Okay, I need confirmation that I haven’t gone completely crazy!

Here’s the deal, Tamiya’s M48A3 has three holes going through the upper hull half where the driver’s periscopes should be installed – but the kicker is, is see the periscope covers on the parts tree and mentioned in the instruction but NOT the actual periscopes themselves!

So, is my particular kit just incomplete or defective or did Tamiay actually mold the holes and neglect to provide the actual periscopes?

I hope my question makes sense and that someone can put me out of my misery one way or another.

Thanks,
Noah

Noah,

when this kit came out it was in an era when you were not supplied with things like periscopes!! You were lucky to get some pre-punched clear plastic to fill the "holes". We had it tough in those days (think Monty Python here!!!).
Measure up the internal width of the hole and cut a strip of clear plastic to this width. Cut three lengths "overdepth" and push them up from below the hole to provide the glass front to your periscopes (I hope my explanation is clear enough). Seal them in with clear varnish such as Johnsons Klear.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Richard Howden.

I just use .040 evergreen strip (I forget the width, either.125 , .156, or .188) and bevel the top to make the missing vision blocks. For pre-1995 US armored vehicles, I use exposed 35mm film to replicate the glass. I am experimenting with some clear irredescent ribbon and Tamiya clear red paint to replicate the laser reflective coating that is found on post 1995 vehicles. The vision block cover end sup being another, thinner strip of Evergreen , maybe .010 or .015 with added hinge details.

The M60 kits are tougher to tweak as it would seem that all of the kit manufactorers have placed the drivers hatch too far forward which places the front vision block into the top portion of the front slope of the hull. (I was a M60A3 tanker in my much younger day...)

Richard,
Still building MAGACHs??? I would imagine so, based on your callsign.

John