I've got the lighting and I'm getting ready to install it soon.  :)

I've wasted a lot of time building up the figures that come with the M-48. They're actually still decent figures to work with. Some rescribing, carving in new details, and a few scratch built add-ons and they don't look too shabby.

It did take some work to get that old Tamiya .50 to look good enough to use. I had to fill in the troughs on the upper and lower cooling jacket and re-drill the holes. I made a new rear sight block, added a longer charging handle, and swiped a shield from the Academy acc. kit. The MG mounting post is just a bit of sprue drilled-out and I added the welds to the bottom to give it credibility. All of this consumed my time recently and I'm not 100% happy with it, but it will probably look much better with paint on it lol.

I worked on the lens of the searchlight. Taped both sides and very carefully cut out a circle with my trusty siscors.

Com box(?) and gun elevation are installed.

And I built the turret rotation handle and put that in there too.

Then I tried, very unsuccesfully, to make bullets for the MG. Of all the stuff I've scrathed up this has been the most frustrating challenge thus far. I've tried using different meterials in different methods, but I just can't seem to make them convincing enough. Using the metal rod had the best consistency, but proved to be the hardest to get lined up right.

  Amour builders are plain nuts ( and bolts ), but in a good way.  Watching a normal armour build with pe and indi track links is witnessing first hand a masochistic ritual.  Then there are those, like yourself, that up the crazy by going inside the tank.

      I dont know a lot about tanks so I won't comment much, but I am following and your work is fantastic.                                              

                                    knox

I am in awe of everything you've done thus far.  Absolutely amazing!  

I'm glad you enjoy your NEO Iwata Gravity Feed.  I too love that AB, I am contemplating purchasing the NEO Iwata TRN1 Side Feed Handgun AB as I can better grip that AB.  I'll keep you up to date on that purchase.  

I went to an artist studio of which this particular artist exclusively uses Iwata AB.  I tried his Custom Micron and it was a dream to just hold.  I think the only other AB that can come close is the top of the line German made Harder and Steenbeck AB.  

Once again, a fantastic job on a great kit, I'll keep up to date on this wonderful build sir!

Toshi 

Hi Mike, I haven't been around for awhile but I thiought I'd check in. I stand in awe at your M60 project and glad to see you got the M48A3 (I trained on it also) The M3 "grease gun" does not look like any that I carried, you might want to check with your dad about it. I could be wrong because I have been asleep since then -long ago-.

I check in later.    73   dt

Pawel

Hello Mike!

Nice work with the cupola - I guess I'll have to repeat at least some of it on my CEV - but this time the TC is going to sit in the hatch, blocking the view, so tel's see how this turns out.

By the way - I want to grab the bonus! The bracket is a machine pistol holder. You might want to check this out:

http://combatengineervehicle.tpub.com/TM-9-2350-222-20-1-5/TM-9-2350-222-20-1-50257.htm

Good luck with your build, and have a nice day

Paweł

 

I'm not sure what pose the TC figure I will be using will have yet as he's still in developemnt I assume, but AVFC included the sights and MG so I figure I may as well finish the job lol.

You are correct about that bracket, Pawel. My Dad pointed it out to me in one of my reference photos. Thanks to Dragon for including it with their M1A1 kit lol.



Specifically, the M3 "Grease Gun".

P.S. it looks like I missed the upper bracket. :/

Hello Mike!

Nice work with the cupola - I guess I'll have to repeat at least some of it on my CEV - but this time the TC is going to sit in the hatch, blocking the view, so tel's see how this turns out.

By the way - I want to grab the bonus! The bracket is a machine pistol holder. You might want to check this out:

http://combatengineervehicle.tpub.com/TM-9-2350-222-20-1-5/TM-9-2350-222-20-1-50257.htm

Good luck with your build, and have a nice day

Paweł

More distraction lol. I took a break last night and this morning I only lined up the mantlet on the M-48.

Gamera

Looks great Mike, love all the extra stuff you're cramming in there!

 

Thank you Gamera!

Bish

Some more nice work there Mike. That's some really nice scratch building and I do like the look of that MG.

Thanks Bish. I'm not the best scratch builder, but I enjoy it. I love the way it looks before you clear it. So shiny and metallic looking the way it catches the light lol.

jibber

Mike, I love those special deliveries. So coool..

Me too! I just got another package in the mail this afternoon. I've now got some Mig washes to play with and MicroMask.

RBaer

Geez, I'm glad I finally made time to come look at this, very nice work. I'm especially impressed with all the interior adds, "gizmology" at its finest.

Thank you Baer. I'm glad you like it. I do like cluttering things up lol. The M-48A3 is not going to get this treatment on the inside. I'm not even sure if I'll be building anything like this again. Definitly not any time soon, that's for sure lol.

Now for todays update;

I've been working on detailing the inside of the TC's cupola. Using the Legend Productions resin cupola as a visual aid I've been copying everything inside of it. There are two reasons for making my own copies, for one the Legend cupola is a bit smaller in dimension than the AFVC cupola, and the second is that I don't want to use the Legend pieces on the AFVC cupola because it will be harder to copy them back to the Legend cupola once their installed in another model. This method just makes better sense.

I've got the ammo feed made up and installed and I'm working on the smaller pieces still. I was distracted for a while last night as I waited for glue and paint to dry, by cutting a huge hole in the front of the Tamiya M-48A3 turret so I can install the Legend Productions mantlet and searchlight set.


^ This distracted me for a few hours.








Bonus points for anyone who knows what this PE bracket is for.



I painted the new set of ammo storage tubes a lighter shade of brass on purpose. Its all part of my plan.
Its looking good and stuffed in there now.




And I started up work on this Verlinden searchlight. As much as I love Verlinden upgrades he seems to leave a lot of details unfinished sometimes. Such as this searchlight. It would have been nice not to have to blend kit parts to it to finish it.

Dad has a full set of LED lights on order so I'm almost ready to close up this front hull section. Also, I plan on completely re-fabricating the turret basket again. I'll add the battery box and make all of the other details over again. The current one sits too low and isn't going to work as well as I wanted it to. So there's a lot more to come in the future.

Keep modelling, my friends. 

Pawel

Hello Mike!

I like your approach - something is still better than an empty space, when the real thing is crammed full, and the references are not so easy to come by, either. All models are inaccurate in some way, and it's up to the builder to say how accurate he wants to get. And still - a built model with it's inaccuracies is still better than a more accurate one that doesn't get built!

By the way - what colour do you plan for your M60? I'm not sure if you wrote about it before?

You've got quite a lot of goodies for the M48! I'm just wondering, that you start the old Tamiya instead of the new Dragon - I believe that would save you a lot of work.

Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

 

Agreed. It just looked far too spacious in there! I'd like to claim its gotten away from me with all of that junk in there, but I had a really fun time making all of it and it looks great even if it's not 100% true to the real deal.

I'm going for the MERDC scheme they used in Europe. This will be my Dad's tank. Markings and all.

My Dad has been collecting all of these goodies himself before Dragon released their kit. What you see on that table is his assortment of goodies he's been buying and planning to put together for over a year lol. He's got another 4 or 5 turrets laying around as well. He's got me building tanks for a while lol.

Geez, I'm glad I finally made time to come look at this, very nice work. I'm especially impressed with all the interior adds, "gizmology" at its finest.

Mike, I love those special deliveries. So coool.. 

Looks great Mike, love all the extra stuff you're cramming in there!

Hello Mike!

I like your approach - something is still better than an empty space, when the real thing is crammed full, and the references are not so easy to come by, either. All models are inaccurate in some way, and it's up to the builder to say how accurate he wants to get. And still - a built model with it's inaccuracies is still better than a more accurate one that doesn't get built!

By the way - what colour do you plan for your M60? I'm not sure if you wrote about it before?

You've got quite a lot of goodies for the M48! I'm just wondering, that you start the old Tamiya instead of the new Dragon - I believe that would save you a lot of work.

Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

Todays update;

I was told that the ammo storage tubes were a light gold/brass color and so that's what I painted them up as. After installing them I noticed that even though I measured out both sides the same I had a lot of extra space still left over on the left side beside the driver's seat. The reason was that I measured the side with the driver's IP, and the side with the driver's seat doesn't measure out the same. Well that was a sort of easy fix. I just made up a rack of three to fill the space. That way they hang down below the seat post attachment. This is going to make installing the seat a bit more tricky later, but I think I can handle it.






I burned some time waiting for the new ammo tube assembly to cure and built this steering linkage bar thingy.



And then added more texture to the inside of the turret and built a radio rack and a shelf where I need to fit as close to 16 more ammo tubes.



Now I know you guys are paying real close attention, but you must understand that I'm not building anything that you can call accurate. I have made approximate shapes in approximate locations because most of it will not be seen when I'm done. I'm taking pretty liberal artistic license with a lot of this stuff, so please don't take any of what I'm doing as how things should be done. What I'm doing in this tank is more fun than it is anything else lol. Things are the wrong shape and not in exact positions at all. But if I inspire anyone to try any of my tricks on their own builds then I am honored indeed.

But all said, I'm really hoping it will really look freakin' cool when its finished. Thanks for looking mates, and keep modelling!

OH, I almost forgot! I had a special delivery today as well.



And I'm told there is more on the way in the mail.

Thank you Terry.  :)

I hope I will not disappoint.

Fantastic....I too have that set of gauge transfers and seems like I go to them a lot. Some beautiful detail on the ineterior and I see what you mean on those finicky levers and parts. I dont think we use a pencil or graphite enough, they give a beautiful worn sheen to a simulated metal part and it's so cool to have a dad who's really into it. Can't wait for the rest of the build. 

Terry 

No need to apologize for anything Terry. I only got into your Morser build today as well. lol

Mike I'm sorry but I haven't a lot of time and just seen your amazing work, the detail and the figures are awesome. When I get a second I'm going to spend some time and start right from the beginning. 

Terry

I'll need to remove the lower tubes. I wasn't thinking of anything but filling up the space and I have one tube too many on each rack. [sigh], good thing I didn't already glue them in there lol.

Thank you guys! Your continued support is awsome and I love it lol.

This kit may seem like a monster, but I'm quickly finding that I love it. The wealth of detail lends itself so well to added bits and bobs. I just wish they had included some sort of basic turret details that I could build from as well. There are few things I'm not looking forward to having to build yet, but so far it has been absolutely a blast to build this thing from the inside-out.

Now for a small update;

I've got the TC's MG all painted up and generously rubbed down with a soft lead pencil. I love how easy this is.




With some careful measurements, I began constructing the ammo storage tubes.




I used the Archer transfers and redid the gauges on the driver's IP. I found they are a dream to work with after using the decal paper provided.



Test fitting the ammo tubes. I only have them laying in there for this picture, but it starting to look quite crowded in there as it should.



And this is where I left off today. I have the ammo tubes painted in the light and shadow technique, clear coated, and just waiting to cure a bit before weathering.



More goodies to come, but progress is good and I'm loving all of this detail that's going into this. How often to we get to go hog wild on the inside of a tank? lol
Thanks for looking-in and keep modelling my friends.

Thanks for the help Pawel! I only paid twenty bucks US for the Esci kit so I'm not too upset about the lacking detail. It's more for practice and an easy build than any expectations of a masterpiece. 

Gamera - while the Esci kit is nice, in comparison to the AFV Club kit it doesn't look good - the suspension is very basic, and the underside of the hull lacks detail - those are the first things that I noticed.

Paweł

Awesome job so far.  I just ordered the AFV Club M60A1 myself and will be following this build.  Keep up the great work on it.  The interior looks great so far.

I love the interior- both the kit parts and even more so what you've added. I've been doodling around with an Esci M60 that looks good on the outside but has no interior at all.

Hello Mike!

Nice progress here! I like your creative use of wood here :-) I use those sticks in my builds, too. My hull didn't need this much prying to join the halves, so I guess there is some variation in the measurements/warp of this place of the hull from model to model. I see you build your model in a little different sequence than I go with mine - that's cool, I can take a look at what you're doing and learn, I like it. I'm currently working on the track, that's a lot of work, plus I broke out the dozer blade - that needs soe tweaking, too. Good luck with your build and have a nice day

Paweł

PETER M WALTON

I like the work you've posted so far.  I was lucky enough to have two platoons of M60s and a company of them too.  All of it in the 80s and 90s ... if you're looking for that era M60 crewman, we had different CVC helmets then than those who served in VietNam.  I like the level of detail you're incorporating, great stuff!

 

Sorry I didn't see your comment sooner Peter. You've probably already seen it, but these figures won't be used for this build after all. That was my mistake. SO... the figure I modified now has the wrong hat, which was wrong anyways (More closely resembles the type the AF was issued in that period, but still not quite accurate even for that). This figure will end up having his hat painted up like some type of baseball or Beer hat from the early 70's lol.

I hope the details will measure up to your standards when I'm finished. After all, I have the advantage of having my own Dad for a reference as he also used to command these beasts. (3^3^35)  :)

Update time, Gentlemen! I've got quite a bit done since I've been away from the net and you'll get to see what I've done up til now. This might be a bit of a read so bare with me lol.

I finished the driver's display panels three days ago and I used some imagination as well as one reference picture... so I ended up copying one gauge four times. I think it looks good for being hand painted, but a package came in today that would've saved me the trouble lol.





So then there's that huge open space behind the driver that needed filling. What sits behind the driver is the storage boxes for the periscopes the resides on the turret basket floor just under the gun breach. What I didn't know two days ago that I know now is that there are two boxes. One stacked on the other. The bottom one is for the IR periscopes and the top one is for the regular ones. Looks like I'm not quite as finished as I thought I was lol. No problem as I will correct this issue in the near future.

For scale perspective I made the turret basket a bit smaller than it should be, and its lower in the hull than it should be as well, because there should be a big box of batteries that fits under the turret basket and you wouldn't see too much of it anyways. So I'm sticking with forced perspective to achieve the effect I'm looking for, which is to make it all look much more cramped than it is.





There are a lot of indents for unknown parts that don't go in this kit and I decided not only to fill them, but to add some texture to the inside. You'll never see it, but what they heck, right? May as well do it for the cool factor lol. I added a brace for the steering bracket and this will also never be seen, but it needs more support so, again, why not.




I decided to make the hatch function a little smoother and removed the plastic slide bar to replace it with a piece of large paper clip. This way I can leave it out until I finally close up the hull halves and I don't have to worry about getting any paint in places I don't want it.



I added some lever I have seen in my reference photos (to the left of the hatch opening in the above picture). I think it's for locking the Driver's hatch. I used a sprue tab, a bit of stretched sprue, a staple for the handle, and some super glue for the knob. At some point I had taken the driver's speedometer and tachometer off of the sprue, but for the life of me I can't remember doing it and I can't find them on my desk where I put all of the other small parts I've been working with. I made up some new ones from some sprue tabs I had kept (they come in handy a lot) and drilled out the faces for some lenses to come later. If I find the original parts before I close up the hull I'll switch these out then.



The upper hull was painted and I test fitted the hatch assembly to make sure all was well.



The lower hull has a bad toe-in that makes the upper hull half a bit too tricky to get together with all of these small, fragile parts and it squeezes the turret ring upwards so that the turret wobbles from side to side and creates a gap where there should be none. This simply will not do! I cut a Popsicle stick to 60mm and sanded it down ever so slightly, a little bit at a time, until it stretched the lower hull enough to eliminate that awful toe. I dry-fitted that stick till I was very happy about it and after I glued it in I found that there is still a touch of a gap. D'oh! WTH??! So when you guys in the future get to this point measure that stick to 59mm and that should fix the problem. Ignore the 58.75mm written on the stick - its incorrect. I'll be fixing this in time.



I also worked on the lower turret. I filled in holes and added texture. You won't see much, if any, of this once the figures are in place, but it makes me feel better to know you can't see any holes. Also you will see where I added standing boards where the loader's and TC's seats should approximately be.




I test fitted a stand-in figure to make sure I got the measurements right. Looks like all is well so far.



I started working on the TC's Cupola by filling in holes and using strips of styrene I re-lined the turret and added padding. I added some texture here as well and this time, you will be able to see it even after the figure is standing in it.



A few bits and pieces I've been working on. The drivers steering bar is a delicate little thing and I've broken the stupid thing twice already and its not even installed yet. The PE for the MG cooling jacket is a major PITA(!!!!!!!) without etch tools, but I eventually sorted it out. It took a little over an hours worth of patience just for that ridiculous little detail. The spare helmet is left over from the Dragon M1A1 kit and is too modern for this build, but it was fun to put together and it'll be a nice accessory for something else in the future (no, I don't know what yet). The TC's sight box to the far right is a tedious little thing to assemble, but its the most accurate one I've ever seen not made of resin. The water cooler and the other box are from my Dad's spares box and I'm not sure If I'll be using them yet, but they certainly would fill some space in the turret basket later on.



Then there was this lovely package that arrived a day early, and guess what? There are my ammo storage tubes, stencils (some assembly required lol), and transfers with ALL of the proper gauges (in black and white!). Dad even thought of the stencils for the ammo cans lol. I may have more work to do than I thought lol.




So this is where I finally left off today. Cutting out 10 30mm long ammo storage tubes. Now all I have to do is study my references and build these things into the front of the tank. I know, why go through all of this when you can't see it? Well some lighting is going in here just for that purpose. 


Well my friends, this is just the beginning and I'm already feeling like this is going to take some serious time. Be patient with me lol.

Fantastic detail Mike,should be a gem once you power thru it.