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Armor/AFV: Softskins
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M54 5 Ton Cargo Truck WIP
thathaway3
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Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 07:34 AM UTC
This represents a 5 Ton ammo truck with the 1st Bn 2nd Field Artillery of the 8th Infantry Division in Baumholder, Germany around 1974 shortly after pattern painting was first introduced.

I still need to weather it (these things NEVER looked this good!) and I'm waiting the hear back on getting some decals made.

The build is a combination of the Real Model M54 resin 5 Ton Cab, the AFV M35 kit and the Italeri M925 Shelter Truck. I also used a couple of the Eduard PE sets for the M35 for added details. The completed build is almost certainly not going to keep the canvas tarp (which comes from the Italeri M923 Big Foot kit), as I'm going to load the back with 155mm ammo, plus I really hate to do all the tiedowns.

Many thanks to Dave (Animal) Willett, not only for his great article on how to do this conversion, but for several PMs answering quite a few questions!





Tom

HeavyArty
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Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 11:45 AM UTC
Looking good so far. Can't wait to see it weathered and with the load of projos.
AlanL
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England - East Anglia, United Kingdom
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Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2007 - 05:49 PM UTC
Hi Tom,

Yip great work. Lookin good.

Al
210cav
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 04:37 AM UTC
Tom-- sweet work! Nice job
DJ
mauserman
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 09:42 AM UTC
Excellent job, Tom. What colors did you use? And do they actually camo the inside of the truck bed?
TacFireGuru
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Colorado, United States
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 10:04 AM UTC
This is sharp Tom.....Love to see some "inprogress shots" if you have 'em!!

Cary, some of our M813's and M923's had the beds camo'd too...some did not. I think it came down to work load...small - more paint, heavy work load - less paint.

Mike
thathaway3
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 10:39 AM UTC
Thanks for the comments!

The original spec at the time these vehicle were first painted was FS30117 (Earth Red), FS 30277 (Sand), FS 34102 (Dark Green), with some splashes of Flat Black.

When I started doing the vehicles from my old unit, (I've got 11 done so far) I was using Polly S acrylics with those FS numbers and they seemed to be spot on. Over time the old paint has gotten a bit thick but with a bit of thinner, the brown and green are still working fine, so the actual brown in this build is that older paint.

When I started this build I discovered that for some reason the old Polly S Sand color no longer matched my older builds, so I went out and bought all new paints, specifically, Model Master acrylics and got 4707 for the brown (Earth Red), 4734 for the green, and 4711 (Armor Sand).

The new brown and green match perfectly with the old colors (although I did use the old paints) so the Model Master acrylic 4707 will give you the color you see in the build.

The 4711 Sand is not an exact match with the older vehicles, but it's close enough to do small touch up work, and when you use it on a different vehicle it's very hard to tell the difference.



As far as painting the inside of the cargo bed, I seem to remember that it was a real hodge-podge with some being painted and some not, but I know that we had a couple that were so I went ahead and did this one, as I plan to display it with no tarp.

Tom
thathaway3
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 11:48 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Love to see some "inprogress shots" if you have 'em!!

Mike


Mike, I just posted about a dozen in my gallery.

Tom
HeavyArty
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Florida, United States
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 12:48 PM UTC
Tom,
The in progress shots show all the hard work you did to make this great model. Good job. The MR M54 conversion, does it only have the hood and front grill? Looks that way below.



If so, how much does it run? Looks like a good shortcut to making an M54 series truck.
thathaway3
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Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 - 03:50 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Tom,
The MR M54 conversion, does it only have the hood and front grill? Looks that way below.



If so, how much does it run? Looks like a good shortcut to making an M54 series truck.


Gino:

No the kit contains all the pieces to make an entire cab. However I was not satisfied with how some of the resin pieces were. The resin hood came attached to the cowl, however I really didn't like the fit of the cowl so I wound up cutting off the resin hood and gluing it to the AFV cowl. Likewise I separated the resin engine side panels from the door frame openings.

I also REALLY wanted to use the resin fenders and engine bay, but there was just a lot of warping, so I wound up following Dave's directions and widened and lengthened the AFV parts, and also used the AFV radiator.

The real cabs (M35 and M54) are very similar basically different forward of the cowl, and so I was able to choose either an AFV part or resin part for a lot of the build, and wound up using more AFV than resin.

Something didn't work out right because as you can see when I have the front of the hood lined up with the grill and radiator, the engine side panels were too short so I wound up having to cut and lengthen them.

I've never really done a full resin kit before and I'm sure my inexperience with it led me to do a lot more work (and discard more pieces) but having both the resin cab AND the AVF cab proved very helpful.

As far as the availability of the cab, it appears to have been "re-issued" per the attached thread,
linkname

and available (less VAT which I don't believe we have to pay if we order from the USA) for 35 Euros ($48.30). The box art is different (it shows an armored cab) however it's got the same kit number as the one I bought, RM 35028 and the Real Model website calls it "conversion set new rebuild, so there may be some changes or improvements. (Hopefully to the instructions!

But for my money, just having the longer hood and not having to try and convert the AFV one made everything worthwhile.

Tom
animal
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Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 06:54 AM UTC
The truck is looking great. I can't wait to see it weathered and finished. You are doing a bang up job on this one. Bravo
pascalbausset
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Moselle, France
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Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 07:31 AM UTC
Hi Dave, happy to see you here again.

I' am waiting the new RM conv. for M54 truck, the I think to buil 3 5 tons GTs

For this I am looking for a good copy from the TM 9 2320 211 35. TheLogsa copy is totally unusable (too dark pics). TIA

cheers
pascal
blaster76
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Texas, United States
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Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 09:19 AM UTC
Tom and I both got our Real model conversion sets from Sprue Bros at the same time. I am just glad I have waited on building it becasue now I have both Dave's Directions and info from Tom as to what all he did. I'm probably going to be using more of the resin than Tom did as I am not going to fool around as much with the underside / engine stuff as he did. It is a joy to see pictures of the built model though and the in progress pix will offer me a guideon what to do. The directions that came with the kit are almost non-existant
bulivyf
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REAL MODEL
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Praha, Czech Republic
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Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 09:44 AM UTC

Quoted Text


Quoted Text

Tom,
The MR M54 conversion, does it only have the hood and front grill? Looks that way below.



If so, how much does it run? Looks like a good shortcut to making an M54 series truck.


Gino:

No the kit contains all the pieces to make an entire cab. However I was not satisfied with how some of the resin pieces were. The resin hood came attached to the cowl, however I really didn't like the fit of the cowl so I wound up cutting off the resin hood and gluing it to the AFV cowl. Likewise I separated the resin engine side panels from the door frame openings.

I also REALLY wanted to use the resin fenders and engine bay, but there was just a lot of warping, so I wound up following Dave's directions and widened and lengthened the AFV parts, and also used the AFV radiator.

The real cabs (M35 and M54) are very similar basically different forward of the cowl, and so I was able to choose either an AFV part or resin part for a lot of the build, and wound up using more AFV than resin.

Something didn't work out right because as you can see when I have the front of the hood lined up with the grill and radiator, the engine side panels were too short so I wound up having to cut and lengthen them.

I've never really done a full resin kit before and I'm sure my inexperience with it led me to do a lot more work (and discard more pieces) but having both the resin cab AND the AVF cab proved very helpful.

As far as the availability of the cab, it appears to have been "re-issued" per the attached thread,
linkname

and available (less VAT which I don't believe we have to pay if we order from the USA) for 35 Euros ($48.30). The box art is different (it shows an armored cab) however it's got the same kit number as the one I bought, RM 35028 and the Real Model website calls it "conversion set new rebuild, so there may be some changes or improvements. (Hopefully to the instructions!

But for my money, just having the longer hood and not having to try and convert the AFV one made everything worthwhile.

Tom


Hi Tom,

You can look on this photo. This are anew cab which have only full kit from Real Model.
New cab have new hood, grill, fenders(all new) more small detail, tool box, tank and PE with instruction photo sheet. First photo have old airfilter.
Miloslav





bulivyf
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REAL MODEL
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Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 09:56 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Tom,
The in progress shots show all the hard work you did to make this great model. Good job. The MR M54 conversion, does it only have the hood and front grill? Looks that way below.



If so, how much does it run? Looks like a good shortcut to making an M54 series truck.

This hood are without produceminimum 5-7 year, I think that this is very bad copy first production cab from Real Model.
Here is cab which are last year in produce and wihich substitute old cab.
Miloslav



thathaway3
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Posted: Sunday, August 19, 2007 - 07:37 AM UTC
Just my luck!

Wish I'd known about this earlier, these are certainly much better than the one that I got. I've learned over the years when I see something I want, to go ahead and but it, because it may become unavailable later, and I'll regret not having purchased it when I had the chance, so I'm glad I went ahead and bought the older one when I did.

But this is a case where waiting, results in a better product coming out, as these kits obviously are!

With this level of quality, I wouldn't feel the need to have an M35 kit on hand as a "donor" kit, I don't think that would be needed!

Tom
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