Armorama :: Bronco M24 Chaffee Light Tank

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Bronco M24 Chaffee Light Tank

tankglasgow

Scotland, United Kingdom
Joined: October 04, 2010
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Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 10:03 AM UTC

keeping up with this one, goggles and eyepatches it's all in the eyes!

jimbrae

Provincia de Lugo, Spain / España
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Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 09:39 PM UTC

First of all, thanks for sharing this with us. I'm more or less at the same point with mine and some of the pointers are very useful.

Regarding figures, there's a couple o nice U.S. figures in the Alpine range which are well worth checking out.

Joel_W

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Posted: Thursday, February 21, 2013 - 01:15 AM UTC

Jesse, thanks for the links. I just checked them out, and they should really help me get through my 1st few figures.

Joel

Joel_W

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Posted: Thursday, February 21, 2013 - 01:24 AM UTC

Ray & Jim, thanks for sharing my build. So far it's been a great adventure, one that I'm really enjoying.

Jim, glad to hear that you've made it as far as I have. There haven't been any issues that weren't easily solved. I've completed the suspension and am currently working on the top of the hull. One thing I didn't want nor need was a working suspension. Jesse & Russ have already mentioned how flimsy it is, especially once you put on the wheels. So I decided to glue each arm and axle assembly to help with this issue. It took some effort to get everything plumb and square, then I glued one suspension arm on each side at a time and worked my way backwards. Once dry, the hull seats level, and is rock solid. Once I paint the Base color O.D. on the lower hull, and paint up the wheels and tires, I'll carefully glue the wheels on. Hopefully, everything will still be rock solid, as I'm sure that the tracks will add some stress to them. And speaking of tracks, for a change I'm actually looking forward to building them. I've done two sets of AFV Club T16 tracks, and really struggled, as I never came up with a working jig.

As for the top of the hull, there are a front and back section, the turret section, then 7 smaller sections. The turret section and the next 3 directly behind it has required a great deal of dry fitting, and tweaking, but once done, the parts line up perfectly.

Joel

pseudorealityx

Georgia, United States
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Posted: Thursday, February 21, 2013 - 01:57 AM UTC

Quoted Text

As for the top of the hull, there are a front and back section, the turret section, then 7 smaller sections. The turret section and the next 3 directly behind it has required a great deal of dry fitting, and tweaking, but once done, the parts line up perfectly.

Joel

The rest will also require a LOT of dryfitting and sanding to make sure everything is square and fits.

Remember to drill out the overly thick exhaust pipes in the rear grill corners as well. Exhaust pipe is very thin walled.

Joel_W

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Posted: Friday, February 22, 2013 - 02:57 AM UTC

Jesse, thanks for the heads up on the exhausts.

I'm still looking for pictures of any M24 with side skirts, and have found only one other then pictures of models. Seems that the skirts either weren't used very often, taken off, or damaged and just removed. At this point I'm going to go with a non-skirted version of company D, 36th Tank Battalion, 8th Armored Division 3/45 as depicted in the instructions.

Joel

pseudorealityx

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Posted: Friday, February 22, 2013 - 04:20 AM UTC

Sounds good.... the sideskirts certainly aren't the most common. But here's some M24's with side skirts:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m24-chaffee2.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/M24_May_1945.jpg

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111025004133/world-war-2/images/5/5a/M24_Chaffee_1.jpg

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/UnitedStates/lighttanks/uslt-T24.jpg

And here's a shot with just the angle supports:
http://wwiivehicles.com/usa/tanks-light/m24-light-tank-chaffee/m24-light-tank-chaffee-13.png

Joel_W

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Posted: Monday, February 25, 2013 - 12:13 PM UTC

Jesse, there is a storage pin that in the kit I made up of rolled PE. Yet every picture I've seen has a folding type shelf like this.

Joel

pseudorealityx

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Posted: Monday, February 25, 2013 - 12:35 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Jesse, there is a storage pin that in the kit I made up of rolled PE. Yet every picture I've seen has a folding type shelf like this.

Joel

The mesh basket is the 'early' version. You can see it in the first 2 pictures I linked in my previous post.

Joel_W

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Posted: Monday, February 25, 2013 - 12:54 PM UTC

Thanks Jesse for the heads up.
Joel

Joel_W

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Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 01:31 AM UTC

Well, I screwed up trying to build that PE stowage basket. Work like that is very hard for me as I only see out of one eye due to retina disease, and have no depth of field. But enough with the excuses; I just screwed up plain & simple. That's why I brought up the idea of using the late version folding shelf. If I stretched my modeling license some, why wouldn't a M24 in for a major over haul, and with a battered up bin, get replaced with the upgrade if that's what they had on hand? So, I've been scratching one out to see what it looks like.
Joel

Dangeroo

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Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 02:39 AM UTC

Joel, following with interest. I have two of these in the stash (early and Korean version) and hopefully I can avoid some pitfalls by watching your blog.

Cheers!
Stefan

pseudorealityx

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Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 - 02:43 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Well, I screwed up trying to build that PE stowage basket. Work like that is very hard for me as I only see out of one eye due to retina disease, and have no depth of field. But enough with the excuses; I just screwed up plain & simple. That's why I brought up the idea of using the late version folding shelf. If I stretched my modeling license some, why wouldn't a M24 in for a major over haul, and with a battered up bin, get replaced with the upgrade if that's what they had on hand? So, I've been scratching one out to see what it looks like.
Joel

I think it would be easy enough to say that the driver backed into a wall or a tree and it got ripped off.

The very first Chaffees didn't get into the ETO until December of 1944, so I doubt there would have been much 'major overhaul' going on.

Did you put the big bolted plates on the back? If so, that would indicate a bit later production Chaffee. Unfortunately, this kit only includes the early nose, so it's not technically accurate, but no biggie.

jimbrae

Provincia de Lugo, Spain / España
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Posted: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 - 10:15 PM UTC

Here are some unusual Chaffee pics - Spanish Army in Morocco in the 1950s:

Joel_W

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Posted: Friday, March 01, 2013 - 06:22 AM UTC

Jim, thanks for the pictures. One thing for sure, no side skirts.
Joel

Joel_W

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Posted: Sunday, March 03, 2013 - 10:58 AM UTC

Well, after screwing up the rear basket, as I posted, I decided to use a little modeling license, and did a upgrade to the late version rear stowage shelf. Here's the completed lower hull, and the stowage shelf.
Joel

pseudorealityx

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Posted: Sunday, March 03, 2013 - 11:39 AM UTC

Joel,

What happened to the windshield? Why is it in the middle of the hull?

Joel_W

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Posted: Sunday, March 03, 2013 - 11:55 AM UTC

Jesse, I tacked it in the wrong position, and just forgot to move it to it's right place when I found my error. Doing it now. Thanks for catching that one.
Joel

Joel_W

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Posted: Monday, March 04, 2013 - 03:45 AM UTC

Jesse, Windshield assembly moved to proper location. I need to pay more attention to what I'm doing, and stop modeling when I'm so tired.
Joel

Removed by original poster on 05/14/19 - 01:25:13 (GMT).

pseudorealityx

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Posted: Monday, March 04, 2013 - 01:28 PM UTC

Quoted Text

What you should of done is -

1. Remove the pictures, (quickly)
2. Move the windshield to its proper location, (quickly)
3. Take some new pictures, (quickly)
4. Post the new pictures, (quickly)

Then, the killer blow,

5. Post with this - "Jesse mate, what's up, are you nuts, its in the right place, get some new eyes dude."

Then just pray that Jesse didn't save any pictures, or know how to retrieve old web pages, lol

You almost tried to do that with your entire T-55 build, but you forgot the "quickly" part.

Joel_W

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Posted: Monday, March 04, 2013 - 02:04 PM UTC

Never thought of that. Spent a few hours of my day off fixing my screw ups. At least I didn't make it a shelf Queen. Jesse has saved my butt on few builds. Armor sure is a lot harder then aircraft was all those years ago.
Joel

Removed by original poster on 05/14/19 - 01:25:30 (GMT).

Joel_W

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Posted: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 - 02:19 AM UTC

Steve's work is incredible. Love the diorama. Quick glance and you think you're looking at the real deal.

BTW, this is by far the hardest and most detailed build to date since I came back to the hobby nearly 3 years ago. Poor eyesight sure doesn't help.
Joel

pseudorealityx

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Posted: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 - 04:45 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Steve's work is incredible. Love the diorama. Quick glance and you think you're looking at the real deal.

BTW, this is by far the hardest and most detailed build to date since I came back to the hobby nearly 3 years ago. Poor eyesight sure doesn't help.
Joel

This and the Grant are the craziest builds I've done so far. The funny part is, the Bronco kit was mostly out of the box, while the Grant is anything but.

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