M-48A5 (pics)

Very nice. Great looking detail on something so small.

WOW Allan,

Excellent work! Hard to believe that it's a 1/72 scale.

Nice drybrushing of the edges and outstanding work on weathering the tracks....

Very nice, Allan!

Nice job Allan!

Ron

AAARRRGGGHHH, I get X's. MY computer

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."-R.E.Lee

I get the Red X's also.
mark956

I don't even get the X's. I see nothing at all, not even a space for the pics.

Sorry. I'd really like to see them.

Bill

Superb work, M60Ds look very good. M48A5 was the first tank I tanked on, although I had cut my teeth on CEVs and AVLBs.

Slicing those road wheels is a major PITA. I've done it for several Esci M48/M60/M1kits and is definitely no fun.

Did early M48A5s have the side loading air cleaners or were top loading standard for the series?

I saw an article on how someone made the center guides by cutting a "U" shaped piece of channel styrene from Evergreen or Plasistruct(sp?). Looked like a whole lot of work, I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

WOw great job on it allan. very good for 72nd

Now I can see it.

Very good job allan. On such a small scale, you did a wonderful job in the details.

Thanks for sharing.

Great job!!!

Nicely done!!

1/72 .... superb work on this one Alan. Very nice indeed, very clean build.

Thanks for sharing.

WOW Allen!! [:0] 1/72 you say??? WOW again!! Great job on something that small!

Eric

Very nice. Beautiful model, superb work!

That looks so good, I picked up the 1/72 M48A5 today for 400 yen ($3.60 USD) at a local hobby shop that specializes in old kits. The funny thing is, I had never seen this kit until Allan's post! Then it shows up the next day at my favorite hobby shop. Lucky!

How did you guys go about "grooving" the solid wheels? Or did you just cut 'em in half, and put 'em back together somehow? The way they're made doesn't look like that'd work well, though.

And then there's the lack of center guides for the trax...hmmm. No way around that being a tedious job, no matter how you'd do it! Rob's u-channel idea sounds like it might work.
Kinda funny how Esci's otherwise well-detailed kit would be so lacking in those two very obvious areas! And after they went to all the trouble making link-n-length trax, too.

Anyway, if I can get this kit looking half as good as Allan's, I'll be a happy modeler!

These kits came out in the 80s. Real decent and long awaited for modern US armor braille scalers. They made the M48A2GA2, M48A3, M48A5 and an IDF M48A2C. The M60 series they did included the M60A1, M60A2, M60A3 and the IDF M60A1 with Blazer.

I put the wheel on the Dremel and used a razor saw blade. Use caution that you don't cut all the way through. Once the cut line was made, I used a needle file to make the gap the appropriate scale size and depth.

Great work, Allen! Nice job on the 60's, too. Weathering looks great!

demono69

Lizardqing, Ron, M-1, Dwight, Little Moe, Robert, Erush, DJ, & Demono,

Thank you, guys. Very much appreciated.

Tigerman, Mark & Wipw,

I get the same problem, sometimes. I get nothing but the Xs. Cant tell why. But here's the link:

http://rongeorge.com/albums/armor/M_48A5_1.jpg
http://rongeorge.com/albums/armor/M_48A5_2.jpg

Erock,
Thanks! The tracks received a treatment I picked up from a friend of mine: I ground rust-colored pastel chalk into a powder, mixed it with burnt sienna oil paint and some paint thinner, and applied it liberally onto the tracks.

Rob,
Thank you, sir. But I must admit, I dont have the answer for your question on the air cleaners. I just built the kit using photos found in the In Action book. I may have taken some liberties though...

J-Hulk,
Thanks. Youre too kind. ESCI 72nd armor kits are hard to come by these days. Youre lucky to still get one. There are pitfalls, but for some subjects like the M-48 its still the only game in town. The M113 series is even worse: it has only the outer half of the road wheels!

I just used a piece of a steel saw blade to score a groove in the middle of the wheels. Rob's technique, sounds promising, and I'll definitely try it out the next time I build an ESCI kit.

Thanks for the info, guys.
One of these days, I'm gonna hafta get a Dremel!