FIrst heng long I ever modified

greengiant · Post by **greengiant** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 7:08 pm

This is the Hl M26 with rx18. I recognized right away that is the korean war version and left it that way. Every hatch on it opens except the rear deck grills. On them I just hinged the small left rear one in order to have place to have a refill tube for the smoker and a place to have a recharging plug for the battery pull out of.
All the switches are inside the right drivers hatch mounted on a plate that is attached to the loer hull. I added the round hood to the spot that the airsoft earning light is as be the time of the korean war this was a standard fixture. SOme had had them added on ww2 models as the tankers discovered that the original design drew shrappnel and small arms fire into the opening destroying the main gun optical sight.
The spent main gun shells were made by making one shell out of plastic and then pressed it between 2 pieces of soft modeling clay and them casting them out of auto body filler ( bondo type ) sanded off the flash and painted them brass.
The barrel is lengthened to its correct size and the travel lock was made functional. And as I now do with all my HLs the turret ring gear had the teeth cut out so the turret can travel 360 degrees. Just have to make sure to remember how many times I traverse it completely around ( It can go three without breaking any of the wiring ) so that I "rewind" it back to its original position.
The guy firing the 50 was made by me completely with a souldering iron and scrap plasic sprues except for the garand snd his helmet.
There is near ten lbs of lead spred around the inside of the lower hull in plastic bags to make the suspention work better.
After I had done All this to it I accidently drove it off the edge of the dining room table. The only thing that was damaged was the drivers hatch and that was an easy repair. HLs might have their faults but the plastic they use has tamya beat. I hate to think what my tamaya easy eight cinversion would would look like if it suffered the same type of fall.