Eco friendly M-75 APC

[tankmad]

Looking good Luke a lick of nato colours and it will be excellent keep up the good work mate.
Stevie

[vonrundstedt]

Thought i would give a quick break down for this project so far:-
Hobbey Engine hull £0
Bulldog drive sprockets and tracks £0
Hard board from a picture frame £0
Cerial box card £0
Platic card from a biscuit box £0
Exterior fittings from BullDog £0
Photo Etch parts £0
Wood beeding £0
Playdoh £1
Electronics £0
Glue £0
Red Primer paint £3
Its looking like ive built me a tank for less then a tenner!

[Matdragon]

or a fiver even! excellent job mate

scene as its based on a abrams hull, that thing must be fairly big too!

cheers,

Matt

[vonrundstedt]

Its been chopped down by two wheels to give a total of 6 per side. It measures approx 45 cm long x 23 cm wide x 22 cm tall, i think of it as a breeze block on tracks

[vonrundstedt]

The APC is now in the show off section. Thank you all for your kind comments.

[vonrundstedt]

In a responce to a post in the show off section for this tank, Im going to go a bit more in depth on this build.
Once upon a time.......... Seriously, Whilst at a meet last October, I was given a Hobbey Engine lower hull, which was intended to go onto my M1A1 Abrams. Well it did'nt fit, so I started thinking about what I could do with it.
Subject Choice:-I had a few ideas for the hull, the 1st was to make a simple tank which would hold video equipment...thats as far as I got with that one. The 2nd was to make some sort of half track vehical, but that only got as far trying some tracks on it. My 3rd idea was to make an M-113. Whilst researching the M-113 on the net, I came across the M-75, and liked it soo much, i chose to make it (ish).
The Build;- I started out by shortening & narrowing the hull. This was done by offering it up againts my Bull Dog, and with my best guess work, "hacked" away at the hull. i then retro fitted some spare bull dog sprockets to the existing shafts, posisioned some idlers and fitted some tracks. The hull was then stripped of all remaining fixtures and fittings, to be used later.
Upper Hull:-
I started by cutting out 3 bulk heads from hard board, taken from the back of a picture frame. These were measured by eye, cut, and then fitted. then I drew out the shapes of the sides onto cerial box card, cut them out and fitted them to the sides of the tank (printed side facing out).
Card was also fitted to the rear to give a smooth surface. I then scavanged around work and found an old plastic "no smoking" sign. I used this material to make the panels for the roof. I then ran out of materials, so the build came to a stop until Christmas, when i saved a tub of seasonal biscuits, and used the plastic for the front panel. The project then came to a halt again.
Fixtures:-
A couple of weeks after Christmas, Lady luck reared her head. a friend had bought a Bull Dog from E-bay for about £10. It was a right off, so he said I could have it, and did'nt take long for me to get the drimmel and start cutting. I removed the the fixtures, tools, engine grills and cupola. The cupola (less the hatch) was fitted to the top, & the grills to the front along with the lights. The drivers hatch was made from a tea light candle, topped with a poker chip.
Detailing;-The first thing I did was to make the weld seams. This was done using Play Doh, rolled out into long, thin "snakes", glued in place, detailed with a small screw driver and then finaly coated in liquid poly. The back and top doors were drawn onto cerial box card, cut out and fitted in place. the head light fenders were extended with scrap balsa strips and the main front fender was also made from laminations of scrap balsa. Then I got luckey agian. I was given a bag full of photo etch sheets, from a model of the Bismark ( the one from the monthley magazine). I carefuly selected grills from these sheets, and fitted them to the tank. The tie down points on the roof and the spare wheel brackets were made from the "spru" of these sheets. The handles on the hatches were made from paper clips, bent & cut to suit, and the hinges weremade from scrap Air Fix parts. the exhaust assembly was made from a drinking straw and cerial box card, and i used some spare mesh for the CPU fan opening. (1 inch x 1 inch square fan I found at work). The rear door hinges are the "jacks" you get with the Bull Dog, and the jerry can, towing points and Mg are also from the Bull Dog. I used a spare Hobby Engine wheel for the front with old necklace chain to finish off. The pad locks are just balsa and wire. The comanders hatch was made from a perfume bottle lid, the spare jerry can rack was made from coke can metal and the tool rack was lifted straight off the Bull Dog. The tool handles were replaced with balsa and cocktail sticks.
Paint;-
The whole thing was sprayed in red primer, then fully sprayed white, and tghen the camo was hand painted on. The weathering was achieved by using my wife's extensive eye shadow collection, and the number plates were made usind a dyno tape machine, painted and cut to suit.
Power;-
Ive used my tried and tested Rc Helicoptor electronics, utilising one of the spare ports to power the CPU fan, needed to keep the lipo battery cool. The drives are the hobbey engine gear box's and motors. I will later fit and Rx18 board, speaker and possibly a smoke unit, I made the front void big enough to accomidate these, the battery will sit in the center section.
So thats it, the tank cost me just over a tenner (£10) in the end, and that was just spent on spray paint.

Kind regards, Luke