Good Grief, Charley Brown!

Wow, think I've seen these for sale before and dismissed them as toys! Awesome job there Mike, looking forward to you making a silk purse out of this sow's ear!

They seem very toy-like indeed lol. Well see what I can get out of it. I'm not going out on a limb with this one though. Its not worth it lol.

They have a Sherman and a Panzer IV as well in the worst paint schemes imaginable, but they're okay for the kids. I had not seen a great many M-48's in kit form and none in 1/48 so I picked it up. This is loaded with 70's era lack of detail and a ton of technical errors, but for the display shelf it will do just fine sitting next to my King Tiger. :) Still working away at filling and sanding.

I'm not satisfied with the mantlet cover at all yet. Still looks more like a blanket than canvas. Working my magic (not sure why it censored m o j o?) with it and hopefully it'll conform to my wishes lol. Thanks for the comments! :)

It looks like this monster is a current offering! Waiting for my 1/35, thank you very much!

lol. I would if I were you lol! You wouldn't be able to even get close to making this kit accurate. An car full of AM parts would basically be an entire stand-alone kit. So yeah, get that new Dragon kit lol.

I have an update for all of you. Had to keep my fingers busy while I was working on my washer. Found a burnt out impeller for the drain pump. [/sarcasm]Fun.[/end sarcasm]

I decided to try may hand at soldering a turret basket with random bit of metal like paper clips and such. It started looking really good, then it started melting the plastic (insert; "OH CR@P" mental image here). So I had to go as slowly as I could to finish it up. Waiting for 20 seconds while blowing on it lol. I ended up with a globby kind of mess in the end, but I endured and cleaned it up enough to be covered in gear later on so it won't show much.  :/

After cleaning things up and spraying another cote of primer on I decided to burn an hour by pulling out the AB spraying some Model Master OD on it and use the darker primer as a dark undercoat. I didn't leave much of it at all, but it looks good so far.

I'm going to lighten the OD a bit and then do some highlights after this. It's not a bad looking model. It just reminds me of the tank that came with my Army Men sets back in the 80's. It looks like a toy.

So hopefully I can paint it to not look like a toy and I'll be happy lol.

Edit; I left the "Made in China" Revell c 1974 on the bottom of the turret lol.

Looking forward to a toot on painting green army men. Especially the guy throwing the grenade!

lol if only I could get paint to stick to them lol.

Man that had some pretty slick paint on it before, haha but it's looking pretty cool now. I think the biggest thing that screams "toy" at me is the track, especially the lack of internal delineation- now THAT seems lazy of 70's Revell.

Understood. I think this kit was molded after a prototype. All of the important features are missing from the kit. They put a tool box on one side and (I think) a jack tool on the other side where the air cleaners go.  The kit is suspiciously missing any of its tactical faults lol. Propaganda, I tell ya. lol

The tracks are not a favorite detail (or total lack of) of mine. But I'll pull my bag of figure painting tricks out and see if I can make it look better than it is.

I've got a few decals that will work for this build, but I think I'm still going to be making a mask for the stars on the sides of the turret.

I can see what you mean about being simplified. Esp the track there where Chis pointed out- no separation between the links at all! Still she looks much better with the olive drab instead of that weird garish paint job from before.

The turret basket is pretty cool, good work with it.

Pretty good job fixing up a toy.  A couple notes though:  First, it is an M48A2, not A1.  The A1 had a flat rear engine deck  over a gasoline engine.  The raised rear deck came w/the A2 designation and a diesel engine.  Secondly, the turret basket is not correct for an M48.  It looks more like an M103 basket.  An M48 basket has sides and a rear wall, like below.

M48A2

Thanks for the corrections Arty. I did the turret basket like that on purpose because I wanted to try my hand at soldering. The M-103 has a real simple basket design and that's what I decided to copy.

Anyone for another update? I had some spare time I should have spent on the Beast. But where I am at now with this build is the next step for the M-103 and will be my test bed for a couple of things first before trying them on the Big Boy.

One of those things was trying out the Black India Ink Dad sent me. I've not used it before so this is new for me. As you will see I used it as a line wash for the engine grills. The stuff dries slow so I'll see later if the shine has gone down or if it just stays glossy.

^ Okay, so here's the little beastie after a highlight.

Then came the scary part. Acrylic sludge wash over everything. Having the patience to wait for this stuff to dry before moving on to the scrub is unnerving.

^ I get impatient waiting for paint to dry lol. You can still see the wet wash in the wheels lol.

^ I actually stopped myself half-way through this part just to show you the difference. There is probably an easier way to get this effect, but I like how it turns out this way.

^ All cleaned up... or rather, all dirtied up lol. I really like how this wash brought back the tones I was looking for.

^ STARS! I wanted to go with the painted on look. My mask didn't hold shape very well and so they are a tad bit wonky, but its hard to see. Its one of those things that triggers your "that's not quite right" sensors lol.

^ Cleared and ready for dot filtering.

For a simplistic kit this one isn't so bad on the eyes after getting this far with it. I think It'll look great on the shelf now.  :)

Looking good.  There was usually a star on the middle of the nose too.

I've got a little one in a solid circle that i remember them having on some of those old toys lol. I think I'll use that one.

This is turning into some kind of strange realistic-like toy lol. Its been fun so far.

Dot filtering complete. Some details painted.

Looks real good so far. One critique- the circled star was just a WWII thing in Europe, primarily for recognition from the air. When the war ended, the surround circles were no longer used. Just various sizes of the white 5 pointed star.

Thanks Stick!

I know, I know. Its not accurate. But I'm working with a very toy-like model here. :/

I've dug through my spare decal collection and that's what I had to use. The serial numbers are from an old Churchill esci kit, the circled star, "THUNDER", and the white corner rear fender markings (not shown) are left over from my son's Revell Sherman kit.
There are even black markings on the fenders for 3^3^32 HQ5, but those are from an esci M-60Blazer kit.
The markings are nonsense.

I've settled into a cross between real and ArmyMen toy here guys. I think it looks neat and it reminds me of fond memories of playing in the dirt lol.

What you're meant to see is the techniques that I'm using here are a test run for the effects I'm using on the M-103 next. You guys seem to be getting stuck on the inaccuracies of a kit produced in 1974, and that's fine. We all get hung up on details sometimes lol.

But let me ask you this; what would you do with this kit? You certainly wouldn't spend a ton of money on fixing it, would you? Its barely worth an AM decal sheet, if you could find one in 1/48 lol.

Sometimes I build things just to see what I can do with them. This one has been fun and I'm going to be happy having it on display. I've proven the techniques used on this model will greatly enhance the M-103 and that was my goal.

But by all means, do NOT stop critiquing my work. I don't know everything, not by a long shot, and if I don't know then I definitely want you guys to teach me. Besides, its my mistake for not announcing my premise for what I'm doing with this kit. I've wanted to do this work to it when I bought it 3 years ago, but i never did.

Now was just the perfect opportunity to do so. After the M-103 I have an M-60A1 to build for my Dad. "His tank" and the techniques used on this M-48 will also benefit that build as well.

So consider this a test run.

Thank you both for taking the time to reply and offer your invaluable wisdom. I appreciate it more than you know. :)

No worries. I understand where you're coming from and shooting for on this. If I was gonna do the same thing on this kit (which I actually considered doing for one of our AMPS chapter theme builds), I would pretty much work along the same lines. I would add or do whatever I felt comfortable scratching or had in my spares bin and looked about right. I certainly would not spend much money on the project. Perhaps one day I will tackle the project, as it is perfect for our occasional AMPS themes of "anything but 1/35" or "under $20, no aftermarket". As you are showing, with a little creativity, this baby can look a LOT better.

Kits such as this one are perfect for testing on and if it doesn't work, then its not a wallet busting heart breaking experience lol.

Seems my Dad just got the new Dragon M-60A1 in the post today. He's blown away with the detail and accuracy so far, and he used to command one. He would be an expert. I'll have to post a review based on his impressions later when I'm building it for him.

Also arrived yesterday were 7 sets of MiniArt figures. What a load of painting to do!

I need to wrap up a few projects very soon.

It's a brilliant idea, to take an old "toy" like this an improve upon it. Keep up the great work

Thanks CD! :)

It may be more of a toy now, but in 1974 this was a legitimate kit lol. I believe my Dad mentioned building it back then. Lol

I made up some stowage to distract the eyes away from the crap job I did on soldering the turret basket. Blankets and tarp roll were made from packing paper soaked in watered down acrylics and left dry in shape in the basket over night before being painted and weathered.

The box is just a chunk of an old Tamiya Panzer IV toolbox. I just cut off the smaller piece of it and it seems an appropriate size for an MRE bin.

Looks pretty good for a "toy" Mike! It's cool that you're using it as a test bed to try new things and finishing techniques!

When you're done with it, I'd put it up on eBay for a few bucks. Someone somewhere will buy it if you set the bidding start low enough.

I've been muddling that over in my head a lot actually. First I wanted to keep it, and now I'm thinking of Father's Day.I think my Dad deserves this one after all of the support and supplies he's been providing for me as of late. He actually bought me 7 sets of MiniArt figs for me to paint and sell.

Thanks for the post Karl. I'm really enjoying the toy "test" and I'm really happy with these results. These cheapies make great testing materials. :)

You've done a nice job on the kit. However, I think you're being a bit harsh and unfair to it - this wasn't a 'legitimate' kit in 1974, either. It served a purpose, and that was giving someone, primarily children, who were interested in models but not ready for a complex glue together kit, a model they could handle. It wasn't supposed to be a definitive, super detailed model of any variant of the M48 family.

It had a level of detail and complexity thoroughly appropriate for its intended audience and purpose, like its companions in the Monogram line, such as the Tiger. It was a bridge between 'toy', and serious scale model, and it and its companion kits served their purpose well. They helped get me into the hobby. And I'm glad to see they still do.

I'm not sure how I'm being harsh or unfair to it. I am really enjoying this kit a lot. It dresses up pretty well.

What was a serious model kit back in the 70's? I was born in 1975 so I really don't know. Tamiya is the only thing besides Monogram and Revell that come to mind.

I would be honored if you could educate me a little more. Please? :)

Here's one for GMorrison. :)

You asked for it lol.

I'm happy with myself today. Not only did I manage to make a backpack in 1/48 scale. I did it four times lol. I have problems with making things in repetition so this is a bit of a triumph for me.

Woot. lol

I've got pictures of the process, that I will post later. 

Edit:

Making Scale backpacks: Fun stuff to build for the adventurous modeller.

1. I cut three strips of newspaper (sans print) to 6mm wide. I did not record the length. I then rolled them up and pinched one end.




2. I used Bondo to fill in the sides. This took three applications before it stayed put. If you have a better putty I suggest you use it. Modelling clay seems a better choice to me.



3. I then attached 1mm x 25mm strips of tape. I glued them just at the top of the pinch. The flaps for the bag were made out of 7mm wide pieces folder over onto themselves and then trimmed to shape.



4. I then glued the top flaps onto the Backpacks with a little super glue and used diluted white glue to glue down the rest of the flaps to give them more character.



5. They were glued down and the straps were folded up to wrap around the Turret basket bars next.



6. I painted and washed them with OD green and a black sepia. stuck the straps down through the basket and super glued the straps back onto the packs.



All that remained after that was sealing the straps to the basket with flat clear paint and cut of the excess straps. I left a little hanging, but not enough to scrape over the rear deck.

I think she came out really cool Mike, and it is a great empty canvas for you to try out some new painting techniques.