The unOFFICIAL 2011/20012 Veteran's Group Build

No... I had not thought of that... Thanks for the suggestion Shell

Stik , looks good . Have you tried "youtube" for reference ?

I found some useful shots on Army Recognition, but I still could really use some views of the top deck on both sides from alongside the turret on back to the end. I found a decent shot of the center rear and of course engine deck and drivers hatch areas.

Thanks Dupes. I always loved the look of the Vulcan tracks and had been wanting to build this one for a LONG time. It has been in my stash since it was a new issue kit in 1994 or so...

If Prime Portal doesn't have anything, I wouldn't know where to look.

The Vulcan is looking awfully sweet, though! Got one of these lined up to become the IDF Machbet variant...this is making me want to push it a lot higher in the pile. Heh.

BTW, does anybody kow of a site with a walkaround of the M163 Vulcan Track? I wanna get the top deck stowage right and the Italeri diretions appear that some of the item placements are not correct.

OMCUSNR

Yesterday, a friend at work gave me an old Revell kit of "Viet Nam Aces" - 1/48 scale Mig-21 & F4 Phantom II.  I'll use the Mig for my 1st real attempt at an all metal finish (anyone with recommendations on that, chime in!) and the F4 will be OOB Navy.

Reid

OMC

USNR-Ret.

The most recent (Jan 2012) issue of Fine Scale Modeler has a nice how-to article about natural metal finishes. Look for the shiny MiG-17 on the cover.

Well I have noticed that pics I take after dark (when the big door is closed and I am using flash and my overhead lights) tend to come put poorly focused on close ups such as the gun last night. So when I resumed work today I took a couple new ones of the gun...much better results.

side view

head on

and a slightly angled head on

Cleaning up the mold seams on six seperate barrels was abit of a bear, as was removing the ejector pin marks from the discs that act as spacers for the barrels. But I do like the fact that Italeri actually molded the bores hollowed out. A very nice touch.

I next built the rest of the gun assembly

the turret

I have not glued the gun to the turret yet to ease with detail painting

I next sanded the putty on the exhaust flap and added the brush guard

And placed everything on the hull for a few pics. 

almost ready for paint...

Scorpiomikey

And a veteran has fallen.

At 1655 Wednesday the 30th of November 2011 local time, my grandfather passed away.

R.I.P Mr D. You will be missed.

"Sky-Six Actual, this is Hammer Two-Six.  Message Follows, Prepare to copy, over..."

Top, the M60 is progressing nicely. 

Hans, you are added to the roster with a 109A3.

Some slight progress this evening. I added most of the fiddly bits to the glacis plate and top deck of the Vulcan track and built the gun itself. I need to sand the putty covering a sink mark on the exhaust stack flap, then I can glue the brush guard in place around it.

Tomorrow I can probably get the turret built.

I was wondering what I could do for this build & thought of the USS Blueback (SS-583) which was the last diesel powered submarine the Navy built (and one of my tended units in 1974-5 at Ballast Point, Subase San Diego).  She's now a museum boat at OMSI in Portland, OR.  I was having a hard time finding any kits, so I thought I'd sit this one out.

Yesterday, a friend at work gave me an old Revell kit of "Viet Nam Aces" - 1/48 scale Mig-21 & F4 Phantom II.  I'll use the Mig for my 1st real attempt at an all metal finish (anyone with recommendations on that, chime in!) and the F4 will be OOB Navy.

Reid

OMC

USNR-Ret.

It was my driver CPL Fletcher Cox goofing around when he saw me taking pictures. The non-slip tank pre-dated my arrival in the company. It was his tank, "Christine", that appeared to be a newer tank than the other three. I really don't know why he got that tank, but I suspect that since he didn't have a lieutenant for such a long time when a new tank came down the pipe, he took it, and it became A-24, the platoon sergeant's tank.

If you're doing an A3 with the pack on the ground, you probably don't need to lower the suspension.

Slow but steady progress on the hull this week. 

Going to add a little twist to the suspension height fix that most Tamiya hulled M-60’s (&48’s) need to be accurate.  I am also going to try and bring the track back under the fenders.  In my experience with the builds I have done, the track hangs out from 1 to 2mm beyond the edge of the fenders. 

In this picture I have sanded down the final drive housings to take away the required distance.   In building this model with a pulled power pack I also forced myself into having to find another way to hang the drive sprockets.  Normally the “false axle” would go through the back of the hull and be covered and not showing.  I this case because it would have been exposed I cut two stubs of plastic tube and locked them into place with cyano glue.

The hull is about finished as far as construction goes.  I cut off the keyed ends to the suspension arms so they would swing freely in the torsion bar mounts on the hull.  I then clipped the spindle’s down to allow the road wheels to seat further on.  I also shaved some off of the wheel hubs and the torsion bar mounts to make up all the distance I needed.  I put a .100” shim under the front torsion bar mounts and a .125” shim under the rear.  I then set the modified arms in place. This should give it a little rake to take into account the missing engine & trans.  I reshaped the bump stops that were molded into the hull, and drilled and pinned the shocks, mounting the to the appropriate arms.  I also plan on ditching the Tamiya wheels and poly hubs in favor of some wheels from an AMT/ERTL Isreali Blazer kit

s

Rob,  great shot of your ride there, I like the reasoning as to why your PLT SGT got the tank w/non-slip.  Who’s the one passed out on top of the turret?   

998 looks nice too, great to see her getting some bench time after a decade + marinating on the shelf.  I’ve got several like that myself.

Scorpiomickey, my regrets for your families loss…..RIP

stikpusher

Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh.. a nice BIG wingy thing!

OK Jim I will add you to the group here. Welcome aboard.

Mikey, very sorry to hear of the passing of your gramps. May he rest in peace.

Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh.. a nice BIG wingy thing!

OK Jim I will add you to the group here. Welcome aboard.

I have an AMT B-52H that needs a reason to be finished.  This is that reason.

Add me to the gang please!

Jim Williams

B-52H Instructor Radar Navigator

Farewell Mr D. Rest in Peace that you helped earn.

Sorry to here about your grandad...hat's off to 'im! 

And a veteran has fallen.

At 1655 Wednesday the 30th of November 2011 local time, my grandfather passed away.

R.I.P Mr D. You will be missed.

He was not in the mob for long, but he seemed to make an impression while he was there.

He was with us for a lifetime, and certainly made an impression with us.

A couple of 1/72 scale bombers came with Cruise missiles, but ALCMs. Monogram's B-1B and Revell's notional B-2 Stealth bomber (looked like a big batarang) came with them I believe.

Atomic Models made a 1/32 scale resin one that will be hard to find. They are long gone.

http://robdebie.home.xs4all.nl/models/atomic.htm

So after thinking about it a bit, I remembered something I wanted to do anyway. Does anyone know if/where I can get a model of a cruise missile? Kind of an odd request, perhaps, I don't think I have ever seen one. Last march my ship launched missiles in support of Odyssey Dawn, and I wanted to build a cruise missile in some fashion as kind of a momento. I'm thinking I might even try to do it launching out of the water, which would be interesting because I have never modeled water before. Anyway, if someone could point me in the right direction, that would be a start. Thanks!

The track set came today. You are all nuts! There's eight (8) identical sprues of twenty four (24) links each. Let's see, that's one hundred ninety two (192) links. Each link has a main piece, a center tooth and a pair of connector pieces to the next link, for a total of four (4) pieces each link. Four (4) times one hundred ninety two (192) is seven hundred sixty eight (768) parts. 

First thing will be to cut them all off and sort them into the tray. The instructions say that the end connectors are set up on the sprue at the correct spacing to act as a jig, but it can't be true.

stikpusher

Well I dont think membership in the CAF requires an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..." But yes you are probably the "youngest" WWII aircraft rated aircrewman here...

and IIRC you got some of these too, so a C-130, C-141, and possibly other types such as the UH-1, CH-47, and UH-60 enter as build possibilities

Yeah, got those too.. But all I have O/H is the Crash Hawk... Never jumped it, only did the "Dope on a Rope"...

S'pose I'll go with something from the FA... "Once a Redleg" an' all that .... Put me down for a an M109A3, I reckon... M548 tennative...

Hell on Wheels

There's no apu on the M60. All US tanks have manual traverse/elevation as well as a "master blaster" manual firing charger. Firing degraded mode is something that is a part of semi-annual tank gunnery and trained constantly.

Rob Gronovius

 

We exited autobahns by leaving the roadway and driving into the woods.

With the pack out, the tank can't move, but the turret can still traverse, main gun can elevate and fire. We pulled the pack while we were on a down moment in the exercise.

Finding info online for this is the devil,but I see there's an apu in the 60, ? Maybe an uaapu?

Very cool! Those loud, smoke belching roaring beasts! And with some dress up. Looking forward to your work Chopper (and if that Urdan Cupola needs a good home,hit me up offline, I could use one....)

OK. Here we go. Going to start on these in a few days. Gotta finish up another group build first. Anyway, went to basic training at Ft Knox waaayyy back in 1983 and we used the M60A1. Got to my first unit in Germany where we used the M60A3. M60A1 will be US Army version without all the reactive armor plates. Also going to add some PE stuff and aftermarket tracks. WIP pics to come soon.

bondoman

That'd be a horrible time for Ivan to come driving over the hill. Great dio subject. I assume at that state the tank has NO powered systems.

REFORGER would actually be a very bad time for Ivan to come. Many manuever units are out in the field training in the Germany countryside as opposed to sitting in motor pools at the same pre-targeted barracks or even at the major training areas. Additionally, as the name implies, stateside units have "REturn FORces to GERmany" and are already in place versus needing to cross the Atlantic. REFORGER was a time when we could pop out of the woods and end up in someone's back yard. We exited autobahns by leaving the roadway and driving into the woods.

With the pack out, the tank can't move, but the turret can still traverse, main gun can elevate and fire. We pulled the pack while we were on a down moment in the exercise. A little thing like no brakes won't keep an experienced crew out of the fight. Unlike a wheeled vehicle, a tank can use its transmission to brake as well as its own inertia. Tanks maneuver by locking one track or the other to change direction and can even pivot steer with one track rolling forward and the other going backwards.

If ever an armored vehicle could be a Transformer, it would be a CEV or an 88. Those things are just impressive to watch work the boom crane.

Nice pic there sir.

Here are a fewpicsof my Vulcan track so far. The hull is nearly done.

The suspension is link and length tracks and went together ok. But the roadwheel arms are a bit fiddly. Unfortunately I found some alignment issues after the fact.

Now IIRC, there were two typesof roadwheels in the 113 series family vehicles:bolted rims of an older style and non bolted rims of a newer style. The Italeri rim bolts seemed way overscale (epsecially when compared toTamiya/Academy/AFV Club 113 family roadwheels), so I removed them on most of the road wheels but left a couple wheels of the bolted type for a little variation. 

Rob Gronovius

 

Here is a Polaroid shot of my old M60A3TTS when I was 2nd Platoon Leader, A Company, 5th Battalion, 77th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 8th ID(M). It was taken in the fall of 1988 during REFORGER Certain Challenge. You can see my pack resting on the back deck. Our brakes failed and we almost went through a gasthaus. You have to pull the pack to fix the brakes on old 48/60 series tanks.

Getting going with the M40

So I spent the better part of $ 100 on the kit, the PE and the tracks. I kind of went WTH on those, because if I fail, hey there's always a couple of options. But I'm a ship modeler mostly, and used to things like the HMS Victory- 100 guns nine parts each. Just calls for big sorting trays.

I think a base will be a key element. if only because if/ when it starts to get busted up, it'll be a real loss. And dad will want to handle it.

It should be here just about in time for Xmas, my present to Dad and myself. Ms. Bondo and I just got each other ours- the furnace went DOA last Friday. 20 years of solid service.