M2A1 Half-Track designed for use as a prime mover, towing artillery, troop transport and reconnaissance vehicles. Production of all variants of the M2 stopped at around 13,500 pieces. Approx. 800 went to the Russians, 2700 pcs. M2A1 was produced. The speed for this type of vehicle was respectable, up to approx. 45 mph. with it's White 160AX engine, 6 cylinders fed with gasoline. A regular G.I.'s hotrod!
I've always liked this vehicle, it is something about it that makes it cool.
The version I'm going to build is an M2A1 with the heavy mount up front for the .50 and the front bumper mounted Tulsa winch.
Location will be around the Ardennes, Belgium in 1945 belonging to the XX Corps.
Starting here ...
Looks like I'm gonna get a fair amount of brass to work with, including some resin, like the engine which will get some nice details added to it.
Started out with what I'll be using of the kits plastic parts. Step 1 in the instructions...axles and stuff.
Step 2... bogies etc.
Each bogie consists of 20 parts that goes smoothly togheter.
The arrow in the pic shows a couple of bolts that I added since Dragon forgot. Tiny, barely visible but they're supposed to be there.
Some detailing is needed in addition to what Dragon is supplying on other parts of the bogies too.
There is a small drainage hole on each side of the bogies that they didn't include. I solved this by drilling a hole and adding a PE "weld ring".
The original...
My solution...
Then onto the idler spring and bracket. The Dragon part is good enough I guess, but I felt like it needed an improvement anyhow.
I used my Dremel and grinded the molded on spring off, sanded smooth and used some wire core to simulate the spring. At the end of the bracket I grinded out some more plastic to simulate the open end, like the original. Probably a waste of time since this opening will be covered with mud in the end, but now it's there anyway and looking closer to the original part.
...and mounted to the chassis
Dragon has also "forgotten" the exhaust hanger on the right side.
This is just a piece of flatbar and a U-bolt.
I solved it by using a small piece of 0.20 Evergreen and a 0.20 copper wire.
I also painted the exhaust with some Mr. Surfacer 1000 to get some structure to it.
Here's the chassis after a couple of evenings at the work bench.
It's time for some brass. Bare with me... :-#
It took me about 3,5 hours to put these 3 parts togheter! The floor and firewall of the drivers cabin.
Feels like this project can take a while...
Jeez, this is origami with brass on a high level! You need to watch carefully to not "bend yourself into a corner"
The floor of the drivers cabin consists of three parts that needs to be soldered edge to edge, no locating points or pins what so ever!
Started out whit this fret and the three parts marked with red...
At first I folded and soldered part 1 and 2 in the previous pic and ended up with this unit. The floor will be covered with thread plate so the solder visible in these pics will be hidden, so I just sanded it down.
Then it was time for the firewall to mate with the floor of the cab. No locating pins, just edge to edge soldering...a challenge both to the head and fingers
I had to use some thin Tamiya masking tape to hold it togheter so that I could tack it in a couple of spots, then go back an solder the whole thing when I got it lined up properly.
Finally I ended up with this unit and I'm quite pleased with it. Hopefully it's straight because the rest of the front kinda "depends" on this one to be square.
After this one was finished I treated myself to a Corona...even on a monday night...
Stay tuned...
