Thanks Harold, thats a great heads up. I'll be sure to save the page so i can refer back to it.

Thank you Bish and Carlos.

Bish

Some nice work there Harold, that interiour is coming along very well. And nice ref pics.

And yes, that would be much appreciated as i would deffinetly consider the Blackdog set.

 

If I built this interior again, I would use the photo-etched brass floor as a template and create a subfloor with sheet styrene or even a thin (.85mm) piece of bass wood you can buy for model aircraft. Glue the subfloor to the interior suspension components and then glue the photo-etched brass floor to the subfloor material. Do not use those gray resin pieces that are provided in the Black Dog kit. They will cause you trouble working around them and they do not exist in the actual M109A2 floor plan.

Note of caution: You must bend the photo-etched brass floor very slightly to get it in place and sit flat because it is a tight fit. That's why I recommend gluing the subfloor down first and then gluing the photo-etched floor to the subfloor. This modification will give you a stable foundation to build on and eliminate the grey resin pieces; however, with added floor thickeness you may need to file down some taller component, but it will not require much, maybe .50mm at the most.

Harold

Sergeant

 

I believe the interior color pallete is mainly white, black, and red with possibly a few yellow items. If anyone has colored pictures of an M109A2 I would greatly appeciate your help. Thank you.

Harold

 

I do not remember anything in the Army having yellow factory based paint aside from yellow striping and stenciling on various ordnance- ammo cans, grenades, missiles, etc. Data placards were usually black with the bare metal or white as the wording/lettering. Except for some sort of warning which was usually in red, such as the placard for the voltage cable on the active IR drivers periscope. The only other yellow paint that I recall being used was on Jerry cans used for diesel fuel.

Some nice work there Harold, that interiour is coming along very well. And nice ref pics.

And yes, that would be much appreciated as i would deffinetly consider the Blackdog set.

I completed the interior base coat of Vallejo 71.001 White and ready to start hand panting the interior details. However, I run into a problem deciding what color certain items should be painted. In photograph #1, #2 and #3 it is difficult to tell which parts are White and which are grey primer, but everything inside the turret in photograph #1 is white, only the barrel assembly and ammunition storage is grey primer.

The only reference pictures I have for interior color are photograph #6 and #7 below and unfortunately, they are black and white. I have looked at several interior videos of M109A6 Paladin on YouTube, but it's hard to determine what might have changed in 20-years since M109A2. I ordered Royal Model Anti-Skid Tread Plate made of photo-etched brass to put on the floor, see #9 below. I will make a paper template to fit the existing floor layout, paint the material and glue it in place.  It will be painted with Vallejo 71.315 Tyre Black.

I believe the interior color pallete is mainly white, black, red, and olive drab with possibly a few yellow items. If anyone has colored pictures of an M109A2 I would greatly appeciate your help. Thank you.

Harold

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#6

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#9

It is July 18th and my last progress report was July 7th, so I think it is time for an update. I have completed applying Vallejo Surface Primer to the interior and the exterior of the barrel assembly. The next step will be Vallejo White as a base coat for the interior. The part of the barrel assembly that will not be seen on the exterior will be white the rest will remain in primer until I am ready for exterior paint.

When the interior white base coat is dry it will be ready for hand painting details like the seats, gages, levers, and such which takes me some time because I am not very experienced with a paint brush. After the interior detail is completed the exterior assembly can begin again.

Harold

Bish, if you decide to go ahead with the Black Dog interior kit, please let me give you a list of issues I encountered, so you don't make the mistakes I made.

Harold

Thanks Harold, that does sound like a lot of work. But the result does seem to be paying off. Would be nice to have this opened up, i had to close my AS90 as there was nothing inside and no AM for it.

I'll decide when i come to getting the kit.

Bish

Thats some lovely work there harold. What do you think of the Balck Dog set. I have not used any of their stuff before and that set does look tempting.

 

Bill, I am not an experienced model builder like Bish and others in our Forum. But I learned in the Navy that I could read a technical manual and without instruction repair almost any piece of equipment in my engineering space. I think that same skill helps in model building, because modeling, the kind we do requires both technical skill and artistic ability.

Bish, I wish I could recommend this Black Dog Kit, but it has some problems and if I did recommend it, it would be with a caution. There are specific issues that I can point out, but first I think it's important to decide how much repair and clean up you are willing to tolerate? I have spent one to two hours almost every day since I started, which is about 50 to 70 hours on the interior.

I have built five different resin kits in the past three years from five different manufactures and while Black Dog's workmanship is not the worst, it is also not the best. This kit sells for $55.00 to $75.00 USD and has over a hundred pieces. I started this kit on May 15th and its now July 8th, so it's taken me nearly two months (7-weeks) to get to the place where I'm ready to paint the interior.

Harold

You're doing a great job there Sarge! 

Thats some lovely work there harold. What do you think of the Balck Dog set. I have not used any of their stuff before and that set does look tempting.

Geez, you must take nutrition through an IV.

You are a very impressive modeler, from someone who is not.

I love following the Sarge builds.

Bill

Thank you Bish and Gamera. I have completed the Black Dog interior assembly work and ready to start painting. The first step will be to mask off openings and glue surfaces to prevent paint and overspray getting where is does not belong.

Then I will give the interior two coats of Vallejo Grey Surface primer #74.601 and two coats of Vallejo #71.001 White. With all the interior detail I need to use a two-step painting method to avoid paint build-up. First a light coat in all the tight corners and when the paint is dry a second general coat to cover the rest of the interior surface. The base coat of satin white will be the finish coat for most of the interior. The interior detail will require hand panting.

That looks really good! 

And the pins are a good idea. I pin a lot of pewter figures aka drill a hole in the arm and then another in the body and stick a bit of paper clip wire in there just to give a little extra strength to the joint. 

Funny how i just spotted this thread, i have just been looking into getting an M109 and was about to post a question on it.

Some cracking work there harold, going to be following this build.

Gamera

Harold: Great job there on the interior. I too have a love/hate relationship with resin. It looks so good when well done but some I've bought left something to be desired... 

 

One thing I started doing with this part of the interior is supporting certain items with a wire pin that are mechanically disadvantaged. For example, the hydraulic power pack behind the commander's seat, and the elevator for the commander's seat are pinned and glued to the turret deck. Also, the rammer assembly is pinned and glued to the breech frame rather than depending on just a glue joint between resin and styrene parts.

I am using wire pins for certain parts mainly because I have a lot of interior hand painting left to do and it's easy to knock something loose, or break it off while painting. If I only had airbrush painting to do I would not bother with the wire pins.

Harold

Harold: Great job there on the interior. I too have a love/hate relationship with resin. It looks so good when well done but some I've bought left something to be desired... 

I completed assembly of interior components on the deck of the turret. The next step is assembly of the fire control, breech mechanism and overhead turret components. Once interior assembly is completed it will be ready for a coat of Vallejo Surface Grey primer #74.601 and a base coat of Vallejo White 71.001 which has a satin, or semi-gloss appearance. All this work must be done before hand-painting interior items and continuing assembly of the exterior.

At the point I start painting the interior of M109A2 while the paint is drying, I will start assembly of the M109 L23 model. Since it will not have an interior kit both M109's should be ready for exterior paint about the same time. Both models will also have the same Friulmodel T-136 early style metal tracks.

Harold

HeavyArty

Looking good.  Yes, the plate on turret roof is an access cover for the hydralics.  That is where they go.

 

Harold

Looking good.  Yes, the plate on turret roof is an access cover for the hydralics.  That is where they go.

Gamera

Oh wow, great work there on the rack and the interior. The work cleaning it up was worth it- really nice detail there.

 

Gino, I have another technical question. I am working on the interior deck of the turret where the hydraulic power pack reservoir and filter assembly is located, please see photograph #1. The Black Dog instructions do not show the relationship of the hydraulic components to the shape of the turret, so with limited overhead space I'm wondering if the cover plate marked with a red arrow in photograph #2 is where the hydraulic power pack reservoir should be located? The cover plate is recessed as indicated with a red arrow in photograph #3 that would allow just enough head room for the hydraulic components.

Gamera, as an example of molding problems I had to rebuild the commanders seat shown in photograph #7 because the backrest was so thin you could see through the plastic and it just fell apart. In operation the backrest is folded down as shown in #6 to use as a platform when firing the machine gun. The backrest is mounted on a heavy metal plate that has a rim around the edge presumably to catch rainwater that drips in through an open commander's hatch. So, I salvaged what I could of the resin parts and made a new backrest out of styrene parts.

Harold

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#4 Hydraulic components are not glued down yet.

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Oh wow, great work there on the rack and the interior. The work cleaning it up was worth it- really nice detail there.

Thank you, Bill. I completed assembly of the cab ammunition rack fully loaded with 155mm projectiles and the traversing mechanism. The traversing mechanism has a hand wheel for manual operation. These two pieces took a great deal of time to repair and clean because the parts were not molded very well.

The next step is the stowage rack for M3 propelling charges. There is a total of 32 rounds of ammunition stowed in a fully loaded M109A2.

CapnMac82

 

 

stikpusher

I’m rusty

 

 

And I feel fully oxidized.

This ought to be a good build, though.  109 deserves to be open, unless it's parked in a motorpool or lashed to a railcar.

 

Thank you CapnMac82 for the information. I can see the need to protect the driving bands (rotating bands) on 155mm projectiles that weigh nearly 100 pounds.

Harold

That shell is made of hardened steel, which is wanted to support the projectile when fired.  Which is not going to deform to fit the grooves and lands i nthe barrel liner.

The soultion is to pre-engrave a driving band and set it in a groove around the projectile.  The driving band can be of a softer material--various gilding metals like copper, cupronickle, and the like.

The driving band sometimes will have a limited-slip fit, so that it will engage the rifling, which then crushes the band into full contact with the shell.

But, that softness is also a weakness, so a protective band is supplied to allow for rougher handling as the rounds go from truck to tube.

Ships have a similar issue with separate-loading rifle ammunition, but the hoists and shell ways and ammunition-specific racks eliminate some of the protective gear.  (There was some competing theory on base up versus base down stowage, but that's not germane here.)

HeavyArty

Yes, the rotating band engages the lands and grooves when the round is seated in the breech and imparts spin like a rifle bullet to stabilize it.  The gromet protects the rotating band, since the band is soft metal (copper, I think).  It is removed as the round is being prepared to fire by the ammo crew.  The gromet must be off, or the round will not fit into the breech.  Also, the lifting plug is removed by the ammo crew and a fuze screwed into its place.  Without the fuze, the round will not function and will just burrow into the ground.

 

Harold

Yes, the rotating band engages the lands and grooves when the round is seated in the breech and imparts spin like a rifle bullet to stabilize it.  The gromet protects the rotating band, since the band is soft metal (copper, I think).  It is removed as the round is being prepared to fire by the ammo crew.  The gromet must be off, or the round will not fit into the breech.  Also, the lifting plug is removed by the ammo crew and a fuze screwed into its place.  Without the fuze, the round will not function and will just burrow into the ground.

HeavyArty

Looks good.  Good save.  I think that wedge part may have actually been part of the pour tab for the shaft and should not have been there at all.  If you look at the Black Dog pic you posted (below) it doesn't look like there is anything (no wedge) between the shaft and the base it sits on.

 

Pictures of the actual controls; however, indicate some space between the periscopes and steering column, so I removed approximately 1/8" of material from under the wedge-shaped piece to allow a slight angle of the new brass steering column without touching the periscopes. The steering wheel has a shape that seems to require the steering column to have a slight downward angle. Please see finsihed steering column below.

Another benefit to modifying Part #1 in place is most of the changes will never be seen when the model is finished. Only the periscopes and steering wheel can be seen through an opened hatch. The steering column is hidden from view.

Thank you again, I appreciate your help.

Harold