Building the IDF M5 Halftrack Flamethrower with 3D printed parts from 3Dinscale

The relatively new company 3Dinscale (www.3dinscale.com) from the Netherlands are producing some nice aftermarket sets for building the WW2 M5 Halftrack. Now they have also produced a version with the IDF Flamethrower in the back.

The set can be ordered directly from the link on the website and will be printed and delivered by Shapeways. The instructions can be downloaded from the website.

This is al I need to build this model:
- Dragon M2 Halftrack
- 3D printed parts
- Printed instructions



These are some pictures of the real vehicle (Source: SabIngaMartin)





Firstly I have a look at the 3D printed parts, which are delivered in zip-lock bags. Out of the bag it looks like this:





The parts are in an Frosted Ice colour (almost clear), on some parts this make that the detail present is not always visible at its best. The yellow colour comes from discolouration of the material, but has no influence on it. The material is like a really hard resin and can be easily cut with modelling scissors and a modelling knive.
After checking the parts I was really surprised with the detail of the first 3D parts I have had my hands on.

As mentioned and advised in the instructions I started with cleaning the 3D parts. The best way to clean the parts is in a ultrasonic cleaner with a little diswasher soap.



First round of cleaning:


Picture below is how the water looks like after the cleaning round. I repeated the cleaning untill the water stays almost the same as the previous picture. This means in my case 5 cleaning rounds with refreshing the water each round.


In the next posting I will focus on building the chassis for the halftrack first.

Is it possible tu buy m5/ m9 standard version?

Piotr: Yes www.3dinscale.com sells the M5 conversion without the flame throwing equipment too.

Thank You, then I `m able to built polish half from
1 Armored Division Gen Maczek.I`m so happy.

A very interesting project! I will follow this topic

Interesting does this work for resin too?

What do you mean with:

Does this work for resin too? For a resin kit of a halftrack?

Part 2: The chassis

In this part I will build the chassis for the M5 Halftrack, a pretty straight forward job, just OOTB.
In addition to the chassis I used the first 2 of the 3D printed parts. And the fit is spot-on! Also the instruction are very clear of how to place the parts, and the parts easily glue wit superglue.
Let the pictures speak for themselve:







And I also made a testfitting for the rear compartment, because I was curious to see how the parts will fit. And also this seems spot-on.



More in the next posting.

Sorry I meant the cleaning in the hypersonic cleaner does it work with resin also???

Yes I think so..put the resin parts in with a drop of dishwasher soap and that will do the job.

Part 3: The body

The main body of the halftrack is on the table now. This is much more a combination of plastic and 3d printed parts.
First of all I prepared all the different parts, looks like a mess now


As mentioned before dry fitting of the 3d printed parts for the backside was spot-on. Now with some superglue it looks like this:


And in combination with the front part it looks like this:


Now on with the front cab. This needs carefull cutting of the fenders and some more cutting, filling and sanding off for deleting the molded on jerrycan racks


Adding the new frontpanel was an easy job. The only thing it needed, was cutting the sides square to let it fit properly.


And then on with the cab