RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

I to used the original Mato idler sanded down to the diameter of HL's idler and unmodified drive sprocket but still have the original tracks. The smaller HL road wheels run just fine( so far ) on the slightly wider between the track guide Mato tracks. Since they are up against the front of the track guides you can't see the that they are narrower then the Mato roadwheels but you can see they are smaller in diameter then the Mato units.

Your build looks very interesting. Hope you post it all when you finish it. Who made the turret you are using

Hi GG,

The tank originally started out as an heng long, I modified the heng long turret myself and used a cast mato upper hull, I used a 3 piece resin transmission cover from Dean, small hatch set from Woz on shapeways and a Nick Aguilar early resin mantlet. I've added a couple of pics of the conversion and another pic of the commander for the fella's amusement

Cheers, Lee.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Nice job. You do some really quality work.
I didn't realize that Mato even offered their M1a1 as a metal unit.
I of course was not looking for it as I have stayed with inexpensive eto units that are plastic.

Thank you GG the tank is in fact all plastic except for the tracks, sprockets, gears etc the cast I referred to is the hull shape itself other than a welded hull

Cheers Lee.

That explains why I haven't seen a metal upper of an M1a1 by Mato.
I was really wondering how you changed the drivers and loaders hatches on a metal hull.
Still impressed by what you've so far.

Much easier converting the hatches on a plastic turret GG I had the metal split hatch from Dave and filled in the loaders hatch with styrene, I also converted a set of T49 mato metal tracks from Dave into the early T41 tracks

Cheers, Lee.

An eye-catching model, Lee, made with some tasteful bespoke parts. I take she's wearing Winter clothing at the moment; and I like the hints of Olive drab showing through here and there.

It will have desert camo when its finished Roy I've made a start on the base colour as shown on the previous page

Cheers, Lee.

This is looking great already.

I had an Aguilar split hatch that I wanted to use but managed to loose one of the doors
so kept the Mato split hatch even though its a little chunky looking