Hello Mike!

So that's the question now - bilge or not to bilge? :D

Those steel wheels are really beautiful - the M48 will benefit from them. And the AFV Club gives you two sets anyhow - ain't that lovable? And yeah, that kit is so good in places, that it's hard to add aftermarket sometimes - I've noticed that too.

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

I'm not sure when the bilge was added or if it was like other options that simply depended on who added the upgrades. To answer that question you'd need to have a source reference or specific photo I assume.

If only I'd been paying attention I wouldn't have cut all of those axles off, dangit lol. But yes, those M-48 wheels are beautifully done. Cudos to Def Model for those.

As to the adding of AM parts... I figured I'd just slap those resin top loaders on there and be done with it, but they are not as nice as the kit parts. They are that well detailed. So I pulled the kit's side loaders apart and I'm happy with what AFVC has provided.

If this is any indication of the dedication to accuracy they have then I'm a fan.

I finished cleaning up the aluminum road wheels late this afternoon.

Got one side primered in black.

And then moved on to other details that are not threatening to put me to sleep lol.

I'm still not finding anything that NEEDS replacement by anything any better than what has been provided here.

That's... really good.

Continuing my work on the hull there are a couple of PE parts that the instructions don't clearly explain. The diagram shows them bent in an odd way and leaves us builders up to interpreting it.

I believe these are simply splash guards and I jambed them into position with a little super glue.

The Tanker Telephone Box was a little tricky to install because of the back deck being removable. I couldn't glue everything together as I should and I settled with what made sense.

As you can see I sanded off a little too much from the box and the door doesn't sit flush on this side of it. I'll fix that once everything is solid.

Also make sure you scrape these locating impressions off of the fenders. There are no parts in this kit that go there.

So I'm just to the point where I need to finish off the front of the hull and I can finish off the priming and start on the turret hardware.

I thought I'd share the notes I've made in the instructions for future builders. There are quite a few things that need correction and I'm hoping this will help avoid confusion for others who have the kit.

^ This is the first mistake you will run into. If you get these backwards it will be noticable because they sit at different angles. Facing down they should angle towards the back of the hull.

^ These plates are not even labeled... at all. However they are easy to find in the sprues and difficult to mistake for anything else.

^ If you go looking for these where the instructions tell you to, you'll think you've already clipped them off and not remembered when because those parts are actually used elsewhere, earlier in the build. That caused me a lot of confusion and I replaced them with some scratch build pieces before finding them on the correct sprue.

^ Parts F7 and K32 are not needed on an M-60A1 unless its a late model, such as the RISE. Part B9 is also incorrectly labeled as B6. Once again, you'll go looking for a missing part if you follow the instructions.

^ And again, don't go looking for E9. You've already used it elsewhere.

^ Part B4 is not needed for early production M-60A1's and is not found on the AOS.

I had thought the fact that the headlights alone (that were a five part assembly) were overengineered a bit, but these have got to be the most accurate replicas right out of a box that I know of.

What brand is your liquid masking fluid?  Can it work on aircraft canopies as well?  The headlights, and of course the build as a whole is out of this world.  I've never seen such detail before.

By the way, thank you again for the rescue on the Abrams.  When I look at it it brings laughter and joy!  It was a blast to build.  I seen a Tamiya tank at Hobby Lobby, if it's still there I'll scoope it up, as well as the USS Arizona.

Toshi

P.S. Liquid Dawn Soap!  LOL!  Amazing!

Microscale Industries - Micro Mask. Its the blue bottle in the background of some of my pictures on the laft side of my messy workspace.

Yes, you sure can use it on canopies! Reverse your masking and use strips of tape to mask your  framework and then add the liquid masking fluid. Give that 15~20 mintes to dry and pull off the tape. Bingo! Your canopy is masked. Works really well for curved clear surfaces. You'll love the stuff and I think they have some at Hobby Lobby.  :)

Thank you for the kind words, my friend. For the record, I am not "the man" I am just "a man" lol. I just have more experience.  :)

I will look forward to anything you build. Armor, aircraft, or Arizona! I may not always have something to say, but I do still keep an eye on what you're up to lol.

Dawn is your friend lol. It is really amazing stuff and works for a long list of things. Including super old shirt stains (months or years old). Got an old grease stained sweatshirt? Cover the stains in Dawn for 24 hours and wash as normal. Stains gone! LOL

Thank you again for letting me help you with your Abrams, Toshi. Thank you for trusting my advice.  :)

The hull is primed and ready for painting. I still have the wheels and tracks off because I'm not done working on them yet.

For those of you who think the casting texture is too over the top, it will smooth out a bit if you use surface primer. So don't fret over the casting texture. Its really quite nice after its leveled out a bit.

So now that the hull is temporarily out of the way I started on the turret again. The first thing I decided I was going to fix was the main gun and mantlet issue. AFV Club provides you with two options; Covered or not covered. Since so few of these vehicles did anything without their dust covers on I really have no choice here. Unfortunately the covered mantlet is made of vinyl instead of plastic so you can utilize AFVC's gimicky raise/depress function.

This has led me to further modify the mantlet insert, by shimming it so the gun tube isn't trying to shoot down imaginary aircraft. Which is a big pet peeve of my employer for this build lol.

Another new thing that isn't addressed in the instructions properly is the assembly of the gun tube to the breach. They would have you assemble the breach halves first and then slide the gun tube into it, which will not work because of the notch that is present in the gun tube that aligns in the breach. You must assemble the breach halves OVER the gun tube.

Parts E43 and E44 must be assembled over the notch of the gun tube before moving forward with the other assembly steps. I suggest clamping the two halves and letting the glue set before attaching anything else. This will save you a little trouble before it starts.

After all of that was sorted out I got a cote of light grey started on the interior of the turret and that is where I left off for this morning.

You're making great progress Mike. Thanks for pointing out the issues in the kit, hopefully will save me some grief whenever I get around to mine. 

as with MC apologies for not getting into this sooner. OMG i can smell the diesel fumes and grease from my armor days in the BRD '75-'78. my plt had 4 A1s and 2 M60s still in "desert" camo and somewhat beat up. lots of chipping and wear on the internals which were white. we did have black rubber floor mats and we would have carried 4 or 5 different rounds; APDS, HEAT, HEP, WP, maybe some BEEHIVE but unlikely.

if they are doing an A2 in this detail it goes to the top of my list. we transitioned to M60A2s in Jul75.

love the lighting. 

Looking real good so far MB. One small critique on your interior colors. All the 105mm tank rounds that I came acrose back then had a white metal and not brass casing. I dont know if they were an aluminum alloy, or what, but they werecnot brass or any similar yellow metal.

stikpusher

Looking real good so far MB. One small critique on your interior colors. All the 105mm tank rounds that I came acrose back then had a white metal and not brass casing. I dont know if they were an aluminum alloy, or what, but they werecnot brass or any similar yellow metal.

 

Actually, in the time period this is being built for, (75-77) the HEP rounds did have brass casings. We were using up old ammo. And the actual round was painted OD Green.

 The SABOT and HEAT rounds were steel, and were painted black. Smoke rounds were painted an almost pea green.

At that time, SOP was to fire HEP buttoned up. Good thing, because the tank next to me had a round detonate in the gun tube, blowing off the first third or the tube and it landed about 10 feet in front of the control jepp located 50 meters behind the tanks. Threw the gun out of battery and blew cherry juice all over the inside of the turret and crew. Nobody was hurt.

Very nice work, Mike. I am also very impressed with the detail in this kit, very very nice.

I guess I need to suck it up and buy one.

Gamera

You're making great progress Mike. Thanks for pointing out the issues in the kit, hopefully will save me some grief whenever I get around to mine. 

 

And in continuing that trend I have another mistake to point out for you all.

Parts E22 are for the loader's hatch. And watch out for the instructions telling you to add it to the wrong side of the hatch hinge as well. If you add it where it says to, you'll run into trouble because the hatch won't fit anymore. Add part E25 to the opposite side of the hatch and you'll be fine.

I've got the radios and the turret ammo rack painted up.

Using a wide flat brush I varied the white paint on the turret walls to break up the monotone look of it.

Painted the hull an overall Olive Drab (Tamiya XF-62) and this will be my base color. It is appropriate for the time period.

I've got the white wash in the TC's cupola and I need to get into detailing it next.

View of the inside before weathering.

And after the weathering. It's blown out of proportion so you can see it later.

The gun breach was finished with a dark grey, covered in graphite pencil, washed with AK interactive enamel wash for "NATO Camoflauge Vehicles" (which is an enamel black wash) and then finalized with a last round of graphite on the edges.

The last thing I did this morning was to glue the turret halves together with the gun mount race. I'll do some touch-ups after this is dried up and solid. After that I will proceed to get the main gun installed and work on the mantlet cover, blending into the modified gun race.

Hello Mike!

The interior is looking good! Also lots of good info on the tank gun ammo - that's not so easy to find on the internet!

I don't know about that OD colour - looks too green for me. My favourite is the Humbrol 66 covered by a black wash. Matches perfectly with an old OD MG ammo can.

Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

Yeah I usually prefer an O.D. the leans more towards the brown side of the spectrum, but it will be perfect for the 7th Army camo scheme this tank will have. I'm told it's pretty close to the right color and that's good enough for me.

I was orriginally thinking I was going ot have to use a medium green to get the right color for the camo, but it won't be necessary now. This OD will work well.

I'll be using my own mix of red-brown and sand yellow, with Tamiya NATO black and the base of Tamiya OD. 7th Army colors were pretty close to that of what the Germans were using on their M-48A2GA2's in that same time period. Remnants from WWII German armor I suspect, but I can't confirm that.

I'm almost itching to get started on that camo lol.

Last thing I installed last night was the hydraulic ram for the main gun. Before I painted it I made a (in hindsight - poor) decision to pry it onto the rest of the gun carriage. Low, and behold; it works like its supposed to. Neat-o! lol.

Then I couldn't get it off. Dangit. I'll just paint it in position and let go of the OCD that screams at me in my head about how I didn't paint it first and I"ll miss some spots. Even though you'll never see them. Ever.

Well, that only means one thing; time to move forward.

From here on out it should be fairly simple and straight forward build. I read ahead in the instructions and it's not comlicated. Just a lot of fragile parts for the basket, mainly.

And that's where she sits for now.

The camouflage pattern for the 7th Corps (7th Army, West Germany) has just hit my desk! There is a lot more Brown and Sand in it than I would've thought. I always suspected there would more Green in the pattern.

Sorry for coloring in the top view, but I needed a better visual to see how this is going to look. I should've taken a picture before I did this.

FOUR COLOR CAMOUFLAGE PATTERNS

Color Codes

This is a page from the manual itself. It even has included the dozer blade paint patterns.

when i got to 3-33AR 3AD in JAN75 my tanks were painted that pattern with lots of sand. when we brushed repainted them we had to use the same percentages. the sand was stupid so we looked at our load plan and those parts of the tank that would be hidden when loaded up with personal gear, spare road wheels, spare track blocks, 5 gal oil and transmission jerry cans was painted sand so we could hide it. that pattern was on the way out and we painted our new A2s this pattern.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/armor/m60/m60a2_profile02.shtml 

 note the camo on the underhull as well as flowing the pattern color into the road wheels. this will be my pattern on my Academy A2 and hopefully the AFV Club one if they do one. and one of them will be relatively new and clean. and we NEVER multi colored any wheels or tire hubs. the tops, down to the ridge, of the oil cans were red or yellow depending on what was in them. the gun mantlet was a plastic material and a dull grayish green, not any of the camo colors.

same pattern would work for A1s IIRC the other 2 tank battalions kept that sandy scheme and they were beat up. (i was the mortar plt ldr at that point and we mortar folks did not associate with mere DATs. [:D

BTW 2-32AR had M47 turret extension cargo bins welded to the center of the bussle rack. 

the chipping on the interior is looking good. ours were really beat up. think about being on a tactical exercise for 3 weeks, getting in and out fast at times. where would the loader, gunner and TC put their feet. those places would be all dinged up. actually after 3 weeks in the rain it's all mud brown, no matter how hard you try to keep the muddy overshoes out of there.

add grease around the turret ring gears and add some clear darkish red to simulate the leaking of hydraulic fluid from the accumulator. it was called cherry juice because of the color and, as the Israelis found out, quite flammable. 

fenders were usually in good shape, rear ones might be beat up from backing into the ocassional tree. Geez now i am going to have to go out and find a diesl truck, inhale some exhaust fumes and wax nostalgic.

ps no spell check makes me look dumber than usual. so be it.

i have TB 746-95-1 dtd MAY76 which is the 4 color painting pattern for arty, trucks and spt vehicles.

Good info, Wayne!

From what I've been told so far the 35thAR didn't paint anything below the fenders as "it would just be muddy anyways". I also have a few pictures that clearly show they were first hand painted.

Hello!

Lots of good info here!

I'd like to recommend a book - it's got a picture on the cover that you would surely like:

It also has a photo illustrating what wayne wrote:

I hope it helps - good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

That is some excellent info and thanks for those pictures, Pawel. That really helps with the visual.

Definately more tan than I had thought and those really look like the colors I have made up for this project.

Excellent!!

Hi mike, I have been lurking while doing my tamiya 1:48 m26 & now the matilda .

I stand amazed at your lighting detail, the red reminds me of night firing @ knox(may it rest in peace) & Hood. The brass shell caseings are good for that track, & I have stumbled over many of them while loading, We could not throw them out of the loaders hatch on the ranges I fired at. I have a brass 90mm I might have fired out of the M48 during a cycle @ knox.

I let my steel 105 get away a long time ago but now have a brass 105.  Every time I find myself gripeing about small parts I look at your magnificent work & and try to take my time.  Thanks for posting your work.        73   dt

M. Brindos

That is some excellent info and thanks for those pictures, Pawel. That really helps with the visual.

Definately more tan than I had thought and those really look like the colors I have made up for this project.

Excellent!!

 

Yes, teh scheme is very reminisicent of German WWII Tri Color Schemes, with a bit of black thrown in...

that pattern is the one on my tanks when i got to Germany in January '75 though mine were really beat up as we were getting new A2s in July. I can't remember how long the two A1 battalions kept this pattern and don't remember what pattern CSC and HQ vehicles were painted.

i may have to move my Acadeny A2 higher in the queue.

Wow, I'm unobservant on pain pills....

Thank you guys for the input! Very, very much appreciated!!

I've stalled on the turret assembly for now, but I did get a ton of great pictures while I was at the Fort Lewis Military Museum. Lots of pics of the 2 M-60's on base (one was over by the Cavalry Barracks in a parking lot), an M-728 CEV, M-103A2, an M4 sherman (with duckbills on both sides of the tracks!), and an M-5 Stuart.

It was a good day.  :)

project looks great!! wanted to salute the effort on the compressor piston though, not many are willing to dig in on that stuff. 7

Thanks! lol

Yeah, its still running like a champ. I'm a mechanic as well a modeller and I've had previous experience fixing tools too. I'm a tinker in general lol.

Sorry for taking so long to update this thread. Its been busy.




The searchlight is attached and I had some issues with the plastic kit troop rails being far too fragile. Since the turret has to be removed to open the battery compartment the rails had to be able to stand up to being handled. I used some brass rod and soldered the rails after drilling pilot holes and setting the posts in super glue. I found out you have to be real quick or things will melt quite quickly.



The turret basket is a challenge to assemble. The parts are thin and fragile on their own, but after they are all assembled the finished structure is more solid and easier to handle.




I used Tamiya Acrylics for the camouflage. NATO Green, NATO Brown, NATO Black, and the tan was a mix of Dark Yellow, Khaki, and a few drops of white in the mix.




I followed the camo scheme as close as I could. I did add a bit of artistic license to it however as it needed a bit more "interpretation" to fit the shape of the M-60.









It needs more details painted and then I'll get to some mild weathering before it goes in the base/case that's planned for it. I think it looks like a Tiger, which is Bad A**, and in this final shot it looks great next to the M-48A2! 



Thanks for looking!

Happy Holidays!!