Hi All
Making a little progress with the M-21 Mortar Carrier. The instructions are a little vague in places but otherwise the Tamiya kit has been an easy build so far. Everything fits!

Chassis assembled, and some body sub-assemblies nearly done.



Head-on view showing chassis, winch assembly, and cab.
More to come soon.
Dick

Richard, looks like you're just about ready to start the final assembly before painting.

I have finally completed my M3 halftrack. I wanted to change my Tamiya M3A2 to a M3, but do that, I cut the ladders and the storage from the rear. In doing all the cutting and sanding, I had to rebuild some of the rivets. I also used Eduard PE set for some of the kit. The paint that I used is Lifecolor US Olive Drab. It handled nicely. All in all, I was quite happy with the way this project worked out. As always, I had a great time. Hope you all like the photos.

Andy

Hi everyone..

Andrew that looks great, love the painting you have done.


I have not had much time of late but I sat down tonight and started going over my work, and decided that the radio was going to be one of the main details of my build, however the kit parts for the mast on this kit are just terrible..

So after a little tinkering and cutting I have managed to build a better antenna mast. What does everyone think passable? btw nothing is glued down yet, just fitted into drilled holes.. so its not exactly straight yet..





later
Delbert.

p.s. the photo was taken under very bright ott lights and looks greener than the kit actually is.. LOL although the future coat has lightened it up a bit.

Andy, just an outstanding job. The painting and weathering came out fantastic.

I just bought two bottles of Lifecolor Olive Drab, one being the faded color just to see the difference. Looking forward to trying them out on my M5A1 Stuart.

Joel

Thanks Delbert and Joel.
Delbert, the antenna looks good from here, are those the kind that get tied to the back of the car?
Joel, I had bought the complete set of US olive drab which included the colors of war time to late post war period.
I used olive drab UA 220. The next time I do a model that calls for OD I'll incorporate the fading. The kit came with two jars, faded type 1 and faded type 2. I have never tried fading before this should be fun!
Andy

Andrew,

Yes I plan to tie it down... I'm adding a verlinden radio SCR-610 to the vehicle. The Zeveda kit came with the center antenna mount, but no radio is included.

According to my research, the most common antenna used by WWII Vehicles consisted of 3 foot sections, of which regular vehicles used 3 of for a 9 foot antenna (command vehicles used 5 sections.)

This scales down to 78.3 mm which is kinda long. So I removed the straight kit spring base on the antenna mount, and added a bent spring base onto the antenna mount from my spares box.

I'm planning on using some wire stock as you can see and it looks good in this scale. I plan to tie it down to the rear bumper to the right side.

The more I get into this kit, the more I want to improve it.

Delbert.

No i haven't disappeared ,been working on this half track and so far its look ok ,, i'll leave it up to you guys to say how good or bad it is .
I have been watching and i am liking alot of the builds here ,,some of the builds in here are going to do the campaign proud nicely done guys
Well here's some pics of what i have been up too .













Thats it for now ,,more to follow ..

Phill

Phil, that is totally awesome work. Great job!
Andy

Phil,

Must ditto Andy's comments. Looks great. The interior is really nice. So what did you use for the Machine gun ammo? Is that resin or pe?

John

Ok Phill

It's totally awesome and well weathered.

Seeing work like yours and Andrew's back to back in the same campaign as me, makes me want to toss in the towel.

However, I won't, I'll keep plodding along. LOL anyways great work guys.

here are the latest from my M3A1 build.

Got the decals done after the future coat.



and have done some work on the dash and .50 cal.

I have always thought that most gunmetal paints were to metallic so in order to get a finish that was more like those I have seen I mixed gunmetal with some black paint.

the dash is a photo etch one with a decal film for the instruments, however I could not get all three to line up right so I did the best I could. added a placard and did some painting.



thats it for now
Delbert

I know I'm posting a lot of photos but I just like to show my progress.

Here is one more for today.. Its the resin SCR-610 radio i'm working on.. added some detailing such as the cables. still a little work to go yet.

Andy ,, Thanks for that man ,,, have to admit i am liking how this is turning out ..the customer will be pretty chuffed at how this is looking

John,, Ditto to you to John the ammo is included in the Lion roar conversion and is made of brass ..they also include the links which you have to bend ..small as hell but not that hard to do .

Delbert mate hang on in there ,,your model is looking pretty good man ..its clean and the decals are looking very flat ,,very nice job on the dash too,,that turned out very cool
I to mix black with the Humbrol gun metal as now for some reason its to bright and looks more like aluminum with a hint of grey .
Keep it up buddy ,,its looking very cool

Phill

Phill,
Terrific work. That is one mean looking track. I particularly like the .50 cal ammo box and belt.
Cheers
Dick

Hey Delbert ,
What's with the black faces on the dashboard gauges? All the photos of White scout cars and half tracks I've seen show white faces on the gauges, except for the red bull'seye in the center of the four-way combination gauge.
Dick

Busted..Richard

I'm using the black because that is what was included in the mystery eastern block Photo etch I have used for the kit. And it looks better than anything I could hand paint.

which is why i'm letting it stand as it is..

And the photo etch dash looks much better than the one in the zveda kit.

Delbert

Phil, simply an outstanding build. You took the weathering to the extreme, and it really paid off.

Delbert, Decaling and basic painting looks great.

Hi All,
A brief update on the M-21 Mortar Carrier, now primed and painted.

Right side view. Still many bits and pieces to add. The bumper/winch assembly looks crooked but it's only dry fitted for painting. Still have to add cable to the winch drum and it's easier to work on dismounted from the vehicle. The Browning M2 .50 came from an Academy U. S. machine gun kit which has better detail than the gun supplied in the Tamiya kit and it came with a folded tripod for use off the vehicle which the Tamiya kit lacks. You can't see it in the photo but I also added a middle handle to the jerry cans which Tamiya always omits.

View from above. I drilled out the shallow holes in the mortar ammo rack to full depth and shifted the mortar bipod support on the track to aim the mortar more to the right.

Head on view - still lots to do, but the beast is coming along.
Cheers
Dick

Damn Dick mate that thing is so clean ..very nicely banged together dude seriously looking forward to seeing how this one turns out .

Oh news update for ya all on the M2 ,, tomorrow (my time) you guys will see the finished product ,,99.999% done

Phill

Phill,looks great I love all the extras that you added to it like the hanging Thompson, and the muddy base looks great, my only question is what happened to the crew were they sucked up by aliens

Sal .. Oh the crew are there dude ,,you guys just aint seen them yet

Phill

Righto guys it is finished and damn does it look kick ass ,,pretty damn happy with the way it turned out and heres the final shots of this very cool kit
Ssl ,,these ones are for you







And now the entire thing









Thats it guys ,, now give me all your comments .. ( only good ones excepted

Phill

Hi Phill,
Very nice work, probably clogged up the radiator with mud thrown up by the front wheels. Gets into the generator too.
My only quibbles are that the sling on the Thompson seems too long, and in your previous post, leaving the M1 rifle laying on the floor of the vehicle. Other than that, everything looks great. I'm assuming the rest of the crew was sent off to look for water for the radiator.
Cheers,
Dick

I'm going to build The DML M4 81 mm Mortar Carrier.