Hi All,
Since I got a decent response to my query about posting a build log for my M103A2 build, I thought I'd take a moment to show you what was in store for you. I'll be building Commander's M103A2 (they called it a "Marine M103"). The biggest claim to fame this beast had was that it sported a diesel engine and had an M60-style engine deck. The kit itself is pretty crude and uses parts that aren't quite right. I'm going to do what I can, but since this is a solid resin kit, there is only so much you can do before you give up and walk away. One of the biggest issues is that the kit hull and turret are based on Tamiya's M48A3. This will make cross-kitting much easier, but the M48 contours aren't right for the M103. I'm going to live with it and not re-carve the hull and turret.
So, here are the players:



1. Commander's M103A2 kit. As you can see from the above photo, the one I got was damaged and I needed to fix the front fender with sheet styrene. In photo below, you can see more of the kit parts. The included PE sheet is about a mile thick and will need special handling. But, I'm going to use as much of it as I can in place of the crude resin detail parts. In addition, the kit includes a set of AFV club M48/60 chevron tracks. With some luck, there will be enough links in the box to complete the suspension properly.



2. Tamiya's M48A3 kit. Actually, I'm planning on using 2 of these for suspension and detail parts. I got them cheap, so hacking them up like this isn't too much of a problem.



3. Last, but certainly not least is an Italeri M47 kit. This will provide me with some of the finer details (namely stowage bin latch handles). I've got a left-over kit with plenty of bits and pieces and this should round out everything I need.



All for Now,
Regards,
Georg

This is definitely not a project for sissies (like me). There seems to be some nice detail on the resin kit though.

Hi All,
I'm back again. To start with, I began with the suspension. The kit gives you some crude Tamiya M48 copies for the running gear. So, I pirated enough torsion bars and suspension parts to replace the resin parts. Her's a comparison of the parts:





If you noticed, the back of the Commander's part has shoulder to fit into the kit hull (not of the Tamiya part). In order for everything to line up correctly, I needed to insert a spacer to push the roadwheel arms further out. This was done with some styrene tube and my chopper. I used my digital cailper to get the length needed right.





Here's what the finished part looks like ( I had to to some sanding to make sure the bumpers aligned properly with the hull sides):



With the torsion bars done, I mounted them into the hull. As you can see, there are some gaps:



I used some bondo red glazing putty to fill the majority of the gaps, thinned with methyl ethyl ketone (which I use for plastic glue). Also, I attached the return rollers, drive sprocket and idler at this point.



You might also note the shocker absorbers are also attached. As there were no mounting brackets to be found in the kit, I made my own out of styrene stock. I still need to sand them down, but they are inplace and hold the shock absorbers well.



That's all for now. Next installment will be on the turret.
Regards,
Georg

Great looking build Georg, keep this one on top and keep the pics coming.

Jim

Good luck with this one! It´s looking nice

Lars

Wow!!! This is quite a project.

I can't wait to see the final result. When I was in the headquarters of the 8th Tank Battalion (Marine Reserves) in Rochester, NY, we had one of these beasts in front of the reserve center. It was definitely a head-turning monster!

Best of luck on the build.

Semper Fi,
Dave

Dave,
Got a quick question, when were you in? I'm trying to determine if these guys sported the MERDC scheme. My dad took a couple of pictures of M103A2's in the USMC (res) in 1970-71 and they seemed to be in Marine Corps Green. I'm going to do one from 5th Marine TB in Camp Pendleton, CA around 1967. Hopefully, I'll get some picture of the turret when it's done (which should be over the weekend).
Regards,
Georg

Hi all,
It's been a couple of days since my last post, so I thought I'd post my latest progress on the M103. Here's what the turret looks like right now:







As you can see, I've put in a bit of work! In a nutshell: wire grab handles have been added to the turret hatches, a new commander's MG mount has been built from styrene stock, a new tie down rack has been made from styrene stock and the bustle rack has been made from the kit's PE and styrene rod.



The turret grab rails, jerry cans, lift rings and searchlight have been scavenged from one of the M48 kits.



The mantlet is covered with tissue soaked in a water/white glue mixture. According to the plans in the Hunnicut Firepower book, the part of the cover that fit over the gun barrel itself had an accordion shap. I used a couple of the bendy parts from drinking straws to make that part and the covered it with more tissue.



Currently, I'm starting on the fenders. More of that in the next post. Later!
Regards,
Georg

Hi All,
With the hurricane bearing down on us here in NJ, I had the day to stay inside and work on the behemoth. Now that I am closing in on completion, I'm getting a little giddy to get paint on this thing. Anyway, here are some pics of the past 2 days progress:





As you can see, I've replaced the fender stowage bins with scratchbuilt items and used some M48 air cleaners, instead of the kit parts. Here's why:



I still have to add hinges and latches to my bins, but here's a close-up:



And just to keep things interesting, here's a teaser of the beast, a dream given form:



More later. I'll be working on the fender details tomorrow. Any comments/critiques/etc. welcome.
Regards,
Georg

Hi All,
Either no one cares or I'm doing a great job. Yes, this is a shameless plug to put the build log back to the top of the list, so people can see it.
Regards,
Georg

Thanks for the update.
As Karma / Fate demand,an injection molded version will released 1 week after your gloss overcoat has dried.

Carl,
There is no doubt in my mind that such a thing will happen! Anyway, the same thing happened with my M3A1 Lee. I finished it and I just heard that Academy is thinking about doing one! No big deal. I've got bragging rights as I'll have one before anyone else.
Regards,
Georg

What was wrong with the resin air cleaners? They don't look too bad to me.

Georg,

You're probably past the point of modifying this, but the two "fins" that you added to attach the shock to the hull mounting bracket should be roughly in the centre of that shield shape of the base of the mounting bracket. The rightmost wheel in the photo above has the fins attached too far to the left. Now, I know this is where the Tamiya parts work out to be, but I think an issue may be that the Commanders kit ride height is different than the 103 actually was so the Tamiya kit parts don't line up properly with the brackets. Of course, the brackets coule be off as well.

Anyone else building this kit may want to consider separating the shocks from the suspension arms and then trimming the length of the smaller diameter shaft on the shock so that the mounting point lines up with the bracket and the ride height is correct. I think the drawings in Hunnicutt's "Firepower" are good to get an accurate height from. My kit masters had a hollow shock to allow this ride height adjustment. In fact it would have allowed a fully articulated suspension.

WRT the canvas mantlet cover, this part has a definite shape as opposed to being a generig "bag" made of canvas. It is much like the cover for a standard M48. Also, don't forget the clips around the perimeter of the cover that hold the cover to the front of the tank. They are rectangular and are evenly spaced around the cover, just overlapping the edge to hold the cover in place.

On the rear of the turet is a inverted T shaped bracket, this is the stowage location for the searchlight when not fitted. In real life, each of the holes I can see in the kit bracket should have a trailer hitch ball mounted to it. I'm not sure if the kit comes with them, so I wanted to point this out before you get too far. The searchlight has three mount point and each has the equivalent of a trailer hitches socket which match up to the points on the mantlet and on the stowage bracket.

It's looking good Georg.

Paul

I've never seen Commander's M103 kit before, but have always wanted to see a blow-by-blow covering it up. This is nice commentary to read on getting it together.

Hi All,
Gary, the real reason I used the Tamiya parts was the pour plug and potential air bubbles in the bottom of the part. I wanted to make sure it sat square on the fender and this was the easiest way. Paul, thanks for the head's up. Yes, the main reason was chumped out and didn't modify the shock absorbers to operate (and thereby giving enough play to mount them properly. I'm giving some serious thought to taking them out and redoing them right. Thanks for the ideas and kind words guys.
Regards,
Georg

Hi Everyone,
Yeah, I know it's been a while. I've been really busy with work and family stuff recently, so I haven't had time to post my progress on the M103. Here are some pics to show my progress. As you can see, the tacks have been assembled and fitted. I used the AFV club tracks that come in the kit. They are, IMHO, the best workable tracks on the market, period. They assemble quickly, just like their 1:1 scale brethren and look great with very little work. I did, however have to sand off two knockout pin marks from each link. It's a great thing to do in front of the TV.



Here you can see the retaining clips I made for the mantlet dust cover. They were just some styrene strip cut to size in my chopper and glued on. The antenna is from Formations and is a fantastic little product. Just a quick plug for Rob's stuff: it's awesome! For those of you who don't build U.S. stuff I urge you to try one of his detail and/or conversions.



On the turret rear, I installed a tow cable made from half of the Tamiya M48 part and some nylon kite string. For mounts that keep the cable in place, I used some scrap PE material, wrapped around the tips of my tweezers.



Here you can see the top of the beast. Notably, you can see the details on the stowage boxes. Also, the retaining straps on the searchlight were made from a strip of paper from the instructions from the M48A3 kit. How's that for out of the box? When I made the searchlight cover, I used tissue paper and treated it to a water/white glue mixture. When it was dry, I carefully cut the back off to allow it to be mounted on the searchlight shell. The straps were cut and wrapped around the body to be secured by the cover.



In this shot, you can see the locking handles that I pirated from the Italeri M47 kit. I installed them on the big stowage boxes I made and also replaced the molded on kit parts on the rear fender boxes, too.



One part that didn't get properly photographed were the PE hinges that I used on the big stowage bins. I stole them from some left-overs from the Eduard Sdkfz 232 kit. That's all for now, I'll have primer pictures later.
Regards,
Georg

Looks like you are not hanging about with this build and its coming along very well from what I have seen so far.

wouldnt wanna be shot at by this monster, the build looks great

Never heard of this vehicle before your build and the beast look good.
Congrats
Seb

Hi All,
The beast is back! I've only got 2 pics this time, of the hull and turret in primer. Here they are:





Over the next couple of days, I hope to have painted/decaled shots of the model. See you then!

Regards,
Georg

Hi All,
I know it's been a while since the last time I posted. The reason is: I've been working on the model! The pics below are after the model was painted, sealed, filtered and marked. I used Modelmaster paints for this beast and made my own decals for the markings. the filter was made from sap green and burnt umber oil paint with turpenoid odorless thinner.



I used my Iwata HP-BCS airbrush with the paint mixed 50/50 with Testor's acrylic thinner. I was rather impressed with the coverage and color. The base coat was RLM 80 which is a medium gray/green shade. This was feathered on via the pre-shading method. With each pass I added more and more RLM 80 until I was running about 80% RLM 80. I did one two additions of armor sand and misted this over the upper surfaces of the model.



This gives a better showing of what the colors look like. The mantlet is picked out in OD green from Polly Scale and the jerry can is painted with Polly S dark green. Also, it shows the decals I made with my Alps printer.



For a little extra color, I added a white U.S. star from an Italeri set and I made up my own bridging disk. Not too many decals out there have numbers that high, so I was forced to make my own!



Just a rear shot, showing the colors back there.



All for now. Enjoy!
Regards,
Georg

Impressive George. Very nicely done. Can't wait to see this one finished. Nice job.

James,
Are you planning on attending AMPS East tomorrow? If you are, stop by the judge's area and say hi. Better yet, why not do a judging tour?
Regards,
Georg

Hi All,
Sorry I've been away so long, but things have been really busy on my end for the past couple of weeks. I did actually finish the model in time for AMPS East back at the end of September, but I thought you might want to see how I got to the end of this beast. Here are a number of shots of the model after it had gotten washed, pin washed and filtered:



I used sap green oil paints for the first thin wash. Mainly to bring up the green tones in the paint.



For the pin wash, I used burnt umber oils. It's not too fancy, but does highlight the details nicely.



The final filters were also done with artist's oils, namely sap green, yellow ochre and white, to add tonal variation and some dirt streaks and fading.



All for now. More tomorrow.
Regards,
Georg