery for big boys!! Nice work so far. Resin tracks....you have guts....the kit tracks are junk. What is your thought for the finish?

Well...."aiming point identified" .... I will be watching

Rounds Complete!!

Cool beans, Josiah! Thanks for riding along! You too, Steve and Rodolfo!

Pawel--that sounds like an ambitious project! But what is an "A-nothing"?!

Carlos--the tracks run about $21-22.00, depending on the strength of the Euro on any given day. They're actually really nice, and not too hard to manage! You can get them HERE

Mike, I'm going to do the MEDRC "Winter" scheme, as it's on the vehicle in the museum. Let me know if there are any cool wiring diagrams or things I can use on it! I tried looking for your WIP here, but it's gone, apparently? I couldn't find it.

Howdy, Karl!

A-nothing - that's how folks describe the straight M110, before it got modified to A1, A2 and stuff - with short barrel and no muzzle brake, like it fought in Vietnam. Have a nice day!

Paweł

 Karl, I sympathize with you for the scraping, sanding, cutting and grinding with that Eduard PE. I've been working on the little Tamiya Willys MB for about a month now, trying to give it the full PE treatment. It's nuts the stuff that needs to be modified for such a small model. I'm sure that you will give it the usual doog meticulous treatment. Enjoy!

That's awesome Karl, esp with the Eduard detail set. Looking forward to following this!

Not sure where you'll get a 1/35th squirrel though!

(For those who haven't visited the Danville museum they placed a stuffed squirrel on top of the muzzle brake as a rather strange gag - you can see it in Karl's photo at the top) 

Coming along nicely.  It looks like you have almost all the goodies for it.  There is also a very nice metal barrel from Barrel Depot you might want to add.  It would really finish it off.

Cool project Karl! Nothing like a big gun to get you up in the morning!

Pawel,

I didn't know that! But I've got one of those too--the one that's named "Blood, Sweat, and Tears". I'm sure you'll do an incredible job bring that old dog back up to standard, as you did with your Duster!

Carlos, yes, "PE hell" is an accurate way to describe it. I like to think of it as "two chances to royally screw things up", lol. Once, by scraping the details off, the second time putting the PE together and attaching it correctly. It kills me how they don't really show you the proper placement or positioning of half these parts!

Gamera--I didn't even see the stiffed squirrel, lol! Thanks for pointing that out!!

Gino, thanks for looking in and for the tip on the barrel. I've started forming and dressing the plastic kit pieces already--I tend to not go for the metal barrels if I can get away with carefully dressing the plastic. It'll take a few days of patient sanding and appraising, but at least I know there's a substitute if I screw it up! Thanks again, and please follow along and call anything out that you see!

Bill, I hear ya--as long as it's not being fired outside my window, lol!

Update soon, guys! Thanks again for looking in!!!

I think I've got enough tools...

No you don't... none of us do

Lookin' pretty darn sweet as usual doog.

Hey guys,

Lest you all think I gave up on this pig, I thought I should post an update!

Been busy with some recording and practicing, but I've managed to wrestle around the photo-etch enough to make some progress. It's fought me all the way, lol. I've done some judicious detailing as well.

First thing I'd show is the weld seams which have to be added to the hull here--

I did 'em using the Squadron putty and masking tape trick.

Next, because the seat broke off on me three times, I decided to add brass "legs" to it. I drilled into the hull and sanded down the "tubing" around the seat and mated the brass rods with a drilled-out piece of plastic rod. I built up the area where it entered the hull with plastic, and built new brackets to attach the seat.

The front got PE straps and buckles and a chain from the Eduard set. Note too, the tool box lid assembly on the rear. THAT was a minor project in itself to get it to fit after cutting the previous molded on blob out.

There was quite a bit of soldering to do---I used some of Adam Wilder's fabulous new soldering flux liquid to help out.Man, does this stuff do the job and make it easy! I'm also using non-electrical solder.

Just paint some on....

...and add solder. The solder just flows where it's meant to go!

VOILA! I can't recommend it highly enough!

I was really rather irritated by the spade assembly as far as the PE went. Eduard has some fanciful arrangement of pieces that bear little resemblance to the real thing. I assembled half of it, soldering some small pieces, and then really studied the reference photos and said "Huh?!" Sigh......so I de-glued it, and re-worked it in plastic. I made the two little cradles out of 20 tiny pieces of plastic each and then made two little blocks on each side of the final PE "stop". I added a "chain" made from 20 small pieces of rod cut to exact length and then stuck to masking tape ala' indy tracks method, and glued them, waited for them to set, and then curved them as I saw on reference pics.  I also added two better-looking round adjusting wheels from the spares box, and then made some spare tracks mounts out of styrene. Hopefully you can see the details here:

Another annoying thing--the PE cradles don't actually reach the proper length that they should be--they should extend OUT beyond the blade on top, but there's no way to really extend them. Poop.

And a question for you redlegs out there---what is this rectangular PE thing on the hull? I see it on some, but not all, M110 hulls. I haven't glued it down yet, as I haven't decided if I'm going to use it or not. Any help would be appreciated!

That's it for now, guys! See anything I've really overlooked? Call it out!!

Good project Karl . I am a bit surprised to see you building this one though . I assembled 3 of these many moons ago . Never painted them . There's about 15 yrs worth of dust on them now . I used Verlinden's resin conversion to build the M110 A1 and A2 versions .Like Mike said the kit tracks are junk but going with those resin tracks was an option I didn't use back when I built mine so I used the kit tracks .

Thanks, Carl---yeah, this is a stinker of a kit when you compare it to today's standards. I had that conversion kit at one point--I think I sold it in a lot years ago on ebay.  I wouldn't even think of using the kit tracks---Italeri had the worst tracks in the industry until Trumpeter came along, lol. Might STILL be, although you CAN get them to stick together using super glue, unlike Trumpeter's weird material!

Thanks for looking in, bud!

Very good!

So much details!.

So is a soldering unit now part of scalemodeling tools?

Wow!

I remember some years ago.. (like 30 years  ) where all we had was glue and paint...probably a knife...

What will be in the next 30 years??, for sure 3D printing and laser stamping and oven baked paints...

THanks, garzohn--soldering was a thing that I tried to put off using for a long time, just because it's such a tedious process sometimes. But on certain PE pieces, it really works so much better than glue. And that new Liquid Flux has made it so much easier.

There's an article in the new FSM magazine about 3D print-out model manufacturing. It's fascinating.

Love your attention to detail Karl! Looking great!

the doog

There's an article in the new FSM magazine about 3D print-out model manufacturing. It's fascinating.

Scary...

Nice to see some progress on the beast Karl! Looks like you're getting the work out in the detail department.

Thanks, Eric...slow but steady on this one! Man, the age sure shows! hanks for looking in and leaving a comment!

Thanks, Bill. More like the "frustration department", lol. It's a good exercise to do one of these oldies and remind yourself of how spoiled we are nowadays with these newfangled, fancy kits we can buy today. Molded zimmerit, "Magic" tracks, included PE--- thinking back to when this kit came out, man, did we EVER envision how much we would take for granted as being a "good kit"? It's good to remind yourself once in a while by resurrecting one of these old kits!

garzonh

the doog

There's an article in the new FSM magazine about 3D print-out model manufacturing. It's fascinating.

Yes, I read it.

I think this will become a HUGE issue in some years. When 3D printing becomes household available and feasible, and trust it me it will.... what will prevent anyone from printing "pirated" objects.

Just imagine I buy a model, 3D scanning and then just uploading the file to the web, where anyone will be able to print the model, without paying a dime... and the same applies, for tools, spare parts, etc.

We have seen this happening since Beta recorders were sold, VHS, cassetes, DVD, BluRay,etc... anything is pirated...

Scary...

25 years ago, this kit was 'state of the art'. Seriously though it is not a bad kit, and Karl, you are making it even better here. AM of course helps, but in the end, it is the modeler who makes it work and shine.

i have "built" models in 3D, JGPZ-IV, PZ-II, GALLOPING GOOSE, EINDEKKER, for example and you just don't buy a kit and scan it in and reproduce it. right now folks will take a jeep wheel from a kit, use it as a form to make a mould and cast extra ones for their own use, which i believe is legit if they bought the kit. i used the tamiya PZ-II to build my 3D model and it took quite a while. i do not think 3D kit pirating will be that big a deal for quite a while. when time, learning curve, hardware, software, and materials come into play it is just cheaper and easier to buy the kit. 3D printing for unique items is quite feasable. if you have to scratchbuild a pattern anyway to make a mould, with not much more time (assuming you know 3D graphics etc.....) you can create a very detailed 3D "mould". also once you create the pattern in 1/35, all it takes is scaling to create a 1/32, 1/48/ 1/72 pattern. so if i spen 8 hours building a pattern i can creat 3 more in 30 minutes.

a legal question. if i buy the kit and use a roadwheel from it to take all the measurements i need to build an accurate 3D pattern and than sell the road wheel pattern i created is that piracy? i would argue it is but if i worked from a scale drawing or a photograph it would not be piracy.

Wayne,

I'm no expert on trademark law, et al, but I believe that that would fall under the title of "creating a derivative work". The problem for any legal contestant of your originality would be proving that you copied THEIR wheel, hatch, etc,...unless the part itself had some indisputably individualistic characteristic which identified it beyond a doubt, you could probably get away with it.

These kinds of cases are tough to prosecute and not a big risk for pirates because the claimant would have to spend a LOT of money proportional to the possible reimbursement for monetary damages if the case were decided in their favor. In fact, the whole case wold more likely rest upon "principle" because usually a cottage industry producing a few pirated pieces wouldn't have a profit margin worth going after wen you would get done paying for lawyers fees and everything else. Who's willing to do that, these days?

In the case of artistic works like songs or other "artistic" works like films, etc, it's a little bit different because of the possible long-term profit possible on a "hit" song or movie, due to publishing and performance royalties, residuals, reruns, video or CD sales, etc.. In that case, a person who rips of a song will most likely see themselves sued because the potential for generated income extends way into the future.

Wayne,

For now 3D printing may be too expensive, but some years down the road it wont. They said the same about copying a DVD, the first DVD burners were in the hundred of dollars and the virgin DVD was in the dozens of dollars. Not too long ago, 1997, first DVD players had a price of $1,000 USD!! And the DVD burner just came in 2001, for $600. So it was cheaper to buy a movie.

How much does a Bluray/DVD burner costs?, $60 or less...

So, trust me, as technology evolves...you may be able to get a 3D printer for $100 USD, from which you can make "n" number of models.

What would it cost to produce a model?, basically just the raw material. 1Kg of ABS filament is just merely $48 USD; and prices will come down, probably you will be able to get them for $9.99., which can produce a lot of models...

As for the accuracy, they are already 100 microns (0.1 mm) resolution...and surely will improve.

To resume, in 10 years, you will be able to "replicate" a scale model for $4?, $5 USD. Surely beats any model price out there...

Remember that the price of the model compounds of so many things that you would be not paying,  research, designing, production, packaging materials, shipping, distribution, reseller, etc.

Just google 3D printer, there are already some great devices out there.