I will send that email Tom, and you are most welcome to post any pics. Cheers.

Your progress work is going really well keep it up man, loveing it.

Quick question, how would one go about adding "workbench" photos? I see under my profile the heading "My Workbench Photos" but have no idea how to get something there. Anyone know the secret code? Cheers.

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This is a picture of my crew and I in Fort Drum Early 90s on an M60A3 we had named the Mach V. She had great pick up for a 60 but couldn't hit a thing. The gunnery computer was linked to the turret drive by shafts and they weren't properly aligned inducing major elevation errors. (really)

Tom

Me and my M60A1 in Graf in Jan 79. Driving on ice was no fun.
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Tom

This is a Tamiy M60A3 I buil for a friend on commission. He was one of the TCs in my platoon. I didn't get as detailed as I would for one of my own.
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Tom

Been a few days since the last post and I thought I would update you all on the lack of progress. Yes, I have made no progress this week so far. I am hoping that I can get some work done tomorrow night or at least on sunday. I am however going to post some funny shots of a project that I started YEARS ago when I was 16(?). This was the reason that I started with THIS build and my hope was to be able to get this old dawg back in the saddle and hopefully finish that project in the near future. Cheers to all of you and I will post pictures later this evening.


Reference Material Part 1


reference Material Part 2


What I did

and the other side

The turret additional armour

and the left side

The modified bustle rack

and the "ball and chain"

Close up of the "ball and chain" armour.

Hope this adds a couple of laughs for the weekend. Cheers.

To one and all, my apologies on the delinquent postings I have been working a bit more than usual and my hobby is suffering, and so is my posting. . . oh well.
I have made VERY little progress this week and have been fiddling with the commanders MG mount that was graciously provided by Richard (aka maxim37) (Cheers, mate). I do not have any experience to speak of with photo etched material, and especially very small ones. To say that there were some choice words uttered does not clearly and effectively reveal the level of frustration that was experienced. BUT, it is done, and while it may look like crap, I can move on and that is what I really want right now.
If some one out there has some great, photo etched, Jedi Master, lesson they would like to clue me into, I would be very grateful.
I will hopefully be able to snap some pictures so that I can share the full extent of the crapfest that is the commander MG mount that I have created. . . really a new level of crapiness. I am hoping that sunday affords me the luxury of getting some actual build time in.

What I have left to finish (in no particular order):
Tracks, I will use the kit tracks, although I am a little scared of them, we'll see.
Turret details, most of this SHOULD be done but I am sure that besides the MG's there might be a few more items.
Hull details, all of the handles for the boxes and such need to be added, as I didn't want to put these on until just prior to painting for fear of them getting damaged.
Cleanup all of the glue mess and fill any holes and gaps.
Primer and Paint. I am hoping that I can get to painting soon as I am anxious to try out some of the unique weathering tips that SGTTOMS has been outlining in his weathering sequence post.
If there is something that you all see that I am missing, but all means let me know. Updates and pictures to follow later. Cheers.

Sorry for the absence gents, been busy with kids birthday parties and work. ANy ways back to it. So I think I am at the point of getting ready to prime and paint son. I need to get a spray station set up however and that is what is holding up the process. I have made a few tweaks, the most important being item G56 (?) that is the additional antenna mount behind the loaders position. This item seems to have been left off of the instructions, but the pin sticking up from that area told me that something was amiss. After consulting the reference material and locating the part on the tree, it was added and all is right with the world. So what do we have to show for this? Well here are some pics that show the progress and some additional details yet to be added and painted and all of the sub assemblies.











So I am hoping that tomorrow night I might be able to set up a makeshift spray booth and get a coat of primer on. I am going to be using the Vallejo Grey Primer on this. FIrst time using primer and first time using Vallejo, so if you have any tips feel free to clue me in. There are a few areas that still need some putty to fill in the gaps and sink holes but that will probably be done tonight. That's all for now, we'll see how far I get between tonight and tomorrow night. Cheers.

Damon, just a quick heads up there is a handle on the loaders hatch near the front.
http://www.toadmanstankpictures.com/m60a3_57.jpg this is a good shot of it. When I was the TC of a M48A5 with the Urdan cupola I never had the periscopes up. They got in the way, murder on the elbows. They were very easy to put up once you closed the hatch.

Tom

I will remember to add that. I do not think that the part is supplied in the kit but I am sure that I can bend one out with some brass wire tonight. Thanks for the head up. Cheers.

Update May 4, 21:00. I have washed all of the main assemblies and the parts yet to be added to be prepped for priming. I have set my self up a "ghetto" paint booth (pictures to follow later) and just waiting for the water to dry. I am hopeful that I can get a coat of primer on tomorrow evening, but the kids have something at school so maybe not until sunday or monday. Thank you to all those still paying attention after all these weeks. More to follow, stand by. . . .

Been a little while for those of you that have not given up on this thread yet. Sorry for the delay but real life sometimes calls me away from fun and games. I took a much needed day off from work today and managed to mow the lawn AND get a coat of primer on the beast.

This was the first time using my new set up with the new desk and such. Just to re-familiarize all of you with this my desk has an old roll out shelf (typing shelf) that I use to hold my compressor. I recently added the moisture trap to the compressor and while I wanted to try out the newer Paasche VL I got around the holidays I figured that I would just stick with what I new and used the old H model that has served me well for too many years to count.





I used Vallejo grey primer at about 25 or so psi. I am going to be honest I have no idea why you shoot at 25 as opposed to 45. If someone wants to enlighten me I would love it, but be kind. This was also my first time using Vallejo primer and really my first time priming a model. I usually just shoot a layer of the base and go to town on that.
Ok here are the pics, as always feedback is welcomed. Cheers.

Your results look good in spite of not having an exhaust fan in your spray booth, It's not that I'd mind the fumes (I rather enjoy them sometimes) but that little box can create a mini vortex for paint particles to swirl around in and land half dried in your paint.
Still the primer coat looks good-it lets you know you might want to fill that seam in the top of the left hand smoke discharger before you paint.

Yes, the "Ghetto Spray Booth" has some obvious issues and I am hoping to build myself a proper one in the near future. (All it takes is time and money, right?) It was my hope that priming would reveal some issues that I had missed, including that seam.
What I found interesting is that i got a good sense of how I will need to spray the model once I add the actual colour. Thanks for the response. Cheers.

So I managed to steal a day off from work today and was able to, after my errands that took up most of the day, get some paint on our beast. Mixed up my own "tire black" (tamiya: XF-1, XF-2, XF-64, XF-24/ 80:5:5:10) and airbrush this on. Its sooty enough that I added some to the exhaust grill on the back of the tank. Comments as always are welcome. Cheers.

Hey Damon, coming along nicely, something I noticed which does not affect the build but is a kit error. There are no rivits or bolts on the drivers escape hatch. Early models had a circular one late model M60s mid 70s on had an oval.

Tom

Thomas do you happen to have a good pic you can put up? I am building this one (mostly) OOB but have another one on the shelf and a Tamiya 60A3 and verlinden balzer kit too, so those might benefit from the pic. Cheers.

Have the new and improved ghetto spray booth almost done. It is built, inside is painted (although i will be adding a second coat eventually) and there is a light mounted. I am waiting on exhaust system and we are G2G. Am hoping that tonight I can remove the previous mask and mask all of the road wheels. Am hoping that I can get some painting in this week, maybe tonight but am being realistic. I will post some pics of the new spray booth (it is a bit less ghetto than the precious, but still not "real purty") later today. I am also hoping that I can get some colour on the tracks this week as I would like to have those ready to go when it is assembly time. That is all for now, sorry its not more. Cheers.

here are the pics of the "less ghetto" spray booth. As said, I will be adding a exhaust system to this once it arrives and it will be rear mounted. I recently read something on the web about top mounting vs. rear or bottom mounting the exhaust fan. Having it on the top seemed to be the least beneficial and a bottom mounting just would not work in my application. So without further ado. . .


The spray booth with light on and lid down.


and with the lid up. I decided to hinge the top as it allows better access.


Without light On the right side you can see the handles that I added so that it is semi transportable, in case I need to move it around.

and hopefully in the near future it will actually get some use. Cheers.

Ok, so I managed to mix up a batch of paint tonight, thin it out with denatured alcohol and start spraying. I don't know if the paint was too thick but there seemed to be some spraying issues tonight, which I have never encountered before. Paint would not flow or it would come out in blotches at first. Then it was coming out very finely when it should have been covering a wide area. Switched paint bottle tops then switched airbrushes (finally got to use the Paasche VL, so that was the upside). Any way I manged to get a coat on without too much issue after that. Been using the single action for so long I am having trouble trying to get used to the way a dbl action shoots. Here are the pics, let me know what you think. Cheers.

Busted out the airbrush today and attempted to get some painting done. I seem to be having some issues with the paint clogging. I have thinned it down, but I am guessing I need to do so even more as the paint is not flowing out at the rate that I imagine it should.
On the bright side I am getting really good at disassembling the VL. . . .and as an added bonus today I scored a Dayton Pole Blower (does that sound a bit homoerotic to you?) on ebay for $28 and change, including shipping. Yea, I know.So the less ghetto spray booth will be EVEN LESS ghetto in a short while. Cool.
So I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had some parts that I was waiting to add on to the kit as I knew that I needed to put some paint on or some of those areas would be missed just due to lack of accessibility. So these parts got some colour today along with the tracks. So we are finally making some progress (thank God). The main gun, the MG mounts, the blazer kit that sits above the main gun and below the 50 cal and the two blazer pieces that sit on the mantlet and the commanders hatch. And I realized that there are two holes that need to be filled on the inside of the commanders hatch. Woo hoo.
If you have been keeping score you will remember the commanders MG issue that took up so much time way back when. I assembled the PE mount from the Verlinden kit as mentioned and after some really choice words a few weeks ago managed to get it mounted to the MG. Only issue left was the new mount that the scissor mount attaches to on the cupola. Tiny little fricken thing in 1/35, let me tell you. Well some how I mustered up some old Jedi skills that I have not used in like 20+ years (my eyes are still great but MAN things are smaller these days!) and managed to get a "decent" mount built (hush, you).
But what you really came here today to see was the pics, right? Yea,.yea, I'm gettin' to it. So I will let these dry for a day or two and then start adding these details to the kit and actually getting this thing built. Hope you are enjoying this as much as I am and sorry if this is all really mundane and quite boring, its not you its me. . . .Cheers.

The mount on the cupola that the scissor mount attaches to (scratch built)


The mount on the cupola that the scissor mount attaches to (again)


The tracks with the base coat of the "rubber black" that I made up the other day


The Commanders hatch inside


The commander Hatch outside


The Blazer kit over the Main Gun


The main gun


The Commanders MG scissor mount


the 50 cal and mount


The Loaders MG and Mount

Had a bit of time to work on the beast this weekend, although not much. Managed to take of the masking from the small bits and paint the crew serve weapons with a mix of gun metal and black, what I think is a more appropriate colour for the weapons. I also managed to fill the holes on the commanders hatch, and sand, only to realize that I need to fill some more. This will eventually get repainted once mounted on the kit, so no worries there. I am waiting to do touch ups on the weapons and some detail painting on them and then assemble the whole thing and begin the weathering process.
The road wheels need some touch ups and I am going to distress the tracks a bit to simulate wear, like I did on the road wheels in the beginning of this whole build process. I am going to post some pics later today/tonight so stay tuned for those.
I am going to try to get the tracks distress and then colored so that there is some paint on them prior to mounting as my fear is that if mounted first there will always be places that I cannon reach with the paint. So we'll see how this goes and what needs to be done for touch ups. Cheers.

Update 9:18P here are the photos I promised earlier.

The .50 cal



The Commanders MG


The Loader's MG


The Commanders hatch with the added putty waiting to be sanded (now done)


The road wheels are now "done" and just need some touch up around the rims



The back grille with the black overspray.


That is it for now, hoping to have more time this week. Cheers.

Been a while since I posted, sorry for the absence. I have been working on the spray booth, a friend is working on hooking up the blower and some extra outlets on it for me now, thank you Alexi!.And hopefully that will be completed prior to this weekend. I have also been working on an LAV Command for the current Command Campaign going on right now. And realistically I needed a break to build up some more confidence to keep going. I am my own worst critic most of the time and have a difficult time just letting go and saying that is good enough, when I know it is crap (or at least I think it is. . . .).
So as I am waiting on parts for the LAV to arrive from Australia (THANK YOU ADAM!) I figured I would get back to work on this bad boy.

So today I added the main gun the 50 cal the loaders MG and the blazer kit that fits over the main gun and around the mantlet.

I knew when I began this project that this area needed to be finished AFTER there was a coat of paint on the tank as this area would be quite impossible to paint already assembled. The paint that was already on the areas to be glued needed to be sanded off for better adhesion so that was my first step today.
The blazer "bracket" or tree whatever you want to call it, needed to be trimmed so that it fit properly. The issues is the bracket does not fit over the mounting spots for the 50cal. The bottom blazer piece that is directly above the main gun needs to be cut from the bracket and reattached at a different angle so that it sits above and almost over the muzzle brake. Looking at pictures of "actual" vehicles in the field show that this is how it is in"real life" too. Once the main part of the blazer bracket was mounted I added the 50 cal and its mount THEN added the bottom piece of the bracket and the two side blazer pieces that mount directly onto the mantlet.
The loaders MG was added but I have not glued it yet as I want to see if I can improve the fit a bit with some trimming. The commanders hatch was finally mounted and glued down but I have the ability to let it move within the mounts so that I can position it later if I want to add figures.
Once the spray booth is finished I will be adding another base coat and then weathering this bad boy. I will probably be doing some detail painting on other items in the next few days as I wait it out. Things like the stretcher, the running lights, smoke grenades and touch ups on the road wheels. After that it will be stowage and I will probably be making some resin parts for this and the LAV soon as well. I know there is an extra road wheel or two needed for this as stowage and the LAV needs a full set of wheels cast. So that is where we are now and hopefully we'll be doing some more regular updates soon. I am hoping to have this done within the next month. Any questions? Suggestions? Post them here or send me a PM. Cheers.

The commanders MG and mount this will be one of the last items added before weathering.


Main gun and 50 cal show to detail


This angle you can see the bottom of the blazer kit that needed to be adjusted


The mantlet and blazer kit shown to advantage


Loader's MG and mount, still needs glue. . . .


The commanders hatch with the holes filled. . . .


The commanders MG mounting bracket


The main gun and 50 cal assembly with the blazer bracket that needed to be adjusted