RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Good morning,
Yes, if the Devil ever showed up and wanted to engage in an RC Model Building contest, We would throw up Louis and \ or Barry and sleep soundly at night knowing the fix was in. ;o)
regards,
Painless

Well, thank you everyone for your kind words of encouragements. This is a fun build, very similar to a Ludwig kit.

Here is the gun mantlet and canvas cover.

Its an issue finding good reference of the M48A3 mantlet with canvas cover in good condition. Most surviving canvas on museum tanks are ripped or removed, and few war time pictures provide good close up of it. Even the latest 1/35 Dragon M48A3 kit does not have it at all.
Its actually the Legend 1/35 resin update for the Dragon kit that provides the best detail for analysis. The canvas has 2 inner rings, that needs to be reproduced for an accurate model. The inner ring at the back is larger than the front one. It is almost next to impossible to make this in real canvas perfectly from scratch. I mean one that would look good and still allow for elevation.
The 21st Century model shows an attempt to represent the canvas cover and attachment points on the hull, but its partial and not well detailed. The canvas on the mantlet ring is too think, everything else seems cramped.
So, my idea was to rebuild the canvas cover and rings in plasticard. The built-in second ring was eliminated, the first ring is reduced, and a new second ring made of think plasticard is glued on top.
The canvas on the mantlet is reduced in thickness and the third (small) ring is made of plasticard and glued to the mantlet.
The gun is reinstalled and elevation is tested. It needs a lot of fine tuning.
The extremity of the canvas cover is given the thick band seen in pictures and all attachments are redone in brass with M0.6 brass bolts.
Continuing on following post.

This is the Loader's hatch

As seen in reference pictures. It has fine details.
The 21st century model hatch is clude. It is accurate in size but everything needs to be redone.
Here comes the Dremel.
The new loader's hatch. The springs were purchased at Knupfer, rest is scratch using reference picture above. This is really small.
The hatch is made to open correctly, the little springs are actually working. A simplistic inner ring for the turret is made in thin plasticard. Once I have determined how the figure will fit in it, I might redo the ring for better accuracy.
A basic handle is repro in brass.
Continuing on following post

This is the ventilation cover and the Xenon searchlight storage rack.

Rear view of the ventilation cover. The Xenon rack is missing one of its attachment point.
I never saw a picture with the Xenon searchlight mounted on its storage rack on the back of the turret. It is no surprise that tank crews would reuse it for spare road wheel storage instead.
The 21st Century model has a simplistic ventilation cover, and no storage rack.
I removed the cover, and made a new turret platform horizontal.
The ventilation cover was reworked, reduced by 2 mm in diameter, corners made round with shape inspired from reference picture and Dragon kit. It sits on a new base made of plasticard. The 3 attachment points are a bit too big. I will try to find smaller ones.
The model as it stands today. Next step are the handles and rear stowage basket.
Regards, Louis

Hi,

Here are the hand rails and turret stowage basket.

The 21st Century oversized turret hand rails are surely the most annoying items on this model.
Easily replaceable with 1mm brass rods with 5 attachment points. The 3 middle attachments are first installed and given a groove into which the horizontal rod will sit on. Then the 1mm rod will run from attachment 1 to 5 in a solid integration. No need for soldering, superglue is fine.
It takes about 1 hour of work to get new hand rails that look a bit better.
The rear turret basket is another story. This is complicated to reproduce. This M48A3 Mod B has a added bracket with 4 bolt holes allowing the crew to install road wheels or other heavy equipment at the back of the basket.
The 21st Century model has an oversized basket, extending too much towards the back, and the brackets are too heavy.
The turret basket was earlier removed. There is not much that can be done with it. I decided to reuse the side brackets, after making them shorter and narrower.
Rebuilding in progress in various steps. Choice of material is important. I choose plastic braskets with 1.5mm brass rods, superglued in place, faster. This is more solid than any soldering i could do in a all brass model. The rods are sanded with a nail file so that the superglue has a better grip on them.
The mesh used is a perfect match for the M48A3 basket. It was purchased on eBay under the name "ALUMINUM Micro Screen Woven Expanded Metal 1/16" Mesh" for a few dollars for a whole sheet. It is simply cut with scissors.
Continuing on following post

After 6 hours of work, the turret stowage basket is finished. I might do some fine tuning later if I notice something that can be improved.
I noticed the rods are coming out on the side brackets on the real tank, so I did the same here, for now. An M48 is no Ferrari.
The model as it stands today.
Regards, Louis

Excellent workmanship!

Ye God's man, that is inspirational scratch building. Very impressed.

Sublime execution of a difficult subject machine. Let me guess, you have a crew and riders for it that’s straight out of Apocalypse Now ? !!

Thank you !

HERMAN BIX wrote:Let me guess, you have a crew and riders for it that’s straight out of Apocalypse Now ? !!

The plan is for 3 tank crews and up to 10 infantry riders. Each figure will have a unique pose. Reworking the available multi-pose 1/18 figures, switching parts, positioning and hiding the joints offer lot of possibilities for tank riders, in similar fashion as I did for the ARVN M-41 build. It's 1/18 but it is actually larger than many 1/16 tanks and will fit well in the collection. The Chris Ludwig basic kit is an M-48A2 so this totally rebuilt M-48A3 will be a rare sight.
Regards, Louis