Hello!
Mike - thanks a lot for your comment. I also considered grafting AFV Club lower turret under the resin top, but the difference in shapes was too great. This fix was not very comoplicated - hardest part was keeping it wet so as not to let the resin dust rise - and finding that plastic bottle to make the ring.
That interior kit just begs to be done - but I only need this M60 variant for my Vietnam collection.
Right now I'm working on the dozer blade and it's attachment to the hull.As I wrote before, I'm building it out of the Academy set no. 1390 - M9 Dozer Blade. This set shows the M9 blade kit as seen on the M60 dozer tanks - which means it's bolted to the tank and can be eventually removed. For completeness, let me write here, that this set doesn't have the hydraulic reservoir (that goes on the rear of the left fender) nor the hydraulic lines, that in that version run under the belly of the tank.
In the M728 there's a different setup - the blade mechanism is permanently welded to the hull and so the attachment looks different. That meant some surgery!
The Academy kit gives you a plate to be "bolted" to the tank. You glue the rest of the parts to this plate:
From this part I have cut two mounts and used them as a base for parts that eventually will be "welded" to the hull - here's the hydraulic actuator attachment:
The upper arms of the blade have mounts that also attach to the subassembly above. I modified the outer mounts (top row on the photo below - on the left after my mod, on the righ OOB), and the inner mounts were scratchbuilt (bottom row):
After putting them together it looks like on the photos below:
I modified the upper arms of the blade slightly:
I also scratchbuilt the hydraulic actuator's rams - I soldered them using 1,5mm silver-coated wire and a little brass tube. IMO the kit parts were too thin and out of shape:
After assemblying the blade and it's arms it looks like this:
After drilling out the holes, the parts are joined using axles made out of 1,5mm wire. After adding the attachment points the blade looks like follows:
I additionally scratchbuilt the covers of the hydraulic lines:
I will also have to work some on the covers of the hydraulic actuators - in the M728 the blade is mounted a little closer to the hull, and so the covers have cut-outs that allow the actuators to work closer - and so my work isn't done here yet. I hope you liked it so far - thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł