1:72 M48A3 Vietnam DONE!

That M48 builds up real nice.You will enjoy it.

Hello!

Yeah, I know I will! And the cool thing, I didn't even have to wait five minutes for my first comment, cool! Thanks a lot TD4438 and please stay tuned!

Paweł

Are you going to take the old Esci kit, the Italeri reissue and the Revell kit to create one model? Sounds like quite a project. Good luck with it.

Will be following this build!

madmike - thanks for the comment, please stay tuned!

Rob - as you know the Esci and Italeri kits are actually the same thing, so mating "Old Glue"'s lower hull to the Italeri rest is no big  deal. Fitting the Revell suspension is a little more tricky, but it looks like I have at least half of the hard part done by now. I need to adjust the sprockets and find a source for the missing four return rollers yet. Please stay tuned, I need you to tell me what I'm building wrong, when it happens! Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Yes, I know they are the same kit, just wondering why you were going to mate the new stuff to the old lower hull instead of starting out with the new Italeri hull. Actually, both the old Esci kit and newer Revell M60A1/A3 kits are both pretty good models. The Esci kit holds up especially well, but it is good to see one get decked out.

I only use the lower hull for sentimental reasons, otherwise it doesn't make any sense... The Revell M60 model is very cool, with correct road wheels and very crisp detail. One thing I don't like about it is the tracks. Not only are they octagon style (no problem here if you want to show a later machine, although road wheels are steel), the biggest problem with them is that the track guide teeth are positioned in the middle of each link, instead of between links.

Infact the M60 is so nice, I started thinking about building a CEV in 1:72 - that would be something, wouldn't it? Have a nice day

Paweł

Steel road wheels on an M60 series tank are not uncommon nor a good indicator of when the tank was in use. All steel, all aluminum or a mixture can be seen throughout its lifespan. It would be nice if Revell gave us a Slick 60 M60A0 although to make an early tank, they would need to retool the upper hull to give us the option for early and late style air cleaners. That's one area the Esci M60A1/A2/A3 series was better; the choice between early and late style air cleaners.

Thanks for the info Rob, it's always good to have an expert onboard for a WIP thread! 'Till next time

Paweł

OK, movin' on with the build!

First there are the road wheels, like seen on the photo below. The sand-coloured ones were stripped off "Old Glue". The funny pink ones are Revell:

See why I broke out the Revell kit?

Then there are the return rollers:

And then I went on to do the sprockets. The double discs for the track's guide teeth are from the Revell kit, the sprockets are from the old Esci kit, narrowed (so as to allow for the double discs) and with mud-release holes cut in them:

Then there's track. The basic Esci/Italeri ones:

And the octagon-style Revell tracks. Note how the guide teeht are incorrectly shown in the middle of each link instead between the links, like the connecting links:

Now I'll have to figure out what to do with the track... As I don't really like neither of them.

OK, that would be it for now, thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

I am not an expert by any means. I know too many men who know much more about these machines for me to ever consider myself to be an expert. Having said that, I learned to tank on an M48A5 when I was a kid. I am familiar with it and do know a good deal about the M48A5 and the M60A3TTS (another tank I cut my teeth on).

As far as fixing the Revell track, personally, I would not bother to make this correction. To me it would not be worth the time and effort for a detail that would go unnoticed to the common man. But, on the Esci track, I have used slices of channel strip styrene made by Plastistruct (sp?).

When you cut the channel strip, you end up with U shaped pieces that resemble the center guides of the track. I then glue them in the proper place on the track. You could do the same with the Revell track. You would have to remove the existing center guides and replace them with the channel lock Us.

Of course, the Revell track would not be correct for a Vietnam era tank. You could also detail the inside of the track with strips of styrene to represent the inner rubber track surface.

You have quite a project here.  I'll be watching to see how it goes.

Pawel, it's quite the ambitious project you have going here, but I agree with Rob; don't get in over your head trying to correct the tracks. When they're on, you won't be able to notice it.

Good luck with where you're going with this!

Such a nice project in a small size. I admire anyone working in this scale!!

Rounds Complete!!

Hello everybody!

Sorry for replying so late, but I was on a business trip...

Rob G - I need to do something about the track, the center guides are the absolute minimum here. Your idea with the U-channels sounds very interesting. I think I'll have something figured out by the weekend.

Rob (PANZERWAFFE) - Thanks for your comment, welcome aboard!

Karl, Mike - glad to have some of my favourite modellers onboard! Karl, I'm afraid I have to do SOMETHING about the tracks, to keep the model consistent. I've also seen another 1:72 Patton with the tracks fixed and I think it was worth it. Mike - 1:72 is a nice scale and this way I can have a tank and my choppers in the same display case :D

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Off to a good start Pawel.

  if you sweat the tracks you might run the risk of burning yourself out, but that's up to you.

        I'll be waiting........

DM - thanks for your comment and welcome to my thread! I agree with you, that the risk is there, but I say I can hack it and I got photos to prove it!

I mean I have an update for you gennulman!

For starters I glued the rear part of the hull on and filled the seam. I replaced the door handles with thin copper wire. When this was done I added the final drive housings. Before that I drilled out the original drive sprocket axles, because they were damaged (all these years!). I replaced them with a 3mm shaft made out of sprue. And finally I put the wheels on:

I narrowed the mounting points for the wheels slightly, so that the tracks fit inside the fenders completely. Without narrowing the tracks have a tendency to stick out slightly.

Currently I'm doing one side only, because I still didn't figure out what to do about the return rollers. As I wrote before I need ten of them and the Revell kit only has six. I wrote a polite letter to Revell Germany about ten days ago where I asked them for the parts, let's see what are they going to do.

Meanwhile I went on with the tough job - the tracks. I decided to sandwich the Esci/Italeri and the Revell tracks. That wouldn't look good if I didn't adjust their thickness, so I attached the track to a wooden brush handle with painter's tape and started sanding. My measurement showed that the Esci/Italeri track needs to be sanded on the flat side until it's about 0.7mm thick. I removed the track shoes of the Revell tracks and sanded until only the deepest marks were visible near the centerline of the tracks:

Then I glued the sanded tracks together. To do that I cut the Esci/Italeri tracks in three-link segments to compensate for the slight differnce in length between the Esci/Italeri and the Revell tracks. For glueing all the styrene together I used liquid glue/lacquer thinner, it works like charm. To impress you more I took a surgical blade and cut off the guide teeth off the track and moved them to their correct position between the track links. Here's the photo of the completed track section:

For now I have four sections completed this way - the bottom section (26 links), two short diagonal sections (6 links) and the long top section that consists of two subassemblies (idler-roller and roller-sprocket - 33 links). To complete the track run I also need 12 individual links which I'm going to use almost straight out of the Italeri box. Together it makes for 83 links - I wonder if it's correct number?

And then I went on to assemble it all - I started with the individual links on the sprocket, then I went on toward the road wheelsand up to the idler. I scored the flat side of the individual links with the tip of the knive to give them some structure and to blen them with the straight runs. Finally I installed the long top run. By bending the short and the top sections I tried to give the tracks a little sag, nothing dramatic. After I was done it looks like that:

So I think as soon as I get the remaining rollers I can do the other side without burning out, it's not so bad. I'd say I put about 4 hours in the tracks so far, so it's doable. Hope you liked it, looking forward to your comments and thanks for reading

Paweł

Pawel, you're a detailing ANIMAL!  Wow; I didn't think you'd go the full mile on those tracks, but you sure showed us! That looks awesome, and it's great to see you tackling this one with vigor and dedication!

I know we say this a lot here, but I can't wait to see what you do with this when it's painted and weathered!

Dude.........

    You got talent.

        Remember folks, this is 1/72 scale.

Karl, DM - thanks a lot for your comments, it really means a lot to me!

And Karl - I'd also like to have it painted and stuff, but of course it's gonna take some time.

Well, thanks again and have a nice day

Paweł

Hello!

I'm almost done with the tracks - at least no more cutting and glueing those little center guide teeth. I still don't have enough of the return rollers, so this is what I have so far:

Now as soon as I get those rollers, I'll put this side together, in the meantime I'm movin on to the top hull and the turret. Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Amazing stuff.

Tracks are always the big bugbear with 1:72.

And I complain about 1/35 track........Outstanding.....I would be blind for sure!! Nice details insuch a small package.

Rounds Complete!!

Thanks for your comments guys!

Madmike - yeah, tracks! And machine guns. And aerials... But it all can be fixed with enough creativity. I'm not surprised 1:35 is more popular than 1:72, but I like 1:72 a lot, and I know you do, too!

Mike - thanks a lot, and I hope to give you some more details in my next posts, so please stay tuned.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

The return rollers have arrived!

That was good news... Like six weeks ago I wrote a polite letter to Revell with requestt for parts. About two weeks ago I begun to lose hope, so I phoned 'em and the very nice lady I talked to told me the have always a real flood of requests like that after every christmas, but they are taking care of it - and here we go. I put them rollers on as soon as I got my hands on 'em:

I'm also working on the upper hull right now. I decided to model the driver's hatch open and the fenders disturbed a little, so I took advantage of having two upper hulls and I cut three of the quarters out of the new hull, then I cut the quarters of the "old glue" and put them on at slight angle, so as to suggest bad things that happened. I also drilled out the driver's hatch and cut the hatch out of  "old glue", so now I'm ready to show it open. I also made the lifting rings out of wire - rear was no problem, because there was nothing there in the kit, but in the front I had to get rid of the "blobs". Here's what it looks like now:

I also started working on the turret - I drilled out the loader's hatch (it will be open too), and I drilled out the visor in front of the TC's cuppola (by the way - somebody help me, what's the correct name for this visor? Rob? anybody?). And I'm using the turret that is many years old. Here's what it looks like:

What do you think? Thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

It's the gunner's primary sight housing, often referred to as the doghouse.

Rob, thanks for your help!

I put the turret together and started filling the joint between the top and the bottom part. In order to do that, I had to take care of the main gun. I removed the old gun and shield and put the Italeri gun and shield in. I drilled out the muzzle brake so that it doesn't look ultra-heavy (scale!) and I also filled the big hole between the turret and the shield. OK, so now the gun isn't movable anymore, but hopefully it will look a lot better with a scale mantlet cover. Here's what I got so far:

As always waiting for your comments, thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

nice build great pics .

Ron

Thanks a lot, Ron, and please stay tuned!

Paweł