I can remember that spotlight coming on at night illuminating what seemed like all of South Vietnam. It was comforting, at first, then you realized "they" saw it too..........

Good job sir!

Thank you ever so much Gentlemen.  :)

Heres a bit of an update. I haven't been all that productive because I'm not feeling well.

I've got the AFVC tracks all built up and fitted, but I'm thinking I need to use these on the M-60.

The angle on the final drives and drive sprocket are right where I want them.

Started adding some crude welding to some of the fixtures.

Then I got the lens on the searchlight. I had a little trouble here as the lens is meant to sit flush into the housing. Unfortunately the bulb housing is in the way of it sitting exactly where it's supposed to. I had to build up some super glue around the edges and then sand and repeat until I got it flush. This means I lost the bolt head details, but I'm not going to worry about that. I'm just hoping I don't have a lot of frosting on the inside of the lens now.

Also I've got a set of 90mm brass casings that will enhance things later.  :)

Just don't get stressed and burn ya'self out..... 
                                              

                           I've done that several times.

Thanks DM. I'm just not feeling all that productive. Sluggish.

But I have been working on the searchlight so I can finish that up.

I have a picture of the afore mentioned searchlight cover. I think it looks pretty cool but since I made it removeable it is lacking the retention straps.

And I wired up a longer set of wires just before I tested the connections and sealed up the unit. Just a few more parts and it's ready for primer.

:)

"Pulling a Baer".....   now that made me giggle.

I like the LED too, very cool.

RBaer

"Pulling a Baer".....   now that made me giggle.

I like the LED too, very cool.

 

LOL. I've got a Magach 7 conversion kit in the pipeline and I couldn't help but think of your work Baer. I hope I can make something really cool out of it like you do.  :)

I've got the searchlight finished and I've gone and replaced the sighting devices with spares from the Dragon M-103 kit. Already these few pieces have really started to bring this turret to life.

I started to adress the tracks by removing the AFVC indies so they can be installed on the M-60 later, but.... the Tamiya tracks are a bit loose (not to mention the guide horns being in the wrong place) and did not take the shape I wanted them to. I believe they are just too stiff besides being a bit larger than they should because of the motorization this kit was originallly designed for.

I didn't have any plan this morning when I got up besides getting my kids ready for school. But I did manage to put a few things together.

Just adding the details to the turret. A mix of Dragon, Verlinden, Tamiya, and scratch building.

For the MG searchlight deflector I used a bit of Verlinden PE, Evergreen sheet, Produce twist wire (from the grocery store), and the Tamiya deflector base to cobble this together. I used the old trick of layering on thick paint to build up some roundness to the deflector and it's working out pretty good. I'll get the bottom of it later. :)

And that's it for now. I'm pretty sure I'll have more to show and tell later.

Nice progress so far, Mike, but I truly fear that you've frosted your searchlight lense. If you used superglue with a clear lense....not good. I did that to my old M60A2. I coulda cried because that was before I had the chops to replace a clear lense--an easily-rectifiable problem now. Hope I"m wrong about yours...

M. Brindos- I love your thinking on mod/no mod.

the doog

Nice progress so far, Mike, but I truly fear that you've frosted your searchlight lense. If you used superglue with a clear lense....not good. I did that to my old M60A2. I coulda cried because that was before I had the chops to replace a clear lense--an easily-rectifiable problem now. Hope I"m wrong about yours...

 

I really hope i didn't. I used clear gloss first, then white glue. When that didn't work then I used the super glue. I'm just worried that there may be gaps in the other materials I used. That's where I'm concerned. If I have to I'll gut that sucker and make a new lense. I just hope I don't have to.

mod/no mod? I'm not getting that.  ':/

                                   

• Use low odour or low bloom products. These are specifically formulated to reduce blooming and frosting.
• Reduce the ambient studio humidity. Dehumidifiers should be set to the range of 40 – 50% for best results.
• If you do not have a dehumidifier, choose low humidity days for your CA work.
• You can Cross-ventilate your workspace (use a small fan) to dissipate curing vapours before they can resettle onto the CA area.
• If using an accelerant, reduce the amount of accelerator or kicker used.

                                    

Thanks DM! That is VERY helpful! I will remember that.  :)

For this mornings update, I was working on the bustle, or gypsy, rack. I replaced the molded on strap holders with wire, carefully carved out the slot for the loader's hatch hook, and assembled the bustle rack. I've finally got my hands on some Miliput two-part epoxy putty and I'm looking forward to using it for all of the weld seams I'm planning on adding.

And that's it for this build this morning. Lots of errands to run today and I'll probably not get back on either buil until later tonight or tomorrow morning.

mod/no mod- I meant you picking and choosing to fix/modify stuff based on what you want to do,not factual accuracy

Good to see you hacking away on these two kits Mike. Shame about the fogged searchlight lens. Should be easy enough to dip it in Future, if it doesn't work a dip in ammonia will take the Future right back off again.

Allen - That makes sense now lol.

Gamera - I don't know if it fogged or not yet. I'm a little afraid to check lol.

Welds, welds, welds. Using Milliput to make welds is definately a trial of patience. I think I need to let the stuff set up a little longer before using in this way again. When its soft its way to maleable and tends to lift up from where I wanted it to stay. I countered the lifting affect by dabbing a bit of LC on it but that made it softer lol.

But I persevered and I made it work. After that I used some of it to lift the hull casting up to level with the loader's hatch.

After that dried hard i used my trusty Bondo to finish off the newly raised lip.

I then troopered on with the welds on the gypsy rack but went back to using melted stretched sprue. Something I find much more tolerent and forgiving to use for simulating welds.

Just that little amount of work took me all day to finish. I feel mentally exhausted lol.

New parts are going to be ordered. I'm back-dating this to an M-48A2. ;)

Goodbye to the 2nd and 4th return rollers lol. I've got some work to do. :)

2nd and 4th return rollers have been removed and I buggered up the rubber on the road wheels, making sure to make the ones around the replacements more buggered than the rest of them. I've use Vallejo German Tire Black for the rubber which looks almost perfect for this application. I'll be using this color on the track blocks as well after I bugger up a lot of those as well. I'm not going for new-looking tracks this time. All of my references from Viet Nam show these were got really torn up.\

Thanks for looking!  :)

I mixed up these two colors from Vallejo and got a wonderful dark O.D. that will play well for my shadows.

Its still wet in these pictures, but it dries darker than it looks.

Thanks for checking in. :)

Looking really nice so far, Mike.
I'm curious what prompted the backdating to the A2?

I am blown away, mind boggling!  How you come up with this is beyond my understanding.  WOW!

Toshi

the doog

Looking really nice so far, Mike.
I'm curious what prompted the backdating to the A2?

 

Because you don't see that many of them from that time period, for one. The Army used a lot of A2's in the southern half of South Viet Nam and they were largely overlooked.

Besides, there are a gazillion reiterations of this model and 90% appear to be Marine A3's. I thought I'd continue doing something different.

Toshi - My Dad is a tanker and I get a ton of references from his first hand knowlege. I've been watching him build tanks all my life and I'm continually drawing from his experiences.

That doesn't mean that I'm always making choices that reflect the reality of how these beasts actually did look though. There are plenty of modeller's that already do that and I'm a little more prone to stand out from the usual crowd in this way. I enjoy making things as I like them to appear and that doesn't always mean its going to be historically accurate. Just cool looking.

It may be a few more weeks before you guys see any more significant progress on this build. New parts are being ordered  for the back-dating and I'm not sure how I will have to modify things until they arrive. Until then I do have the tracks and lower hull to work on and that's about the only thing I can think of to do until I have the new pieces to work with.

Thanks for the comments.  :D

Hi guys. I've been feeling a bit burned out on the M-60 these last few days and I decided to get more work done on the M-48A2 conversion.

I was going to use an Urdan cupola for the early style A2, but changed my mind. I've found no examples in Viet Nam that had the early style Urdan cupola anyways. I do however have the early style A1 cupola and I've decided to go with that instead. Almost like a bigger, more detailed version of the Revell 1/48 M-48A2 I did a while back.

Anyways, on with the pictures lol.

I scratched the periscope with some Verlinden PE and fixed the cooling vents on the MG.

^ Doug, here, looks okay. I'm thinking I'll be using these figs for this build afterall as they fit the time period and pass for Army regulars.

I started adding the casting texture to the hull and engine deck.

A little scratched up details for the loader's hatch.

I added more tow lugs and the thinned front mud guards.

Added some detail to the crew heater exhaust.

Welds added to the new tow lugs.

Spare track links added to the fenders.

All in all, I'm liking what I've got going on here. It's starting to look less toy-like.

Thanks for looking!  :D

Just more progress. Lots of little details have been added or scratch built. All of the extra weld beads have really taken up a lot of time, but they really boost the overall level of detail and make this old Tamiya kit really shine IMHO.

Lots of work so far and I'm not done yet.  :)

I've been having  fun making this thing look crude and heavy. Still, nothing is accurate as it could be, but its getting the look I'm after thus far. Big, ugly, crude, and mean.

Nice Mr.Brindos...it certainly starts to look  H E A V Y

Excellent.  :)

Thank you Garzonh.

She is starting to look like some seroius heavy metal there Mike. Love the weld seams, seems easy enough to do but I never seem to think to add them to my stuff.

They are pretty easy to do, but they are time consuming. This old kit needs the extra attention anyways. Perhaps Tamiya will revamp this kit eventually. Making it into a kit that could be made into an A2 or an A3 would be a really good selling point for them. There isn't too many things that are different depending on the time frame you wish to model. They could take a clue from the sales of cold war armor kits of late.

We all seem to be looking for this to happen. I'm just curious as to when someone will start paying attention. There have been attempts, but not when there was any, but little, interest and so these products were abandoned in near-sightedness.

I hope we will be seeing more interest in the cold war era of armor. There are some really fascinating subjects to be modeled. i.e - all of the heavy tank projects that proved to be worthless, but they still existed. There are kits, but no accompanying figures that are appropriate.

My foray into building the M-103 opened my eyes to this era of tanks and it fascinates me that they never proved to be of any real value in their time.

Anyways, I'm rambling and I need to stop before I bore the crud out of everyone.

Thanks, Gamera. I mean to make it look heavy and I'm glad it's really looking the part to more than just me.  :)

Happy modelling, my friend.  :)

I spent my morning getting the fender brackets sorted out. As you all know they are not the best representation of what those parts really looked like. I have PE and resin replacements from the spares box, but I thought I'd just see what I coul do to make these passable so I can use the spares on more elaborate future projects.

That doesn't look half-bad at all.

That was still tricky with further filing to the centers just to get them down enough to pass my preferences.

Once I had four of them that were, more or less, the same size I sanded the backs of them to get them flat and then dry fitted to see what I was working with.

Next step was to paint the headlight "buckets". Black for the inside lights and silver for the outside lights.

After the paint dried I put a drop of Vallejo clear varnish into the sockets and dropped my lenses into them.

I think a little Tamiya "smoke" will be needed for the black lenses later, but for now, I think they look great.

Holy crap,Mike!