[NATO/Cold War] Portugal M5A1 "Gina"

[ColemanCollector]

ColemanCollector: I think I found one of the Supercomputers hooked up to all kinds of delicate machinery: it's you! Even with my magnifiers, I couldn't even see well enough to create such realistic detail.

Thanks, HDP. I have and use a pair of those flip down magnifier thingies. Very helpful but I get a banger headache after awhile. I keep moving out of the focus range, and my silly brain-eyes combo try to adjust. "Move yer head genius, move yer head!"

Mike

[ColemanCollector]

A little chassis work before hitting the dreaded hinge job on the top battery hatch. The Coolbank pintle hitch is a pretty crude affair.

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Used photos of the real deal below to add some bits and pieces.

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Not scale, but pintle-ish enough for my liking!

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Mike.

[ColemanCollector]

Double post

[PainlessWolf]

Good Afternoon!
Beautiful Job on the Hitch for this Tank. It looks significantly more like the correct piece now. I did the handles for the Tow Hooks underneath there but I will need to pull Griffys M5 back up onto my desk and do the work on the Hitch as you have. That adds a lot of Eye Candy Value for the work! Thanks for posting the improved Detail!
regards,
Painless

[Stormbringer]

Thats a real improvement mate

[Panzermechaniker]

That's a beautiful job on that hitch Mike. Going to try and improve the hitch on my Sherman after seeing your work on that

[Herr Dr. Professor]

"Move yer head genius, move yer head!" Yes, headaches probably come from constantly trying to adjust the focus. Perhaps this is some comfort: after a while I became so accustomed to the magnifiers that I now longer had to pay any conscious attention and had not more headaches. Now I cannot get much of anything done without the "Gort" glasses. If only I could do the same with the hearing aids.

"Gort" is the robot in the classic 1951 "The Day the Earth Stood Still," here in miniature.

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[ColemanCollector]

Klaatu! I haven't thought about that group for decades! All the stoners in high school would argue about whether they were really the Beatles secretly reuniting. A Canadian duo, too. Sadly, Terry Draper passed away in 2025.
One of their best songs, and there's even a brief glimpse of a T-72 in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNBV5hofD_U
Tanks--they're everywhere.

Mike.